Friends, being "Catholic" is essential for no other reason than this, it insures that people will actually pray for you when (or if) your soul goes to purgatory. I cannot remember who, but some great nun of the Catholic Church (I believe it was Sr. Ann Catherine Emmerich who inspired Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ) made the startling reflection that Protestants, although they do indeed eventually get to heaven, have a tougher time making it through purgatory because there are fewer people in communion within them to pray for the souls.
I'll never forget my good friend, a Vietnamese Catholic friend from my gradeschool days as a Catholic schoolboy in St. Petersburg, FL, who asked me quite seriously, to pray for her brother who had passed away so that his soul might leave purgatory more quickly.
I prayed in all seriousness, and although I eventually became a Methodist turned Pentecostal, I never really gave up this belief in the existence of purgatory and have been in the process of returning to the Catholic Church since 2003.
Dante the author of the Divine Comedy apparently solidified in the West's consciousness the idea that yes heaven, purgatory and hell are all stark realities and that yes, even some bishops of the Roman Catholic Church end up in hell. Corpus per mixtum is the Augustinian Latin term for the Body of Jesus Christ here on earth containing both the future saint in heaven and also the future sinner whose unrepentance sentences them to hell. Jesus Christ Himself refers to such a dynamic by the parable of the "wheat and the tares" in which the good wheat (the TRUE Body of Jesus Christ!) grows up alongside of the fallen tares (the future damned).
This basic message of salvation, however, is increasingly becoming difficult to preach in the West, be it Western Europe or North America. When one speaks of heaven and hell in a realistic way (or purgatory!), then one is called 'delusional,' a Bible-thumper, a bigot, or whatever vile description that good Christian sharers of the Gospel message are called. Sadly, it is often very close friends, family members, priests, professors of theology, who are so opposed to the TRUTH of the Christian Gospel (i.e. YES, there really is a heaven, hell and purgatory) that they will easily destroy good Christian men and women by libel, slander, and even direct persecution.
Groups such as Opus Dei come under attack as much from within the institutional Catholic Church as they do from without. Similarly, if you are a Holy Spirit-Filled Christian (Benny Hinn), then you are labelled a huckster, charlatan, and people think that you are taking people's money. Finally, if you are a faithful Christian in the military you are sequestered off from sharing the Gospel with fellow soldiers, airmen, etc.
Truly, what started as a Christian Nation is certainly no longer the case, and sadly, in some instances, even anti-Christian!
But, the truth of the Gospel message (from a Catholic perspective) is that when you are baptized and receive the Holy Spirit at baptism you are incorporated into Christ's Body on earth, the Church. From this point, as you accept Jesus on your own as LORD and Savior through reception of the sacraments, participation in the Mass and accepting Jesus' forgiveness of your sins, then you are increasingly made holy. By being forgiven (ONLY through Jesus' Name as is said by Peter in Acts of the Apostles 4:12) can we then enter sanctifying Grace, first in this life, and then if necessary in purgatory.
So, if you wanna be "Catholic" join me this October (a few weeks from now) at the Coming Home Network. Details are listed on the following web-page http://www.chnetwork.org/
Love in Jesus Christ,
Rob J. King, Catholic as you wanna be ;-)
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2 comments:
Rob
I agree, heaven and hell are real and Satan's work is having people disbelieve in hell and heaven.
Purgatory is harder to show scripturally and I'd be interested in your take on this and don't go to Torbit and friends stay with in "Scripture" ;-).
WRT Benny Hinn I think you will find his Christology and Pneumatology is less orthodox (some may say heretical at times)than you think which leaves many questions unanswered.
As with any person (pope speaking excathedra included)we are required to test the word against scripture and are required to rebuke people for there wrongs as Paul did to Peter for being influenced by those trying to exclude gentiles from the church (or at least insist on circumcision and reintroducing the law as salvation)
We are all fallible and imperfect and need correction, criticism is not bad, it is part of the drossing process that purifies the silver. We need to be corrected all of us, sometime the correction really hurts, but we are to examine and open our selves up to examination.
WRT the military banning the spreading of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ one can have two takes on this. If you are senior officer and you force you subordinates to comply by order, this is wrong and given the very strict hierarchy of the army this coercion can be implied, however if you lead people to Christ through example and discussion especially leading equals and senior officers, this should be allowed especially if this is in private time. How do you draw the distinction.
Its a bit like the Roman Emperor declaring that his empire is Christian by law, it forced many heathen practices to be adopted as Christian and lead to syncratism that still perpetuates the church.
After that if you weren't the right religion you were persecuted, not sure that is what freedom of religion is all about in your constitution, and in the military its hard to distinguish. Although I disagree with the sanction I can see the issue.
Nick
Nick,
Thank you as always for your Biblical response! Yes, purgatory is tough to prove Biblically. Here, I lean a bit on the Jewish Tradition, and to be frank, adopt a position similar to the Seventh Day Adventists. Basically, the Jewish view is the belief in Sheol, the abode of the dead in which after a person dies, he is somehow "asleep" with whatever his essence, psyche, etc. is living on. Here, I think that Catholic sanctification theology is Biblical in that the most holy souls/psyches/etc. go directly to heaven, and with the souls/psyches in purgatory (possibly Jewish Sheol?) jointly awaiting the Final Resurrection of the Body in the New Earth.
So, in short, something like Jewish Sheol I think is purgatory.
Love in Jesus Christ,
Rob
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