if someone dies in a state of mortal sin not having been to confession, do they go to hell? I am so confused about this, I recently asked a priest but he didnt give me a definitive answer, probably because it is different in each case. He replied that God is merciful and although the church says you would go to hell, God is above the church and he is merciful, implying that you wouldnt necessarily go to hell. I asked him this because I have recurring mortal sin and felt I needed to know. I would like to believe this but I am worried it might not be correct, I would like to think that if you were truly sorry you wouldnt go to Hell, although in Medjuorje Our Lady said that when we die we are given the grace to we choose ourselves where we deserve to go. also if someone died in mortal sin and didnt believe in God when they were alive but realise he is real when they die do they have to go to hell or is there any hope for them at that stage?? Quite worried and confused, can anyone give me their understanding of this or a good source I could consult?
St Therese of Liseux, a Doctor of the Church says this: If the greatest sinner on earth should repent at the moment of death, and draw his last breath in an act of love, neither the many graces he has abused, nor the many sins he has committed would stand in his way. Our Lord would receive Him into His mercy. I love this story too of God's immense mercy: http://www.thecarmel.ca/vocationstory.aspx
angelabelfast, Concerning your own personal struggle, the following scripture came to mind: Isa 57:15 For thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite. Isn't it beautiful! Our Holy God who is high and exalted, is ever close to the contrite heart! If you hate your sin and realize that the Lord is madly in love with you, repentance is the key. I once knew a holy priest who instructed me to immediately pray an Act of Contrition in a spirit of repentance if I should fall into mortal sin. Then seek the Sacrament of Confession as soon as possible. Jesus died for you on Golgotha, Angela; you are the apple of his eye. Listen to his words for you: Song of Songs 2:14 My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow places of the cliff, show me thy face, let your voice sound in my ears; for thy voice is sweet and your face is lovely! Never give up! But I urge you to focus on the loving mercy of Jesu and not on your failures. Even after my conversion, I was in the snares of a certain sin for four years, but Jesus delivered me! Trust in Him and He will save you. Safe in the Father's Arms!
Beautiful Mario. Angel, you might want to get a copy of "He and I". It's a great way to bridge that "perceived" gap between you and the Creator of the Universe.
thank you all so much for your help, I do believe in God's love and mercy so I feel a lot more hopeful. I wonder why the church teaches that we will go straight to hell if we die in mortal sin, this puts a lot of people off catholicism (some of my friends have said this) because they feel there is no point and they will go to hell anyway. I will spread the word of God's love and mercy to anyone who challenges the catholic church, I am so happy that God really is above the church and loves us and can forgive us all! I love St Therese I will try to learn more about her, it was strange actually because a few months ago I had a dream before I came back to God that I was at a shrine, it wasnt any shrine that I recognised and had never been there before, then I looked around and saw a picture of St Therese and it was a shrine to her! she must have known my worries all along lol.
A friend sent this to me and I wanted to share it. MY VOCATION God has created me to do Him some definite service: He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission- I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connextion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good. I shall do His work: I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling. Therefore I will trust Him.Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me- still He knows what He is about. Blessed John Henry Newman I would like that tattooed to the insides of my eyelids!
Hell is a great mystery. God doesn't want anyone to go there, for as St Aphonsus Ligouri said, 'God is CRAZY with love for us'. At the end of the day it is not God who sends us to hell, it is we ourselves who plunge ourselves in hell, the good Lord simply confirms for all Eternity the prison we decided, of our own free will, to place ourselves in. If you don't believe we imprison ourselves in our own hell go out and walk our streets, see the heroin addicts thin as grasshoppers, the people twisted with greed, the souls tormented by their own appetites. I have never found it hard to believe in hell, the good Lord knows my own sins have brought me their face to face with it in my own life. If there was no hell ther would be no choices, no real choices, none of the only real choice any of us ever really have , the choice we were created for and which will echo in the halls of eternity, To love or not to love. That at the end of the day, is our choice, loaded down with mountains of graces though we have been showered with. We have the keys to hell and only only we can open the door and walk on in. Love cannot be forced, God knows this, no one can be forced to Eternal life, no one can be forced to love. Hell is of our own making. We make the choice. God simply, powerful in all things, is powerless only in this . He cannot force love. For love forced is no love at all. It is because He loves and wishes to be loved and is love that in this matter He stands in chains, chains of His own love. That is why He was crucified, He was nailed there by love. John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. http://www.umilta.net/barsotti.html
Angela, I think that is just another protestant misconception of the Catholic church and its teachings. The church doesn't teach that in any way. Even on the cross, Jesus gave us a lesson in this, by forgiving the thief. We have the mercy of Purgatory too. Funny, I have always thought it was the Protestants who were terribly morbid about hell, not US! They believe you either go to heaven or to hell, and therefore, in my mind that would mean a LOT MORE people would go to hell in their intrepretation than in ours. We have a place of cleansing to go to, punishment perhaps, but not eternal...so that even the worst sinners, if they have any desire at all to be with God, can have the chance to do so eventually. But justice must be served also, so they must make reparation for thier evil-doing first. The protestants have no such merciful place for their bad guys. If you are good you go to heaven, if you are bad you will have to go to hell...no exceptions. To me, that thinking is much more scary. I will never understand how they can NOT believe in a purgatory if they believe in a merciful God. In our religion, very few people may in fact actually go to eternal hell, depending on how merciful God really is with us.
I too think the Protestant Fundamentalist view of things is very stark, very balck and white, somewhat cold. I think this is because they have thrown out many of the heart warming aids to love, such as the Eucharist, confession, devotion to Our Lady..keys to understanding and experienceing Divine Mercy.
A comment on reoccurring mortal sin, or any reoccurring sin: Something to pray about - somthing I know I have to pray about as well... IF YOU CONFESS a sin, and do not make an effort to stop re-committing the sin, then you may not be sincerely sorry for that sin, and therefore you may not be making a good confession. Now, only you and God can be sure where your sorrow and effort to do better is, but a priest also may comment on this if he is your frequent confessor. His advice may be helpful to you. Remember, if you have no intention of changing your state of sin, then confessing it may not be releasing you of that sin. Is this correct, Padraig? I think of it like this, though it is only my opinion: if you die in a state of mortal sin, you may feel so much despair about that sin when you see how it hurts our Lord or when you see how much you may have to suffer for it, that you may choose not to try to strive for redemption in the next life. God may "lose" you to your own weakness, your own decision to not try, to instead say "no", even after death. The church teaches us that to die in a state of mortal sin is a grave thing, and we should understand that it "may" keep us out of heaven...if not forever, then for many hundreds of years of purgatory, perhaps. But in our faith there is always some hope, because no man can know what God will do until that moment arrives. I think any priest or nun who tells us otherwise is wrong, though their intentions may be good, to instill a bit of fear in us. Still, we must ALWAYS KNOW that God is purely just and purely merciful at the same time. So do not despair, but you must make an effort to stop committing the reoccurring sin, even if it takes a lifetime. God will help you, and remember that God will always know your heart, probably even better than you do, as we constantly try to decieve ourselves in these matters. And something I tell people now is, whatever you have done or will do in this life, when you experience God's mercy, just say YES! What's a thousand years to an eternity? Even if you have said no to God's laws all of your life, he may still ask you, and you may still have one more chance to say yes. Take it. Of course you should take it sooner, not wait until then, because you may not be in a state to bring yourself to say yes...that is the dilemma. Confession and indulgences will help us to enter into this time with joy instead of despair. We will be able to be with him in Heaven perhaps that day, or very soon, and we all want that, don't we? We should be afraid of the purifying fires, we should want to avoid that, so we should live our lives according to His commandments. I think it is the same for when the warning comes...I tell my kids whom I have not yet been able to get to confession for a long time, to just say Yes if the warning happens, no matter how scared or ashamed they feel. Feel His mercy coming through to you and tell him ------ Yes, Yes, Yes!
I am allways a little careful Connie in limiting the powers of the Scarament Connie, so I would like to belief that so long as we firmly intend t reform our lives our sins will be completely forgiven. But I suppose this is the stumbling bloc. A drinker say who confesses drunkeness should not be expecting say to keep his job as a barman or to go with his frineds on seesions every weekend. We not only have toconfess our faults but close the doors on them as well. I think thats what realy set confessors like padre pio apart he was prepared to confront the root causes of sin and root them out. In this I of course refer t habitual sin. I also believe demons home in on habitual sin and we have to toss them out by waging a real spiritual warfare. Its not easy, its true we say we are sorry but as you say if we as St Pater says go back to our sins like a dog to its vomit, its not good, its a sign I think we are not ammending our lives and closing the doors to sin. 2 Peter 2:22 Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."
Eewww...that photo is just creepy! Padraig, I suppose you are right, I may have been a little too hard about it, but what I think about sometimes are the old gangsters, like the Italian Mafia guys...they used to actually go to confession after they made their "hits" and then go back to work and do another one. They believed they were saving their souls this way. They were playing with the rules in everything they did, including their faith. Its another one of those great mysteries, the fine lines between the promise of God on the power of a priest to forgive sins, on the secrets of a person's soul, and on God's promise to be purely just. We can only guess. I have heard this kind of thing as a criticism against sacramental confession...but once again, we are thinking and judging as men do, not as God does. We have to believe that He is what he says he is...purely just and purely merciful. Man cannot grasp that fully, but I feel that in confession we can come sloser than anywhere else.
The Italian police made a recording of several local Mafia Dons, shortly after the visit of Pope John Paul 2 there several years ago in which he made a strident condemnation of the Mafia and all their works. The old guys were outraged and very angry that John Paul had condemned them and all their works, for they didn't think that they had done anything wrong! In fact they thought they had done nothing wrong and were really Cathlics in good standing. :shock: :shock: I notice this too in the God father films...the beautiful Catholic Churches with marvellous services the weddings, the funerals the baptisms the placing of importance of the role of God father..and yet turning the coin the violence ,the killing the torture the raw evil... I suppose the Mafia, who celebrate their Catholicsm so much in their rites are a lesson and a warning to us all . Certainly if, say a hit man goes to confession with the dtermination to continue at his 'profession' then of course the sacrament is invalid. Its an extreme example but a very good you give, Connie :? I always feel a little nervous when I see these things, these Mafiosa appear often so blind of the sheer evil in which they participate....then I wonder to myself..how blind am I? :shock: May the Holy Spirit shed led on the dark places of our souls so we make good and sincere confessions. Acts 26:18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.' But there is a touching scence in ,'Godfather 3'....Don Corelone goes to confession with a Cardianl and future Pope ,a very holy mad...when Don Corleone comes out of the box he is, it is claer to see deply shaken and talking of the Cardinal says, 'That was a true priest.'
