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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.
Are you asking a mere human to judge these two on the condition of their souls?
Throughout his life, David - a man after GOD's own heart, was always killing one enemy or another.
Will we see him in heaven?
Not exactly what the guy in the mirror says each morning.
You make Mary cry...
(got them from Mom...)
Certainly and after blowing a gasket and condemning others who seem to be making judgments about their souls, those Catholics then turn around and set up gotcha scenarios and demand you judge the condition of some hypothetical or real person’s soul.
Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.[b]
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes[c] his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life[d] and be satisfied[e];
by his knowledge[f] my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,[g]
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,[h]
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
Pray for peace in Ukraine!
Matthew 24:20
pray that when you flee, it will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath.
Not persuasive. In all other instances where scripture references non-scriptural sources it is merely to confirm some factual assertion. Jude declares the prophesy of Enoch as authoritative.
“He explicitly gave them power to forgive sins.”
Nope, He gave them authority to write the Holy Scriptures under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit which declares what is sin and what is not. That’s why in Matthew’s account of the keys to the kingdom it is written in past tense signifying that GOD’s law existed before our universe was created.
You can also see in Matthew 9 that Jesus did not correct the statement that only GOD can forgive sins, He let it stand and added that He has the authority thus confirming that only GOD can forgive sins.
“anti-Catholic bigots”
I get the same response from the homosexuals and trans when I tell them they are living in sin, birds of a feather flock together.
“It can’t be the same sacrifice because Jesus is not still on the cross.”
Rome must think Jesus is still on the cross because every Roman cult building I have been in still has a devilish idol hanging on a cross. What I find interesting is that Jesus is depicted dead on their cross or as a baby on many paintings, but I have yet to see their fake goddess dead, she’s always alive.
If I were Satan that is exactly how I would have it too, a dead savior isn’t the true Savior just as the female diety they worship and serve is not Mary the mother of our Lord Jesus.
“I’m not aware of any Orthodox or Catholic teaching that Mary is a goddess”
rcc’s pray to Mary and their god
rcc’s bow to Mary and their god
rcc’s kneel to Mary and their god
rcc’s offer sacrifice to Mary and their god
rcc’s serve Mary and their god
rcc’s get grace from Mary and from their god
And service is also included in the commandment thou shall not worship or serve other gods.
“You have to have a plausible answer then, why the Holy Spirit would allow this Church error of canonicty to exist for over 1000 years.”
The Holy Spirit indewells saved born again believers not .org’s.
Orthodox Judaism has misinterpreted Scripture for 2400 years and counting.
It is called free will, you might remember the story of Adam and Eve.
Thank you for your postings.
It gives everyone a chance to see what true bigotry is.
If you are done with your stupid, anti-Christian diatribes, you can put your hood and sheet back on.
Actions speak louder than words.
Classic projection.
Is this an example of Catholic charity?
Meaning the prophesy also was a factual assertion, and considering just some of the problems my brief examination lists, then to class the whole book as Scripture is a problem.
No, prophecy is a divinely inspired prediction of future events. It cannot be confirmed by contemporary secular sources. To divinely cite it as reliable is to attest for it’s divine inspiration. There’s no way around it.
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