Mortal sins

Speedy, is it true that intentionally missing a mass is a mortal sin?

What other sins are listed as mortal? Is there a list?

Whoops. FOund it in the CCC. Par. 2181. Yep, it's a grave sin.

Which means if you die after missing mass for no good reason, you go straight to hell; you don't even go to purgatory. Is that correct?

[GRUMPY]

Depends too on a various amount of things. If you ever watch shows about football they always go through some kind of ceremony before a game to pick up the team so therefore God has to be a football fan so I would assume that he'd understand you missing mass for a Packers game.

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aydeloof</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Whoops. FOund it in the CCC. Par. 2181.
</div></div>

Praise God!! They are finally looking to the Catechism!!

This is called "making headway" /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aydeloof</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> Par. 2181. Yep, it's a grave sin.

</div></div>

Yes, it is a grave sin. However, that is not the same as a "mortal sin".

Now, where you get that they go straight to Purgatory is beyond me. Perhaps you'd like to discuss this when not so emotional?

Any number of grave sins can lead one to Purgatory. Everyone needs to be "purged" of their impurities before going before God. It's the level of purgation that is the question, not if there is purgation or not.

You and I will both need some sort of purgation. To what level is dependent on us.

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aydeloof</div><div class="ubbcode-body">And you didn't want to answer the question.. if you miss mass intentionally, are you hellbound if you die before your confession? Is that how it'd be interpreted?

</div></div>

Aydeloof, relax. You are very emotional lately.

Whoops. I saw your answer and deleted the reptition of my question.
Where do you read emotion in my posts??

OK, now I will have to read up on the distinction between grave sins and mortal sins. Unless you want to give me a Speedy answer. /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif
(I slay me)

[GenX]

I suppose "grave" and "mortal" could be seen as synonymous.

I've always seen the difference as "grave" being a major sin one commits, knowingly, but repents in purity of heart and intentions; whereas a "mortal" sin is one a person commits in which that person has no desire whatsoever to repent and ask forgiveness.

So in the general sense they are indeed synonymous; but I think a distinction can also be made if we dare venture into the realm of semantics.

[GenX]

Another view...


To a "sin is sin" Evangelical like me, all this was incomprehensible. It sounded so . . . Catholic. I started to ask around, since I knew these verses couldn't mean what the Catholic Church meant. They had to refer to something other than mortal sin, so what was it?

Most likely, said my Evangelical teachers, they referred to the sin against the Holy Spirit which couldn't be forgiven in this age or in the age to come (Matt. 12:32). God, these good people taught, was always ready to forgive sin--even so-called "mortal" ones. As an Evangelical, one of the most treasured Bible verses I ever learned was 1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

No sin is excluded from that beautiful offer--except one, for verse 10 goes on: "If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives." The sin leading to death is the sin we refuse to acknowledge. It is like a wound we keep wrapped in dirty, infected rags when the doctor wants to heal us. Such a sin, I was taught, is the sin of unrepentant disbelief. It is like a drowning man deliberately puncturing the life preserver thrown him. It is fundamentally suicidal, a rejection of grace by which we lock ourselves into damnation.

This explanation of John's words satisfied me then and still does. What did not satisfy me was the claim that this explanation is somehow different from what Catholics mean by mortal versus venial sin. I realized that, whatever else John was saying, he was making a distinction between "sin that leads to death" (that is, mortal sin) and sin that "does not lead to death."

This got me thinking. "Are we Evangelicals really committed to the notion of 'sin is sin' when we're not arguing down Catholic theology?" The question answered itself with another question: Do Evangelicals-- does anyone--really believe that a five-year-old who steals a cookie is the moral and spiritual equivalent of Jeffrey Dahmer?

Of course, nobody (and especially the Evangelicals who were far wiser than their own "sin is sin" theology) believed anything of the sort in their workaday lives. They just continued believing in mortal and venial sin but renamed them "backsliding" and "stumbling."

Thus, in Evangelical parlance, when Suzy or Billy swear in anger or goof off at work on a slow day and then ask forgiveness, this is "stumbling." It is taken seriously and forgiven (as is venial sin in Catholic circles), but neither Catholic nor Protestant would make a federal case out of it.

But if Billy and Suzy go off to college, sleep together, abandon fellowship, and establish a thriving narcotics business at the local elementary school, the average Evangelical would call this "very serious backsliding." Such sins, like the mortal sins to which they correspond, are not unforgivable in an absolute sense, but any fool can see they are going to be tougher cases.

If Billy and Suzy refuse ever again to acknowledge their wrongdoing and cover it up with a load of psycho-babble about "self-empowered personal autonomy," most Evangelicals would regard their state as perilous indeed.

All common sense, all actual Evangelical practice, and even much biblical wisdom gave legitimacy to the Catholic concept of "degrees of sin." This realization was strengthened by watching the evening news and seeing, with alarming frequency, what happens when people act out a crippling "sin is sin" morality. Here is a child beaten to unconsciousness for failing to take out the garbage, there is a man driven to suicidal despair for his failure to lose ten pounds. For such as these, every flaw is a hanging offense, and the sentence is carried out mercilessly in the name of an angry God.

So there is deep wisdom in our common-sense distinction between someone who eats too many cookies and someone who eats human flesh. But what of James' statement? It still looks like "sin is sin."

Perhaps a useful analogy would be to say "Injury is injury, but there's injury and then there's injury." Sin is fundamentally injurious. But it is tricky because it fools us into imagining some of the injuries we inflict on ourselves and others are "fun" (like lust) and others are "bad" (like murder). We console ourselves that as long as we don't commit the "bad" sins, it's okay to dabble with the "fun" ones. Indeed, we can imagine that the lightweights and lowlifes who cave in to "bad" sins just don't have the moxie we do. "I thank God I am not like other people," we mutter contentedly, "Okay, so I shoplift now and then, but those stores are rich, and I'm never cruel to dumb animals. People who are should go to jail!"

In contrast to this bogus self-righteousness James strips away the illusion of "okay" injuries and insists all sin is an injury to God, neighbor, and self. Absurdly indulging our "minor" sins is like indulging ourselves in a few cracked ribs or black eyes on the excuse that "it's not as if I were taking cyanide." Sane people avoid all injuries if they can, not just the "bad" ones, but sane people also know the cyanide poisoning is going to be harder (perhaps impossible) to cure.

Our working awareness of mortal and venial sin, by whatever name we call it, keeps us from classing the innocent with the guilty and prevents the vast majority of healthy adults from treating a cereal-spilling two-year-old like a serial-killing 22-year-old.

This came home to me recently in a bull session I had with a friend. Chatting about the possibility of moral progress, my friend, speaking as an average "sin is sin" Christian, said, "One society is no worse than any other just as no person is any worse than another." In other words, there is no difference at all between the nations because there is no difference at all between the people who comprise them.

With my newly-won grasp of mortal and venial sin I was emboldened to observe that his whole argument was moonshine. Even though all have sinned, as Catholic teaching asserts, Mother Teresa, Francis of Assisi, and Billy Graham are--obviously, overwhelmingly, blindingly--far better people than Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, or Lot's friendly neighbors. The former have opened themselves to grace, and the latter, so far as we can tell, did not.

This points us to a paradox: Mortal and venial sins are rooted in the recognition that real moral growth and differentiation is possible. The overarching truth of human history is the variety of God's gift of redemption, not the monotonous sameness of the Fall.

Lest I be taken for a universalist, allow me to explain. In our fallen state apart from grace, it is quite true that "sin is sin" and everything ultimately gets sucked down the same sewer pipe. Without God, it doesn't much matter whether you go to the devil by murdering someone or by "harmlessly" rotting away in front of ten thousand hours of "Gilligan's Island" reruns. Both fates ought to send us flying to our prayers. As real and as uniformly disastrous as the Fall is in all its chaotic manifestations, we must acknowledge that the full truth is that, since Christ died and rose again, we are not apart from grace. "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men." (Titus 2:11).

This is why it is wrong to say of men and their works, "They're all the same since they're all fallen." Ever since redemption entered the world, many have responded to the New Life and are no longer the same. While it is true that even in redemption we must remember that those who have responded are no less fallen than those who have not, it does not follow that we are forbidden to recognize the real effects of grace in the world. Thus, it is not arrogant to say that Billy Graham or Charles Wesley or Mother Teresa (or even non-Christians like Gandhi or Socrates) are better human beings than Himmler or Stalin or Lucretia Borgia. It's just sober common sense.

If we throw up our hands and say there's no such thing as growth or improvement (which is the necessary corollary of the belief that "no person is any worse than another"), then we doom ourselves to fatalism, for calling all people the same in that sense is identical with saying nothing has happened, since Francis of Assisi is the same as Hitler, who is the same as King David, who is the same as Shirley MacLaine.

In contrast, the Catholic vision says that redemption does make men, individually and corporately, better if they receive it--not better in the sense of superciliously superior, but better in the sense of healed and whole. We are not to be snow-covered dunghills (as Luther imagined); we are not to be monsters with a heavenly Lawyer pleading for us; we are to be glorious new creatures all the way down to our bones. That is why the Church takes history seriously. She believes God has been continually at work in the world and in our lives as a kind of storyteller and that the history one day will reach a conclusion like a story does. Something wonderful is to be made of us.

Since I believe in the reality of sin, I do not believe that "every day in every way, we're getting better and better" and that heaven is a sure thing for everyone, though I pray all will be saved. The hubris of automatic progress is a dangerous lie; it disastrously overlooks the real possibility of damnation for any of us.

Following Paul, I do not infer from the fact of the Fall that it is best to have a meaningless opinion of everyone as "equally bad and equally good," nor do I infer that, since the Fall is a fact, it is therefore the foundation. Rather, according to Romans 12:3, we are to have not a meaningless or a gloomy opinion, but a sober or accurate one, illumined by the totally unearned and undeserved grace of redemption won by Christ. Such a sober opinion, particularly of ourselves, springs neither from self-denigration nor from arrogance, but from love, and love, contrary to the proverb, sees. It sees as the eye of man sees, and it has the power to distinguish not only shades of gray, but all the range of color, shape, and nuance that the mind and choices of God and man can present to it. It is this power of sight (what Thomas Aquinas calls "the authority of the senses") that endows Catholic theology with the wisdom to which I was too long blind: the common-sense, practical, and hopeful wisdom that distinguishes between mortal and venial sin.


CA

[The Berean]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Speedy the Arrogant Parrot</div><div class="ubbcode-body">...You and I will both need some sort of purgation. To what level is dependent on us. </div></div>

Really? Perhaps you could be more specific???

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Any number of grave sins can lead one to Purgatory. Everyone needs to be "purged" of their impurities before going before God. It's the level of purgation that is the question, not if there is purgation or not.

You and I will both need some sort of purgation. To what level is dependent on us.</div></div>

If I could find evidence of purgatory in Scripture, I would agree with you.

However, I do find in Scripture that Jesus said, "It is finished.."

What he did WAS my purgation.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Speedy the Arrogant Parrot</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aydeloof</div><div class="ubbcode-body">And you didn't want to answer the question.. if you miss mass intentionally, are you hellbound if you die before your confession? Is that how it'd be interpreted?

</div></div>

Aydeloof, relax. You are very emotional lately. </div></div>

If joy is an emotion, you must have the gift of discernment!!! You are amazing!

Okay, Speedy says missing mass is a grave sin, and draws a distinction between grave and mortal sins.

Yet, I read here that it is a mortal sin.
ISSUE: Is missing Sunday Mass a mortal sin?
RESPONSE: The requirement to attend Mass on Sunday and other holy days of obligation, rooted
in the Third Commandment and codified in Church law (cf. Code of Canon Law, canons 1246-48) is
a serious obligation for all Catholics. A Catholic who (a) is able to attend Sunday Mass (i.e., who is
not impeded by illness, lack of transportation, etc.), (b) knows the seriousness of this requirement, and
(c) nonetheless freely chooses to miss Mass, thereby commits a mortal sin (cf. Catechism, no. 2181).
______

I looked it up, and the Catechism uses the word, "grave sin".
However, it appears that mortal sin is defined as a violation of a grave matter. Thus it looks like a mortal sin and a grave sin are synonymous.

Speedy, is my conclusion correct?

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">If I could find evidence of purgatory in Scripture, I would agree with you. </div></div>

Well, as you well know, whenever a Protestant says that to me I can only chuckle, as some of your beliefs are not directly in Scripture. How you don't see your great contradiction is beyond me.

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> I looked it up, and the Catechism uses the word, "grave sin".
However, it appears that mortal sin is defined as a violation of a grave matter. Thus it looks like a mortal sin and a grave sin are synonymous.

Speedy, is my conclusion correct?</div></div>

Did you read my original response to this? I said they could indeed be seen as synonymous, but where I see a difference is "grave" is when the sin is committed but the sinner truly desires repetitive forgiveness ,whereas "mortal" means a sin that is committed and no desire for forgiveness or repentance is sought.

Committing the sin is "grave". Leaving the sin to darken your soul is "mortal".

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aydeloof</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Speedy the Arrogant Parrot</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aydeloof</div><div class="ubbcode-body">And you didn't want to answer the question.. if you miss mass intentionally, are you hellbound if you die before your confession? Is that how it'd be interpreted?

</div></div>

Aydeloof, relax. You are very emotional lately. </div></div>

If joy is an emotion, you must have the gift of discernment!!! You are amazing!
</div></div>

And for a preacher, you get strangely defensive when a simple lay person causes you fits of theological pretzel-twisting on the Internet /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

Seems to me even you are not convinced of your side of the argument/debate (though your ego will do whatever it can to mask the situation).

[GenX]

I'll see your Jesus saying "It is finished", and raise you one...



Isaiah 6:5-7
Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

Corinthians 3:15
If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

2 Machabees 12:46
it is a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins.

Hebrews 12:22-23
But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect...




"The Church doesn’t exclude the possibility that purgatory could be an instantaneous purification, but there are indications in the Bible that souls do exist in some state that is neither heaven nor hell. Look at 1 Peter 3:19–20. These verses show Jesus preaching to "to the spirits in prison." The "prison" cannot be heaven, because the people there do not need to have the Gospel preached to them. It cannot be hell, because the souls in hell cannot repent. It must be something else. As you can see, there is nothing unbiblical about the claim that those who have died might not immediately go to heaven or to hell."

CA

[KDawg]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Speedy the Arrogant Parrot</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
"The Church doesn’t exclude the possibility that purgatory could be an instantaneous purification, but there are indications in the Bible that souls do exist in some state that is neither heaven nor hell. Look at 1 Peter 3:19–20. These verses show Jesus preaching to "to the spirits in prison." The "prison" cannot be heaven, because the people there do not need to have the Gospel preached to them. It cannot be hell, because the souls in hell cannot repent. It must be something else. As you can see, there is nothing unbiblical about the claim that those who have died might not immediately go to heaven or to hell."

CA </div></div>

That could be a reference to real people in an actual prison ("Which sometime were disobedient"). Christ preached to prisoners when He was on earth. That whole section of 1 Peter 3 refers to Christ's sufferings, and Christians should also expect to go through some suffering in the name of God (as some prisoners do).

1 Peter 3:18-20 reads:
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.</div></div>

After Peter refers to Christ teaching to the spirits in prison, he refers to the eight souls who were saved when Noah built his ark -- Eight real people on earth.

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">That could be a reference </div></div>

Then again, it could not.

I'll stay with the interpretation of the Church which can be traced back to Christ's Disciples, thanks anyways.

[KDawg]

Based on the context of the reference to 1 Peter 3:19-20 that you provided, doesn't it make sense to you that Peter was talking about real people?

[GenX]

Is there any place else in the Bible where live, flesh and blood men, are referred to as "spirits"?

[KDawg]

I'll have to do more research to find if men are referred to as spirits, but in Genesis, where God created man, man is referred to as a soul (as in 1 Peter 3:20):

Genesis 2:7 reads, "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

[GenX]

That's correct, but has little relevance to the question at hand.

Let's talk about live, flesh and blood man being referred to as a "spirit".

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I'll have to do more research to find if men are referred to as spirits, </div></div>

If you don't know, then why blindly accept your current view on the interpretation of 1 Peter 3:20? At the very least, why criticize Catholics for something you obviously do?

[KDawg]

You're joking right?

I admit I don't know everything there is to know about the Bible. Some things I'll never know (probably most things, compared to other people) and other things I'll be able to discern after some research.

I gave an alternate interpretation to the reference you provided and I could be wrong about it.

This is a place to discuss these things, I thought. You had a good point about flesh and blood men being referred to as spirits in other passages in the Bible, and off the top of my head, I don't know.

[KDawg]

In John 3:5-6, Jesus, talking to Nicodemus about the new birth, says,
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Here, Jesus is talking about true Christians, just as Peter was in 1 Peter 3.

[Soundbear]

So you have this:

1 Pet 3:19-20
19 through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison
20 who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,


But you also have this:

Isa 61:1-2
1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

So whatever that prison is, Christ opened it. So it can't be a purgatory for us.

[GenX]

So, we are in agreement nowhere else in the Bible are live, flesh and blood human beings referred to as "spirits".

Good. /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

[The Berean]

assuming that the "spirits in prison" were at one time real live flesh and blood people. They could be angels.

I love the way parrots can ignore things. so cute.

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">assuming that the "spirits in prison" were at one time real live flesh and blood people. They could be angels. </div></div>

In the great Protestant tradition of personal interpretation, we now are to believe angels were in prison.

Wonder what they were arrested for. Flying too fast? Illegal wingspan? Playing their harps past the 11:00 pm curfew?

[The Berean]

Lucifer fell. one third of the angels fell with him.

Prove those spirits were ever flesh and blood parrot.

[GenX]

Were Lucifer and the angels human?

Again, I ask for you to find another reference in the Bible where a real, living, flesh and blood HUMAN BEING is referred to as a "spirit".

[The Berean]

A: off the topic

B: you aint worth it.

[GenX]

A: it's exactly what the topic is about.

B: as usual, you run from the challenge.

[The Berean]

Yawn,

it s not the explanation that usually lacking its the open mind to see it.

[GenX]

You're running from the challenge, Conkat. All the personal attacks in the world can't mask the fact you have no confidence in your ability to defend a theology that deep-down you know is questionable.

[GenX]

Again, I ask for you to find another reference in the Bible where a real, living, flesh and blood HUMAN BEING is referred to as a "spirit".

C'mon, "Bible Christians", time to show this Catholic up /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif

[The Berean]

????

Christ preached to those spirits "in prison"

Those spirits were not necessarily hiuman beings.

So this verse is a lousy proof for the reality of purgatory.

Where the heck you going with this?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Speedy the Arrogant Parrot</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aydeloof</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Speedy the Arrogant Parrot</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aydeloof</div><div class="ubbcode-body">And you didn't want to answer the question.. if you miss mass intentionally, are you hellbound if you die before your confession? Is that how it'd be interpreted?

</div></div>

Aydeloof, relax. You are very emotional lately. </div></div>

If joy is an emotion, you must have the gift of discernment!!! You are amazing!
</div></div>

And for a preacher, you get strangely defensive when a simple lay person causes you fits of theological pretzel-twisting on the Internet /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

Seems to me even you are not convinced of your side of the argument/debate (though your ego will do whatever it can to mask the situation). </div></div>

My my. Your gift of discernment grows daily.

First, I am emotional,
Now, I am defensive,

Well, I will let you have your fun.

And I have to say that You are creative, smart, articulate, but you cripple yourself by turning things personal whenever a sincere question gets too close for comfort. You feel threatened, and I truly wish you could get over that, so that we can get on with an academic objective discussion; at least as academic as these forums will allow. I truly want to learn from you, so don't go flying off the handle and getting all ad-hominey when I ask questions. You only harm yourself and your cause by doing that.

So let me get back to a question. I think you asserted somewhere up above that purgatory was a doctrine taught successively by the apostles and fathers. Can you show me evidence of that? I'd be interested in seeing the evidence.

Am I right in understanding that in order for a doctrine to be a part of the deposit of truth, it has to be something the fathers agreed upon? Unanimously?

[GenX]

Great, another Aydeloof lecture... /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smirk.gif

Anyways...

I do not remember saying Purgatory was taught by the Apostles. You'll have to show me where I did as much.

However, it was certainly taught by the early Church Fathers, some of who were no doubt directly taught by those directly taught by the Apostles themsleves, or people close to them.

Origen

If a man departs this life with lighter faults, he is condemned to fire which burns away the lighter materials, and prepares the soul for the kingdom of God, where nothing defiled may enter. For if on the foundation of Christ you have built not only gold and silver and precious stones (I Cor., 3); but also wood and hay and stubble, what do you expect when the soul shall be separated from the body? Would you enter into heaven with your wood and hay and stubble and thus defile the kingdom of God; or on account of these hindrances would you remain without and receive no reward for your gold and silver and precious stones? Neither is this just. It remains then that you be committed to the fire which will burn the light materials; for our God to those who can comprehend heavenly things is called a cleansing fire. But this fire consumes not the creature, but what the creature has himself built, wood, and hay and stubble. It is manifest that the fire destroys the wood of our transgressions and then returns to us the reward of our great works.

Clement of Alexandria

The believer through discipline divests himself of his passions and passes to the mansion which is better than the former one, passes to the greatest torment, taking with him the characteristic of repentance for the faults he may have committed after baptism. He is tortured then still more, not yet attaining what he sees others have acquired. The greatest torments are assigned to the believer, for God's righteousness is good, and His goodness righteous, and though these punishments cease in the course of the expiation and purification of each one, "yet" etc.

Tertullian

That allegory of the Lord [Matt. 5:25-26] . . . is extremely clear and simple in its meaning . . . [beware lest as] a transgressor of your agreement, before God the judge . . . and lest this judge deliver you over to the angel who is to execute the sentence, and he commit you to the prison of hell, out of which there will be no dismissal until the smallest even of your delinquencies be paid off in the period before the resurrection. What can be a more fitting sense than this? What a truer interpretation?

...The faithful widow prays for the soul of her husband, and begs for him in the interim repose, and participation in the first resurrection, and offers prayers on the anniversary of his death

Cyprian

It is one thing to stand for pardon, another thing to attain to glory; it is one thing, when cast into prison, not to go out thence until one has paid the uttermost farthing; another thing at once to receive the wages of faith and courage. It is one thing, tortured by long suffering for sins, to be cleansed and long purged by fire; another to have purged all sins by suffering. It is one thing, in fine, to be in suspense till the sentence of God at the Day of Judgment; another to be at once crowned by the Lord

Cyril of Jerusalem

Then we make mention also of those who have already fallen asleep: first, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, that through their prayers and supplications God would receive our petition, next, we make mention also of the holy fathers and bishops who have already fallen asleep, and, to put it simply, of all among us who have already fallen asleep. For we believe that it will be of very great benefit to the souls of those for whom the petition is carried up, while this holy and most solemn sacrifice is laid out

John Chrysostom

Let us help and commemorate them. If Job's sons were purified by their father's sacrifice [Job l:5), why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them

Augustine

There is an ecclesiastical discipline, as the faithful know, when the names of the martyrs are read aloud in that place at the altar of God, where prayer is not offered for them. Prayer, however, is offered for other dead who are remembered. It is wrong to pray for a martyr, to whose prayers we ought ourselves be commended (Sermons 159:1 [A.D. 411]).

Temporal punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by some after death, by some both here and hereafter, but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But not all who suffer temporal punishments after death will come to eternal punishments, which are to follow after that judgment (The City of God 21:13 [A.D. 419]).

That there should be some fire even after this life is not incredible, and it can be inquired into and either be discovered or left hidden whether some of the faithful may be saved, some more slowly and some more quickly in the greater or lesser degree in which they loved the good things that perish, through a certain purgatorial fire

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Am I right in understanding that in order for a doctrine to be a part of the deposit of truth, it has to be something the fathers agreed upon? Unanimously? </div></div>

Hmmmm, not too sure on that one. What Fathers? How would they have discerned unanimity in their day?

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Speedy the Arrogant Parrot</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Again, I ask for you to find another reference in the Bible where a real, living, flesh and blood HUMAN BEING is referred to as a "spirit".

C'mon, "Bible Christians", time to show this Catholic up /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif </div></div>

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I truly want to learn from you </div></div>

Do you? Or is there a little part of you that would like to catch me in some theological trap?

If you truly want to learn a little, that's cool. I'm sure we can learn something here. But if you truly want to learn, don't rely on lil' ol' Soonet exclusively; go to someone like Scott Hahn, too; it makes all the sense in the world why you would do so.

Scott was you at on time, so to speak. He was a Protestant minister. He had a LOT of questions about the Catholic faith.

Read him, I'm sure at one time he had all the same questions you have now.

Try me and see.
I am learning so as not build straw men. We do too much of that on both sides.

This doesn't mean I won't debate with you on certain things if I disagree.

And silence does not necessarily imply agreement.
Agreed?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Speedy the Arrogant Parrot</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Am I right in understanding that in order for a doctrine to be a part of the deposit of truth, it has to be something the fathers agreed upon? Unanimously? </div></div>

Hmmmm, not too sure on that one. What Fathers? How would they have discerned unanimity in their day? </div></div>

Well, I kept coming across this "unanimous consent of the Fathers.."
I just looked it up.

The "unanimous consent of the Fathers" (unanimem consensum Patrum) refers to the morally unanimous teaching of the Church Fathers on certain doctrines or interpretations of Scripture as received by the universal Church. This forms, to a large degree, what Catholics mean by Sacred Tradition. The individual Fathers are not personally infallible, and a discrepancy by one or two patristic witnesses does not harm the collective patristic testimony.

So if something is considered a part of the Sacred Tradition, it ought to have found general agreement among the fathers.

[Batman]

Okay this may be a little off topic. Sorry to butt in here but I just wanted to add a little levity. Check out the Reformation Polka!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4TeJJmQJqU

cute..
now I'll have that tune running through my head all day!

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">So if something is considered a part of the Sacred Tradition, it ought to have found general agreement among the fathers. </div></div>

Sure, I don't see a problem with that. I assume they'd agree on most fundamental Catholic beliefs.

Take Christ present in Body, Blood, Soul, and Divintiy in the Holy Eucharist. There is widespread agreement on that (hey, even Martin Luther agreed with it).

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">And silence does not necessarily imply agreement.
Agreed? </div></div>

Who thought it did?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Speedy the Arrogant Parrot</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">So if something is considered a part of the Sacred Tradition, it ought to have found general agreement among the fathers. </div></div>

Sure, I don't see a problem with that. I assume they'd agree on most fundamental Catholic beliefs.

Take Christ present in Body, Blood, Soul, and Divintiy in the Holy Eucharist. There is widespread agreement on that (hey, even Martin Luther agreed with it). </div></div>

Not exactly. See wikipedia item below

Lutherans and Moravians

* Primary theological development from Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, and the Lutheran Book of Concord of the 16th century.
* Eucharistic theology: the sacramental union is the mode of the Real Presence, the means is the mandate and institution of Christ. This mandate and institution is expressed in the Lutheran divine service as the Words of Institution or the Verba. Statement of Martin Luther:

Why then should we not much more say in the Supper, "This is my body," even though bread and body are two distinct substances, and the word "this" indicates the bread? Here, too, out of two kinds of objects a union has taken place, which I shall call a "sacramental union," because Christ’s body and the bread are given to us as a sacrament. This is not a natural or personal union, as is the case with God and Christ. It is also perhaps a different union from that which the dove has with the Holy Spirit, and the flame with the angel, but it is also assuredly a sacramental union (WA 26, 442; LW 37, 299-300).

* Body and Blood are "in, with, and under the forms" of bread and wine:

For the reason why, in addition to the expressions of Christ and St. Paul (the bread in the Supper is the body of Christ or the communion of the body of Christ), also the forms: under the bread, with the bread, in the bread [the body of Christ is present and offered], are employed, is that by means of them the papistical transubstantiation may be rejected and the sacramental union of the unchanged essence of the bread and of the body of Christ indicated (FC SD VII, 35; Triglot Concordia, 983; emphasis added). Lutherans do not seek to explain the change, and some designate their beliefs as consubstantiation, while others reject the designation of their doctrine as consubstantiation in contradistinction to the transubstantiation of the Roman Catholic Church, which they also reject (see also, Smalcald Articles [1]).

* Lutherans do not believe that the eucharistic sacrifice (sacrifice of praise) of the Lord's Supper is propitiatory or that it "repeats" Christ's sacrifice on the cross.
* Many Lutheran Church bodies practice closed or close communion.

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">See wikipedia </div></div>

Are you serious??

[GenX]

"Q. What did Martin Luther believe about the Body and Blood of Christ in the ... A. Martin Luther believed in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. ..."

LINK (bfhu.wordpress.com/2007/05/19/martin-luther-on-the-real-presence/ )

With theologians and canon lawyers, it's all in the nuance..
One can believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist without the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood.

His quote has a bit more substance to it:

http://www.homestead.com/philofreligion/files/MPAPER8.htm

Luther's view on the Eucharist is the more controversial element to his doctrine of the sacraments. The Roman Catholic church had held that during the mass the elements of the Eucharist, the bread and wine, were transformed into the body and blood of Christ. This Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation was defined at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). The doctrine was based upon the Aristotelian distinction between substance and accident. The former is a thing's essential nature, whereas the latter is a things's inessential properties (or outward appearances). Transubstantiation affirms that, though the outward appearance of the bread and wine (color, taste, smell, etc) do not change at the moment of consecration, the substance of the bread and wine do change--they become the body and blood of Christ. Now some have maintained that Luther's position consisted in the rejection of the "real presence" of Christ in the Eucharist. He is said to have held that Christ's presence was not in the elements but merely behind them. Hence, a doctrine of consubstantiation replaces one of transubstantiation. This is misleading though. Luther's rejection of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is more accurately interpreted in terms of his repudiation of scholasticism and its integration of Aristotelian philosophy into theology. The Roman Catholic position was not a mere statement as to the real presence of Christ, but--on the basis of Aristotelian philosophy, it also explained how Christ was present in the elements. It was this latter point which Luther criticized and rejected, for it was derived from Aristotle, and Aristotle was best left outside theology.



That Luther taught the real presence of Christ can be seen in his urging, with much vehemence, the text of Matthew 26:26: hoc est corpus meum--"this is my body". Over against Zwingli, Luther argued that "est" must be understood to mean "is identical with." Consequently, "this is my body" must be interpreted literally. "This bread is identical with my body." As we will see shortly, Zwingli thought otherwise, insisting that est be understood as significat (signifies). Hence, "this is my body" should not be interpreted literally anymore than Christ's words Ego sum panis vitae should be interpreted literally as meaning that Christ claimed to be a loaf of bread.

[GenX]

Even so, he was much closer to the RC view on The Eucharist than his spiritual progeny of today.

[GenX]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Christ's words Ego sum panis vitae should be interpreted literally as meaning that Christ claimed to be a loaf of bread. </div></div>

Hmmmm...nice strawman, does a lot for the debate.

[GenX]

Jesus, the Son of God, said "Truly, truly..." when describing Himself as the "Bread of Life" that must be eaten and drank.

Would God as human make a semantic mistake of saying "Truly, truly" right before going into a metaphorical comment?

Let's give God a little more credit.

Even Zwingli his contemporary moved much further than he did.

[KWB]

Pay enough $$$$$$$$ an all is forgiven