Am I wrong in remembering that if a person in sound mind with pre meditation chooses to kill themselves. The outcome is a deadly mortal sin and that soul will be damned to hell for all eternity. Well that seems to be what has happened to an Australian scientist British born it appears. The man has reached 104 years and although not terminally ill in mind or body, had chosen to be snuffed out by lethal injection or through a cannula in his arm. We need to raise alarm bells on the Christian forums where we should be very much aware of the consequences of throwing life back in Gods' face on a whim, even if some do fool themselves into believing there is no afterlife. Those poor foolish people will only be spared mortal punishment if they are genuinely 'nut cases.' There is no way a man who claims to be so intelligent can claim ignorance. And there are numerous accounts on line of atheists who found out the truth about life after natural death and changed their attitude, that is they repented and converted. I think these people who want to be snuffed out should be made to hear those testimonies; before they jump headlong into the pit of hell. There is no point in asking God to have mercy on this old man. And no point in thinking the devil has mercy. But how can we warn those foolish people out there; this euthanasia is not a joke or a solution. It is a deadly unforgivable mistake to defy God in this way. God will not be mocked by such arrogance.
Good to raise the red flag Julia. So many people I know who are nominally Christian or they are apostate see nothing wrong with choosing to end one's life. They fear suffering. They have no sense of God's timing or right to take us when He sees fit. It is so frightening to wantonly throw away your soul. But I'm not sure they believe they have a soul.
Padre Pio was once approached by a mother whose son had committed suicide. The old saint said she must not give up on the possibility of his salvation. He said every soul at the point of death gets to see God face to face before making a final decision. I suspect this is quite true. I must try and see if I can find this story.
Padre Pio used to be able to tell were souls went after death, if they were in heaven, hell of purgatory. During the Second World War unfortunate Italian soldiers were sent to fight the Russians on the Eastern Front. As the Russians were not great ones for taking prisoners most of them simply disappeared. But Padre Pio could always tell their relatives their fate. They came from all over Italy to ask him. http://caccioppoli.com/St. Padre Pio Purgatory.html
This problem is terribly serious. It is a mortal sin to kill either oneself or another according to the 5th Commandment of God. We always believed in the old days before the Church of nice blindsided our reason that to commit suicide was a mortal sin. It was Marino Restreppo who was inspired by the Holy Spirit that when there is mental illness, culpability is mitigated at the time of judgement. But by the same token, those who commit suicide are not given a get out card for all the other failures in their lives; Jesus takes the action of suicide into consideration under the mental derangement that causes one to take ones life. I have an old friend, a lifelong practising Catholic who shocked me recently saying she would like to be snuffed out rather than end up senile. I told her she would end up in purgatory for a very long time if she did not end up in hell if she makes that choice. Imagine..... a practising Irish Roman Catholic who was instructed the same as I was, thinking she could tell God when she wanted to hop into eternity. NOT HAPPENING. I remember reading that if we end up in eternity before our time, we have to spend the time in purgatory. And remember one day in purgatory is supposed to be equivalent to 500 years on earth. But in purgatory, there is no one to comfort you. On earth you can do your suffering with others caring for you. In purgatory you sit in a dark place all on your own suffering without consolation. Do your time here and complete the plan God has for you. He can use the time of suffering to expiate the damage we have done by our sins. I just wonder how many other Roman Catholics are thinking this is OK. It is no different than baby Alfie or baby Charlie's life being ended in defiance of God's timing. Terrible things happen in war zones, good bad and indifferent. But euthanasia is in direct defiance against God, and remember in so called peacetime. It is dreadful.
I have often thought of Alzheimer's as one form of Purgatory. Watching/going through that with a parent or spouse - they are doing some serious time of reparation for themselves as well as their family! That is part of my consolation. I believe my Dad has also begun to see this after I shared a reminder of the graces attained from the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.
I think Padraig was interested in the original article. It has been in the news for a few days. The man made his intentions public in advance. Here is the link. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/busine...ientist-s-final-words-in-switzerland/44104056
When someone we love suffers, we are able to comfort them and console them. This does our soul good because we are thinking of someone else other than ourselves. And when someone has Alzheimers for example, there are lucid moments when we can comfort and console them. Not to mention all the tender loving unconditional care we can exercise giving us a chance to expiate our own failures in past sins. A great deal of atonement is done caring for the sick, disabled or elderly. We can make reparation for our own sins, and the sins of many who do not make any form of reparation for themselves. We are saving souls when we love and care for those who depend on us. Bless you ComeSoon, you are a true Warrior for God. And bless your family having such a true soldier in Christ in their midst.
Yes, I think (hope) that someone under extreme mental stress committing an act on the spur of the moment wouldn't suffer the same eternal fate as, for example, this priest and theologian who has determined that he will choose the right time to got to Heaven. He doesn't believe in eternal damnation. http://www.spiegel.de/international...ueng-on-death-and-church-reform-a-938501.html
Although it is true that there is always hope for souls no matter their circumstances it is cause for grave concern if the person openly commits to grave sin and encourages others to do the same. So if Joe Smith decides in desperation to kill himself; well that is one thing. But if Joe Smith also goes to the media and campaigns for suicide to be made legal and kills himself and encourages others to do the same; that is quite an other thing. Then there must be very grave concerns indeed for that souls salvation. If a person want to kill themselves then there is nothing at all to stop them doing so ; there are a million ways of doing so. A l they have to do is look for directions on utube and drugs are freely available online. If they need help there will always be some awful person to help them do so. Why then make a big public fuss about it? This is quite evil. They make this fuss to ease their consciences. It is the same with people who want to kill babies in the womb and sexual perverts. They campaign because of their consciences. This is also why they get so angry when people tell them they are wrong and wicked.They know this quite well themselves but wish to not to be reminded of this.
You can throw in that people are longer allowed to die naturally, whether in a nursing home or hospital they are kept alive by being pumped full of drugs.
My Spiritual Director used to say to take it as a compliment when the devil gets angry and attacks you directly. This always has cheered me up. There is a lot of truth in this.
I think that is true. St. Jean Vienney said he could always tell when a great sinner was about to repent because the Attacks of le Grappin intensified on the saint. Since the referendum I have been sick unlike anything I have experienced in many many years. Now would it be the height of folly to think that I am under attack or is it just nature and a challenged immune system. I'm no saint. I can barely pray these days. I can tell you this. When I finally get shut of this bug I mean to thank God every day for good health and the energy to do my daily duties.
The particular intention in this instance may not have been benevolent, but it raises a point. People have become confused regarding appropriate decisions at the natural end of peoples' lives. They may be over-compensating. I have heard of cases where families have gone through great trauma with siblings disagreeing over whether dying loved ones ought to be resuscitated. It seems excessive that an elderly person who has been naturally called home, in God's good time, should be, thanks to the possibilities offered by medical progress, denied their time only to have it suspended for perhaps a few hours, days or weeks of humanly-induced additional suffering. I admit this is a difficult subject, but it is my understanding that the Church does not advocate such actions, and certainly not the use of extraordinary means to preserve life. In many ways, life was less complicated years ago. Of course, this is completely different from treating people with reasonable prospects of recovery as vigorously as possible. This is such a difficult subject, I'd be grateful for the insights of others.
I think you have summed it up here. We do not have to use extraordinary means. Brian is the expert in this field.
Heavy crosses these days. I had killer bronchitis for 6 weeks in the winter and have had 2 colds since then. Like you, I praise God when I am well. Lol However short the window of opportunity.... I think it might be an attack, or the fact that these viruses are vicious. Viruses can mutate. I also think our food is not nourishment enough to keep us well. We can get into a week-long discussion of illnesses in each time period, such as the time not so long ago when many people died of TB. They had clean and nourishing food, but perhaps not enough. I don’t know the answer. I do know that the viruses are more vicious now. I also read that there is an island off Long Island where government experiments were done in germ warfare. Supposedly the theory is that Lyme Disease was developed there, and the causative germ escaped and ended up manifesting in Lyme, Connecticut I forget the exact way it escaped Possibly birds But my point is that there are probably more diseases being created in labs than we know about And not just in the US Get well soon, AED
