Would I go straight to Heaven?

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If I was in hospital and only had a few hours left to live and a priest turned up, heard my confession, gave me communion and I said that prayer (can’t remember which) for and indulgence and then died would I go straight to Heaven?
 
Depends on whether or not you were able to achieve a plenary indulgence, or only a partial indulgence. Plenary indulgences require complete detachment from sin. That’s pretty hard for us to manage. More than likely you would only be able to achieve a partial indulgence, and so would likely have some time in purgatory before going to Heaven.

That being said, why wait till your deathbed? There are a massive number of way you can earn indulgences throughout your everyday life, short prayers you can say with the intention of receiving an indulgence, mass attendance, adoration.

There’s no reason to leave this sort of thing to your deathbed. ^^
 
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No one can tell because only God knows the heart, which He judges us by according to Scripture. If you were in a state of mortal sin, for example, your contrition would need to be authentic and sufficient. Repentance and reconciliation aren’t mechanical things; they involve a true change of heart.
 
It depends on the state of your heart, which only God knows. You could crank through all those things and yet if you did not truly repent of your sins and have love for others, God could decide that you were not ready for Heaven, or even that you weren’t Heaven material at all.

If you truly had a close relationship with God that you were working to build every day then you wouldn’t have to ask this question because you’d be leaving your fate in God’s hands and trusting in God, who loves you and whom you would love every day, dying or not.
 
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I had heard of this but wasn’t very familiar with it. Thanks for the article!
 
I am afraid that no one on this forum nor the Church herself can answer your question. We know, because this is what the Church teaches, that the dead go immediately after death to heaven, purgatory or hell. However, we cannot say who has gone where when they die. If I have just made a full and frank confession to a priest and received absolution, next I walk out of church and concentrating on things I need to do rather than on the here and now I walk into the road and get killed by a bus is no guarantee I’ll go straight to heaven just because I been shriven.

The only things we can do as Catholics is to be aware of what is necessary for a ‘good death’ and to ensure we are prepared.
 
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