| This thread has been locked, it will not receive new replies. |
|
Locked on 04/24/2022 5:40:39 AM PDT by Religion Moderator, reason:
Childishness |
Posted on 03/06/2022 11:16:06 AM PST by CharlesOConnell
A man commits a serious crime, then he gets released. He has "paid his debt to society". But wait a minute, he's only ready for the half-way house. He's unlikely to get a prestigious job in his new prison suit coat, or any job at all; he has civil impediments, he can't vote or hold certain offices. His crime was serious enough that he won't be presumed to have been completely rehabilitated until he performs a notable service to society, or at least spends many years on the straight and narrow, so that his crime can be truly overlooked or forgotten.
In Catholic faith, your "debt to society" is paid by Jesus Christ on Calvary. It's called "eternal punishment", without Christ it keeps you from going to heaven. Supposing that you do take advantage of His sacrifice, you're truly sorry, have a firm purpose of amendment, if you relapse, you go again for forgiveness (to the Sacrament of Confession).
But your sin leaves a strong trace at another layer of impurity called "temporal punishment due to sin", like the civil impediments facing the half-way house prisoner. Because "nothing impure can enter heaven", there is a place or a state, a condition of purification to render you fit for heaven after Christ has finally saved you from hell. The Catholic Church calls it purgatory.
(Where is it in the bible? Where is the word Trinity in the bible? Where does it say that you only need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Many valid principles aren't stated explicitly in the bible, but it does say to "hold fast to the traditions you have learned, whether by word or by letter", because much of the Gospel wasn't written down, as Jesus only wrote in the sand, the majority of the Gospel was taught from word to ear to people who couldn't afford expensive books, the exceptions were what tended to get written down. But the implication that there is a purgatory, is contained in the bible--see the comments.)
The ex-con can receive a pardon or commutation of his probation from a Governor, if he performs some heroic deed, saving numerous lives, or, like Chuck Colson, performs a long-lasting, valuable community service helping numerous people who can't help themselves.
In the Catholic Church there are 2 ways for the residual, temporal effects due to sin to be expiated: suffering in this life, or after life, undergoing purifying suffering along with other people who will finally be saved, but have to suffer for long without the vision of God--that is what causes them their pain.
Their suffering isn't meritorious enough to grant their release, the saints in heaven and those on earth suffering and practicing virtue can pray for the suffering souls in purgatory. In no way is their release by slow transfer of suffering or practice of virtue, "buying heaven". It's a long, excruciating process.
How the misunderstanding arose that Catholics think they can buy their way into heaven, is involved with history more than 500 years old. For a millennium of Christendom between roughly 410 and 1410, there was a Medieval civilization with harmony between faith and government.
Many small farmers would cluster around the manor house of a military lord who would protect them, in exchange for a certain fixed obligation of labor and agricultural produce. In most cases, those "serfs" had much more leisure than factory workers of the industrial revolution; there were a large number of holy days without work, and except for planting and harvesting, there were long stretches of idle time.
Another large sector of the economy surrounded monasteries, where the monks developed most of the farming practices that stabilized the serfs and their manorial lords. The monks who worked those monastic lands were sworn to poverty, so that monasteries built up large accumulations of economic value over decades and centuries of labor.
At the beginning, when lands were being cleared and put into production there weren't prominent town fairs ruled by merchants and bankers. Money wasn't used for sustenance, not even much barter occurred, life was mostly agrarian.
Charity was woven into the economy of monasteries. It was estimated that you only need travel 12 miles in medieval England between monasteries, where you could get a meal and minimal lodging for free, based on need. And the charity was also spiritual, including the ancient Catholic principle of prayer for the dead, which is biblical. (See "prayer for the dead" in the original King James Bible in the comment.)
There were foundations and benefices for praying for the dead, that allowed a person of means to support monasteries' charitable works, and in proportional response the monks would pray for the souls of the donors.
It happened at the close of the middle ages, that militarily strong nobles cast their eyes on the labor value accumulated by the poverty-sworn monks of the monasteries, which those nobles perceived as monetary wealth, especially where gold and jewels had been donated by the devout to adorn churches.
(Protestant writer William Cobbett wrote in his 1824 "A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland", an anecdote, that an incredibly valuable, hand illustrated bible was stripped of it's bejeweled, gold cover, the much more valuable hand-illumined manuscript, thrown in the mud and trampled by horses hooves by raiders suppressing the monasteries in Henry VIII's England.)
A new religion growing up around this seizure of monastic lands and valuables, that sought to discredit the Catholic Church, spread the black legend that the "sale of indulgences" was abusive. But this was very exceptional. Today the stipend of a Mass said for the dead is $10.
You are correct sir. When I was a Catholic, I had no assurance of salvation or anything. That didn’t sit well with me. I couldn’t see waiting till I assumed room temperature, to see if I made it to Heaven, since I couldn’t do anything about it at that time. That’s primarily why I left. I wanted OSAS. 😀🤗😊
No one knows for sure at what point any of them were saved OSAS. It’s possible, each apostle came to saving faith, at different times, during the ministry of Jesus. I doubt if they all came to saving faith at the exact same second. It’s possible, Peter experienced saving faith, when he said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God, or maybe it was before that. No one knows, and what’s more, I don’t care when it happened. Just that it DID happen, sometime in his life. He didn’t wait till he croaked, to see if he made it. Neither should you bro. Anyone who waits till they die to see if they merited Heaven, is a fool. Don’t be that way bro.
The spirit in that moment is cleansed by His blood and separated from the sin-0laden soul, otherwise identified as the behavior mechanism of mind, emotions and will. We inherited that from Adam, along with a fallen nature. There is no more secure place than in the hands of The Almighty as He honors the work of Jesus on our behalf.
Mea culpa: that lengthy essay was written by metmom. She made such a thorough case I just copied it and re-issued it. I failed to include the attribution when I failed to post the entire essay as it appeared a few months ago. Notice the interrupted sentence at the end? Mea culpa
Kerping ... I apologize for leaving off the attribution. And thank you so much for the work you put in to compose that wonderfully thorough post to ADSUM.
No problem.
R. G. (Rudolph G.) Bachertz learned broom making when he apprenticed in the trade at age 12. He worked with his brother C.M (Charles M.) Bachertz for over 30 years, and then for two decades on his own, in a broom factory on West Liberty Street.
Working by himself, he could make two dozen brooms an hour. Broom corn could now be purchased locally, although prices were rising, and maple handles were harder to find. He had made brooms for 58 years, he said, working six days a week, Sunday through Friday, as he was a Seventh Day Adventist.
“Making brooms is my vocation, my hobby, and my recreation,” he said.
-----------
W. K. Kellogg made corn brooms and innovated corn flakes.
The Kellogg family were all Seventh Day Adventists.
This is the same experience I've had on FR!!
What I've been told the RCC is like, is sure different than the evidence I can find out elsewhere - mostly from the RCC's own writings!
I wonder...
...does this extend to churches as well?
I see.
The Millennium Beast
It’s really so simple but they make it so complicated. Jesus paid the price for us!
See the latest evidence: reply 1671
It was a direct answer to a direct question...
John 6:24-40 24 Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus. 25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” 26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” 28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” 29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” 30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’[c]” 32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.” 35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” |
💥
Obviously, I am not going back to read over 1,600 posts, but I am not sure I recall any posts about Mary. There may have been a few, I just can’t recall for sure. 😀😂😊
Don’t feel bad bro. I am an ex Catholic, and what I see on FR, is different than the Catholicism I grew up with. 😀🤗😃😄🤣
You have imagined soemthing not in evidence. Even in Abraham’s day people got saved, they just spent the centuries in Sheol until the Blood of the perfect atonement sacrifice was shed to cleanse the spirit of the effects of a sin nature. What I did write is that the work of the Holy Spirit to ABIDE in the born again spirit started at Pentecost.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.