Why do your suppose that Catholics believe in Purgatory

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drac16 said:
Because the RCC tells them to believe in it. It’s part of their sacred tradition. Tradition plays a big role when it comes to what catholics believe.
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NO:D

Actually it’s provable and even Morally Logical too

GBY
 
Vico said:
Christians of the first three centuries recorded prayers for the dead and some very early Christian writings besides the New Testament, (e.g., Acts of Paul and Thecla, and the Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity), refer to Christians praying for the dead. This would only be so if Christians believed in purgatory, even if not by name.
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VERY GOOD!

Thanks
 
Kmon23 said:
I assume due to the prayers for the dead in Judaism, mixed with Christian tradition of the sort (which is shared with Orthodoxy), but also mixed with the somewhat juridical theological understanding of sin and temporal punishment.
Just my assumptions.

🍿🍿🍿
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Very good, but WE need not merely assume here

GBY!
 
techno2000 said:
t h e

s e c o n d

k i n g d o m

from the mystical revelations of maria valtorta

the purifying flames

jesus :

"i want to explain to you what purgatory is and in what it consists. And i explain it myself, with a form that will clash with so many who believe themselves to be trustees of knowledge of the beyond — and are not.

The souls immersed in those flames suffer only from love.

Not undeserving of possessing the light, but not yet worthy of entering immediately into that kingdom of light, these souls, upon presenting themselves to god, become clothed with the light. It is a brief, anticipated bliss, which makes them certain of their salvation, and makes known to them what their eternity will be. It makes them experience what they had committed toward their soul; thus defrauding it of years of the blessed possession of god. Immersed thereafter in the place of purgation, they are clothed with the expiatory flames.

In this matter, those who talk of ‘purgatory’ speak rightly. But where they are not right is in wanting to apply various names to those flames.

These flames are a conflagration of love. They purify by enkindling souls with love. They give love because, when the soul has reached in them that love which it did not reach on earth, it is liberated and joined to love in heaven.

This seems to you a different doctrine than what is known — true? But reflect.

What does god, one and triune, want for the souls created by him? The good.

He who wants the good for a creature, what sentiments does he have for that creature? Sentiments of love.

What are the first and the second commandments, the two most important? Those of which i have said there are no greater, and in which are the keys for reaching eternal life? They are a commandment of love: ‘love god with all your strength, love your neighbor as yourself.’

through my own mouth and by the prophets and the saints, what have i said to you an infinite number of times? That charity is the greatest of absolutions. Charity consumes the faults and the weaknesses of man, because he who loves lives in god, and by living in god he sins little; and if he sins he at once repents, and for him who is repentant there is the forgiveness of the most high.

What is lacking to souls? Love. If they had loved much, they would have committed few and light sins, connected with your weakness and imperfections. But they would never have reached a conscious obstinacy in faults, even venial ones. If they would have striven not to grieve their love, love also, seeing their good will, would have absolved them even of the venial transgressions they committed.

How does one repair, even on earth, a fault? By expiating it — even if only with difficulty — through the means with which it was committed. He who has damaged something, by restoring whatever he has taken away with his insolence. He who has calumniated, by retracting the calumny, and so on.

Now: If poor human justice wants this, will not the holy justice of god want it? And what means will god use to obtain reparation? Himself, that is, love, and by exacting love.

All pivots on love, maria, except for the truly ‘dead’: The damned. For these ‘dead,’ even love is dead. But for the three kingdoms — that of the heaviest: The earth; that in which the weight of matter is abolished, but not of the soul burdened by sin: Purgatory; and finally that in which its inhabitants share with their father the spiritual nature which frees them from every duty — for all three the motor is love. It is by loving on earth that you work for heaven. It is by loving in purgatory that you conquer heaven which in life you had not known how to merit. It is by loving in paradise that you enjoy heaven.

When a soul is in purgatory it does not do anything but love, reflect, repent in the light of love which has kindled for it these flames — which already are god, but which hide god from it for its punishment.

Behold the torment. The soul remembers the vision of god it had in its particular judgment. That memory is carried with it and, since to have even but glimpsed god is a joy which surpasses every created thing, the soul thus has anxiety to enjoy again that joy. That memory of god and that ray of light which had clothed it at its appearing before god, thus cause the soul to ‘see’ in their true essence the failures committed against its good. And this ‘seeing,’ together with the thought that it has voluntarily forbidden itself the possession of heaven and union with god for ages or centuries, constitute its purgative pain.

It is love, and the certainty of having offended love, which is the torment of those being purged. The more a soul in life has failed, the more it is as if blinded by spiritual cataracts which make more difficult its knowing and reaching that perfect repentance of love which is the first collaboration with its purgation and its entrance into the kingdom of god.

Love is weighed down and slowed down the more a soul has oppressed it with guilt. But as the power of love cleanses it little by little, its resurrection to love is quickened and, in consequence, so is its conquest of love — which is completed in the moment in which, having finished its expiation and reached the perfection of love, it is admitted into the city of god.

bardstown.com/~brchrys/
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thank you

gby
 
vico: in your post #29 you mention the resurrection of the body which I had forgotten about when posting my thoughts. Thank you for the reminder on that Christian belief.
PJM: I’m not espousing that reincarnation is any more a fact than I am purgatory is a fact. I do not see how either can be proven as fact or myth. Both of these theories have their proponents as well as detractors. It matters not to me which is true(if either are) or false.
What I do believe is that there is something after this life, but that is not the topic of this thread as I understand it.
 
PJM said:
So, two questions:)

WHY does [if it does; Purgatory exist?] [It does!

Are you saying that you believe as a Catholic in reincarnation?

GBY
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I absolutely do not believe in reincarnation. Yikes…I didn’t think I gave that impression.
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Polycarp1 said:
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. The Church gives the name purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned” (CCC 1030–1).

The concept of an after-death purification from sin and the consequences of sin is also stated in the New Testament in passages such as 1 Corinthians 3:11–15 and Matthew 5:25–26, 12:31–32.

The doctrine of purgatory, or the final purification, has been part of the true faith since before the time of Christ. The Jews already believed it before the coming of the Messiah, as revealed in the Old Testament (2 Macc. 12:41–45) as well as in other pre-Christian Jewish works, such as one which records that Adam will be in mourning “until the day of dispensing punishment in the last years, when I will turn his sorrow into joy” (The Life of Adam and Eve 46–7). Orthodox Jews to this day believe in the final purification, and for eleven months after the death of a loved one, they pray a prayer called the Mourner’s Kaddish for their loved one’s purification.

Jews, Catholics, and the Eastern Orthodox have always historically proclaimed the reality of the final purification. It was not until the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century that anyone denied this doctrine. As the quotes below from the early Church Fathers show, purgatory has been part of the Christian faith from the very beginning.

Some imagine that the Catholic Church has an elaborate doctrine of purgatory worked out, but there are only three essential components of the doctrine: (1) that a purification after death exists, (2) that it involves some kind of pain, and (3) that the purification can be assisted by the prayers and offerings by the living to God. Other ideas, such that purgatory is a particular “place” in the afterlife or that it takes time to accomplish, are speculations rather than doctrines.
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I’d just be a bit cautious when referring to the Orthodox and Purgatory. It is true us Orthodox believe in prayers for the dead, but this does not mean Orthodox believe in Purgatory as defined in the Catholic Church.
 
puzzledtoo said:
Maybe the catholic church realizes that one human lifetime isn’t nearly enough to reach eternal everlasting bliss, enlightenment or the kingdom or god therefore perceives the need for purification after that one life. Others believe in reincarnation or rebirth. Purgatory, reincarnation, rebirth all in my view perform the same purpose. Since Christians aren’t supposed to believe in reincarnation and rebirth, purgatory works.
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The only difficulty I can see with the belief in reincarnation as a means to achieve “Nirvana” is that you obviate the reason that God gave his Son in sacrifice to save us.

If we can achieve our own perfection after x number of lives filled with learning and less and less errors, the Father would have not offered His Son to enable us to keep our side of the covenant. Adam and Eve could have just been given a couple more lives in Eden!!

Stay blest.
 
BGorski said:
The only difficulty I can see with the belief in reincarnation as a means to achieve “Nirvana” is that you obviate the reason that God gave his Son in sacrifice to save us.

If we can achieve our own perfection after x number of lives filled with learning and less and less errors, the Father would have not offered His Son to enable us to keep our side of the covenant. Adam and Eve could have just been given a couple more lives in Eden!!

Stay blest.
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Hello Bgorski,
If you'll read the book of Acts, paying close attention to the many mini sermons that were given, the apostles were providing the people the opportunity to be filled with the HG and be saved from sin. The fact that we are now in physical bodies is irrelevant with regards to being saved from sin. Likewise eternal life as defined by Jesus In the gospel of John is being one with God. Us being in physical bodies has nothing to do with either being saved or having eternal life.
 
drac16 said:
What is logical about believing in Purgatory?
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God is God
I am not God
Since we are not God, coming to know God is a process. If it were not a process, then we would be God, with instant and intrinsic unity with God (kinda like Jesus).

But we are not God, so knowing him and being one with him is a process which is purification etc…

It’s very logical, no Christian scripture required, no specific dogma required (well, a belief in God is required…)
 
I suppose Catholics believe in Purgatory simply because their religion teaches that. There might be a few verses that in the bible that support this theory however there are other verses as well that strictly contradict it. My main concern regarding this doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church is why does the Church get to decide to make up doctrines such as these? I honestly think it would have been only right if Jesus Himself taught us about Purgatory and explained it like he should have.

Another issue that I have is the church teaches Purgatory are for those who need to be cleansed. Now obviously, that’s not the problem, however Catholics believe saints who die as “saints” have a straight ticket to heaven whereas heaven is a place of PERFECT bliss. Now I don’t think any catholic would debate that any saint who died were hundred percent perfect. So, does this not mean that everybody who at least are not doomed in the hell fire DESERVE to go to purgatory. Whether you die as a saint or not…nobody is perfect and NOBODY is hundred percent clean. So, I beg the question…does this not mean even those who do die in state of grace must be purged to be cleansed before the lord?
 
I wanted to point out that several Protestant denominations do believe in aa process after judgement that involves a purging, whether of works or sins, before receiving their reward or crown. They don’t call it purgatory, but its the same thing.
I personally think they are afraid of the word purgatory because it is too Catholic sounding.
 
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