Monday, July 26, 2010
God's Guests
From Psalm 5: 2-10, 12-13: “You are no God who loves evil; no sinner is your guest.” Knowing that we are all sinners, my first reaction to this line was to wonder how anyone besides Jesus and Mary could be God’s guest (make it to Heaven). Then I considered the possibility that they were referring to church, where Catholics, for example, are not to receive Communion with a mortal sin still on their soul. A sinner needs God’s forgiveness to be made clean from the stain of sin. That, of course, lead me back to my first thought that sinners, those with the stain of sin still on their soul, do not get into Heaven. If one has not been forgiven and made amends for their evil deeds or omissions, one has to do so on Earth through Reconciliation of some sort or in Purgatory in the next life. In other words, one cannot be a guest of God until one is free of sin. Everyone open to God’s grace is then capable of eventually escaping sin.
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A good friend of mine asked a number of questions of me privately, including one about purgatory that arose from this post, so I'll include an edited version of that discussion here in case others had similar questions or if anyone could add to my answer:
ReplyDeleteQ. You mentioned purgatory in one of your posts...can you reference this in the bible as well? I've always wondered where the Catholic church got their belief in this as it's not taught in the Protestant church (we go to a non-denominational church). I have a hard time understanding that Jesus is not enough to get to heaven - that the prayers of sinners is needed?
A. Our belief in purgatory comes from one of those books not included in the NIV Bible, Maccabees, where they prayed for the dead because we believe you have to be clean from sin to get into heaven, but only a mortal sin can condemn you to hell. So for those not condemned, but not entirely clean to enter heaven, are purified after death in purgatory if they hadn't been purified before death by asking forgiveness from God and making amends. Although praying for the dead helps them, in that it may shorten their time there, it isn't necessary. Jesus is still what is necessary for ultimate salvation.
Q2. Where in the bible does it say that Mary has never sinned? Why is this a belief for you or the church?
ReplyDeleteA2. The basic belief that Mary never sinned is originally based on St. Gabriel at the Annunciation in the phrase "full of grace" which we believe to have meant that she was preserved from sin, so she would be a worthy vessel of Christ.
We elaborated on this discussion concerning Mary on August 7, 2010 and expect to elaborate on Purgatory on August 8, 2010.
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