oh yes Padraig, I'm not depending on it. It is more wishful thinking for my siblings who do not believe in God. But I have hope because of God's mercy and the story you told of one of one of your brothers who died who did not believe in God and he appeared to you from heaven (I hope I'm remembering right anyway), which gives me great hope. I certainly hope the warning happens soon, so my siblings will not die before that happens. That's probably the only thing that will turn them around. But I can't depend on that either, which is why I try to pray, pray, pray
Yes, but in order to say the rosary in the first place, we must be living good Faithful lives. The question being how many live such lives? This is a conditional promise to the Faithful not an assurance to the apostate . A promise rather than a magic spell.
yes, great point. and also, according to St. Louis de Monfort, if you consecrate yourself to Mary...it is the absolute best thing you can do for the salvation of yourself and your loved ones. well, I should add that you must take the consecration seriously and strive for having a great devotion to Our Lady. The more seriously you take your consecration, the greater Our Lady will work in your life, and the greater the result on your salvation and the salvation of your loved ones.
Yes Cathy I had six brothers and two sisters only two of them have ever really practised their Faith . I prayed for them for many, many years. I do not mean to loose hope after my close relatives died I saw them after they died and I know they are in heaven. But still I think its a case of kicking the ball high so it goes over the bar, if you see what I mean. The difference between prudence and presumption. If Cathilics think are relatives are going to make it we won't pray as hard as we should for them. It was a real fear of them going to hell that made me try so hard. SO better to kick the prayer ball high, high high as far as our loved ones go. There is a wonderful story about St Catherine of Siena. She came form a family of 22 kids. She knew when her dad's time for death rolled round, from prayer he was headed for purgatory and tempted as buisnessmen often are by the ways of the world it was going to be a long hard one. So she took his purgatory on herself and suffered hard before he died meaning he got into heaven right away. I think st Catherine's prayer care for her family is an example.
If I were a priest I would at once preach a sermon about hell, a sermon about purgatory , a sermon about current Marian apparitions and a stern warning about the state of the world, the state of the Church and impending judgement and I wouldn't give a curse whether people liked it or not. My bishop would at once send me either to preach in the Antartic to the penguins or have me sent to a lunatic asylum. Which is why I suppose I never got to be a priest.
At the same time, Jesus doesn't want us quivering in fear, even for the salvation for our relatives. Almost all of my relatives and dear ones do not practice the faith. They are in my intentions on my first rosary of the day, and whenever I grieve over the state of their souls, I pray, "Jesus, I trust in you." (I firmly believe that is the prayer He can't resist!!!) With all the promises attached to the chaplet of divine mercy, I recommend praying it for family members daily, instead of waiting for the hour of their death. Pray it forward!
I have taken on St. Monica's advice: "Talk less to your children about God and talk to God more about your children". I wish I had understood this years ago when my 6 oldest were still at home. I talked allot about the faith and probably more then I did praying for them. Prayer is #1. I have way less apprehension for my children now then I ever did when I was educating them in the faith thinking that would suffice.
Yes. It's a question of balance. We love Our Father, but still, we respect Him. The Prodigal son came home, true. But he didn't necessarily have to have. He could have stayed sleeping out with the pigs. The story might not always have a happy ending.
Yes as Our Lady said at Fatima, 'prayer and sacrifice' for sinners. She also said that, 'Many poor souls go to hell because they have no one to pray for them and no one to offer sacrifice'. Well then if parents do not pray for their children ,who will?
Recently I ran across the idea of a "territory of souls", from Marino Restrepo, indicating that we each have people that we are responsible to pray for, and offer a good example. My territory includes all of my relatives by birth, adoption and marriage. Some of these people I don't even know, but I pray for them daily. It came to me in prayer the other day that there are no accidents of birth or placement. I am required to pray for all the people in my life. God places intercessors in each family, work group, etc. Our responsibility is great, considering the graces we've each been given.
I think it's exactly this, some of us have been placed as pray-ers in our families. Kathy K started a thread called let's fill up purgatory, which once I saw it wasn't a personal invitation, I said YES, YES!!!! http://motheofgod.com/threads/lets-fill-up-purgatory.4674/ St Faustina once said a fervent little prayer for the souls of the dying after which the Lord told her she had saved one thousand souls with that prayer from damnation{wish I could remember that prayer, but I'm sure it was the fervency of the prayer} I always keep the dying souls, souls in purgatory, in my prayers,{from my morning offering} offering them up to Jesus and Mary each time I say Jesus and Mary. A couple of things from St. Faustina's diary on the dying souls Diary entry 1507: All grace flows from mercy, and the last hour abounds with mercy for us. Let no one doubt concerning the goodness of God; even if a person's sins were as dark as night, God's mercy is stronger than our misery. One thing alone is necessary: that the sinner set ajar the door of his heart, be it ever so little, to let in a ray of God's merciful grace, and then God will do the rest. But poor is the soul who has shut the door on God's mercy, even at the last hour. It was just such souls who plunged Jesus into deadly sorrow in the Garden of Olives; indeed, it was from His Most Merciful Heart that divine mercy flowed out. "I often attend upon the dying and through entreaties obtain for them trust in God's mercy, and I implore God for an abundance of divine grace, which is always victorious. God's mercy sometimes touches the sinner at the last moment in a wondrous and mysterious way. Outwardly, it seems as if everything were lost, but it is not so. The soul, illumined by a ray of God's powerful final grace, turns to God in the last moment with such a power of love that, in an instant, it receives from God forgiveness of sin and punishment, while outwardly it shows no sign either of repentance or of contrition, because souls [at that stage] no longer react to external things. Oh, how beyond comprehension is God's mercy! Although a person is at the point of death, the merciful God gives the soul that interior vivid moment, so that if the soul is willing, it has the possibility of returning to God."(1698) http://thedivinemercy.org/news/story.php?NID=2565 Jesus and Mary, we love you, save souls!
Diary entry; Holy Mass - Bl. Faustina Kowalska - One Thousand Souls nav-tool 1783 When I [ie. Bl. Faustina Kowalska] immersed myself in prayer and united myself with all the Masses that were being celebrated all over the world at that time, I implored God, for the sake of all these Holy Masses, to have mercy on poor sinners and especially on poor sinners who were dying at that moment. At the same instant, I received an interior answer from God that a thousand souls had received grace through the prayerful meditation I had offered to God. We do not know the number of souls that is ours to save through our prayers and sacrifices; therefore, let us always pray for sinners.
Hope; I would NEVER offer you a personal invitation to purgatory! I'm hoping they'll let me in heaven to carry the crowns of you and your sort. I'd forgotten that prayer from St. Faustina. I'll have to take it up again. But I have one of my own: "Lord, you are the savior. I beg you to save. That not one would be lost for lack of prayer and sacrifice, especially on my part." (This way, He can send me what ever sacrifices He needs from me to accomplish this. I'm a well known weasel when it comes to sacrifice, but I do quite well with whatever falls in front of me.)
I recall the good Domincan Fathers of my school and parish certainly mentioned Hell (and heaven much more). BUT when they did speak of Hell, following the Angelic Doctor, they always mentioned that fear of punishment was a starter (necessary many but not all) not a main. Fear is an imperfect motive for contrition/love but perfectly acceptable for beginners. Curiously, for Christians, obedience for desire of future rewards also seems an imperfect beginner's love. (The Koran teaches a sensual Paradise [eg 72 Virgins are awarded the obedient] in addition to friendship with God - something we would reject as impure) I suppose it isn't really all that curious - both attitudes seem to spring from a less than pure union with the Godhead. Only perfect love effects perfect union. I believe one will find that "Holy Fear" is a completely diffferent beast from this impure "fear of hell" and really cannot be reconciled with each other. One is pure the other is not. It is my experience that the noblest hearts are best inspired to greater love by examples of compassion and direct attraction to the call and Person of Jesus/God. Thought of Hell just doesn't come into it. ("Hell" for these is failing to respond as fully as we know we want to that call and example. But this is a different sort of "hell" than we are speaking of here methinks. This is more akin to the "Holy Fear" you mention above, not really the same as "Fear of Hell" at all). Personally, the quotes above have never motivated my "upward calling" (was that Wordsworth or Hopkins), always it has been the story of the Rich Young Man. After 50 years I still cannot fully fathom why he did not follow. I have never seen my relationship with Jesus primarily as "avoiding sin", rather its "following grace". My thoughts anyway.
Forgot to add, the Gospel refs above mention the word hell directly even less than 5, just 3 times. But the most important and original teaching of Jesus on hell does not seem to be mentioned - the story of Lazarus and the rich man.
That gives me such hope with regard to my father, who was a firm agnostic, having rejected the faith in his 20s, and who even refused the last rites as far as we know. He suffered a terrible illness with the patience of a saint though and died peacefully, with my sister, mother and I all praying the Divine Mercy chaplet at his bedside. Despite everything, I have trusted in the Divine Mercy promise that at death he met not the just judge but the merciful Saviour. We also discovered after his death that as a devout teen he had completed the nine first Fridays devotion. While he was being buried, the most magnificent double rainbow appeared in the sky and we have since pondered whether this was a sign for us that God keeps his promises... in this case, the double promise of the Divine Mercy chaplet and the nine First Fridays devotion. One of his favourite lines was "with his dying breath, a man must be prepared to make a fresh start." I hope he stayed true to that.
I too feel disheartened sometimes by this, but it is Truth, and we must grab our gift of redemption with both grateful hands, and then work out our salvation, and like Abraham praying for his brother Lot living in Sodom, beg for our relatives and friends and for the whole world. Once we are converted, we must spend our time not only basking in Gods sweet love, but also doing penance and praying for the others God put in our lives. When I feel worried about a love one, I try to remember that God loves that soul alot more than I ever could, and that He wants me offer sacrfice for them, and wants them to come home to Heaven. Yesterday at Mass of course this was the gospal reading, and we have a new priest (ours retired last month). He did a very good sermon on this. He said that when Pope Francis said to the media that everyone was redeemed by Christ, even the atheists, whether they like it or not, he spoke the truth. ALL were redeemed by Christ, but that does not mean that ALL go to heaven. We were redeemed and given the gift of redemption, but we must accept it, and then work out our savation to be saved. So that is the difference between Catholic teaching and many protestant teachings, that to be Saved, we must not ONLY accept the gift of Redemption, but we must then stop sinning and work out our salvation on this earth. We all know many people who say they love God, but live their lives in mortal sin, and only serve God with lip service. These are people in my family, your families, all over the world. These are the people we must pray for, must sacrafice for, and must show an EXCELLANT example to in our lives and actions.
It is true . Neither fear or hope of reward make good fuel for the engine of the heart. Only the fire of love will take us through to the end. But reverential fear can at least make good spark plugs to set thing running. As is written, 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom'. When I was walking the dog the other night I thought to myself, 'If there was no heaven would you still love God and serve Him?' Then I thought to myself, ah yes I would for He is so worthy of all our love. Sometimes I have also thought that if He sent me to hell it would not altogether be a bad thing for at least He would have one soul at least there to love and praise Him and sing His praises, even in the flames. Neither could I complain, I who am worthy only of a thousand hells. An additional plus would be than my hymn singing would be the worst of all the demon's tortures. They who well deserve such torture.
It is true, we must obey the first commandment and love God first and formost. When I had my "warning" that was the huge sin I cryed about for two weeks when it was over. The sin of me never really actively LOVING GOD! I never did anything for Him, never thanked Him for my life, never had time for Him. We must put all of our efforts into loving God, and then our neighbor for God's sake because He loves them. We must love God not for rewards, or for fear of Him, but only because He has given us this beautiful day, and time to love Him. If we spend our time loving God, we will always be happy!
