Adam And Eve

[Livin_the_MASS]

[quote name='Dave' date='Apr 18 2004, 07:12 PM'] The limbo of the saints, where those who died in God's friendship before the time of Christ went, is an official doctrine. The limbo where some say unbaptized infants go is not. [/quote]
Thank You Dave!

[Livin_the_MASS]

[quote name='Brother Adam' date='Apr 18 2004, 07:21 PM']So basically the Catholic Church CAN say or does have the authority to say who is going to heaven and hell?[/quote]
These are not just ordinary people Bro Adam, They are a person of heroic virtue.

That means they take all their sufferings uniting them to Christ's sufferings accepting them as God's Will, without wavering in their faith or their trust in God.

They leave all things to His Provendential Care.

The Church does not choose who lives a heroic life of virtue, each individual must make his or her own choice. The Church just recognizes that this person's life is worthy of imitation.

We make the choice of Heaven or Hell, The Church exercies the authority to acknowlege the state of life ones lives to be holy.

[Dave]

[quote name='Jason' date='Apr 18 2004, 07:23 PM'] Thank You Dave! [/quote]
Anytime

[ironmonk]

[quote name='Brother Adam' date='Apr 18 2004, 08:21 PM'] So basically the Catholic Church CAN say or does have the authority to say who is going to heaven and hell? [/quote]
Not of who is going to Hell.

The Catholic Church has the keys to Heaven, not Hell.

It's is God's place to judge. The Catholic Church does not judge.

The Catholic Church examines the life of the person that is being talked about for Sainthood. If that persons life and miracles are attributed to them after their death, then they are in Heaven. Miracles cannot happen for Christ from people if they go to Hell.

The Catholic Church examines. We do not know why people do bad things, but we do know why they would do good things - i.e. for Christ.


God Bless,
ironmonk

[willguy]

[quote name='Brother Adam' date='Apr 18 2004, 07:21 PM'] So basically the Catholic Church CAN say or does have the authority to say who is going to heaven and hell? [/quote]
Not is going, and not hell. The Church says that certain people are in heaven. As has been said, a canonization, nowadays at least, requires two miracles (or one miracle for a martyr).

Doncha love how off-topic we seem to get around here?

[God Conquers]

yup, so I was driving my car the other day.....

Anyways...

Why do most people assume heaven after limbo?
I mean, we're talking THE SNNERS here. They brought sin into the world, and were assured death by God if they did. I'm not even really sure if they did anything redemptive after they left the garden except follow the one commandment they had, "go forth and multiply". And even then, as sinful humans, we can't know their motives in their procreation, it could have been purely selfish though.

I don't have an opinion personally, but I think it's interesting that everyone puts them in the "heaven" category.

[IcePrincessKRS]

I guess one would say that being in Limbo was separation from God. That separation could perhaps be "punishment" in lieu of Purgatory? I mean, isn't the greatest pain in Hell the separation from God?

[God Conquers]

Yep, it sure is.

I was thinking about this some more...

I think my last post was too cynical. I think we all are showing our Catholic Hope: that God's mercy has saved EVERYONE and that nobody is in hell.

The pope has a mural in his private chapel, whose depiction of hell is simply and empty black hole... our hope.

[ironmonk]

If no one was going to hell, then there would be no reason to care about anything.

There is the abyss, and then there is the lake of fire... gehenna.

There is a hell (as in gehenna), and it is real.

People who reject Christ will go to gehenna.

We do not know if anyone will reject Christ; but to say that no one is going to gehenna is an error.

All who are not written in the book of life.

Christ tells us that the gates are narrow and few will enter. This tells us that more people will go to gehenna than to Heaven.

[b]St. Matt 7:13 [/b]
"[color=red]Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many.[/color]
[b]14 [/b][color=red]How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.[/color]


The saying that no one will go to gehenna is not a Catholic one... sounds more Freemason than anything.... as the dragon's tail sweeps the stars out of the sky.


God Bless,
ironmonk

[God Conquers]

yo Ironmonk.... I said it's our HOPE that no one goes there. Not the reality.

Have no fear, I have the fear of fire and brimstone in me.

[Dave]

[quote name='God Conquers' date='Apr 18 2004, 10:59 PM'] Why do most people assume heaven after limbo?
I mean, we're talking THE SNNERS here. They brought sin into the world, and were assured death by God if they did. I'm not even really sure if they did anything redemptive after they left the garden except follow the one commandment they had, "go forth and multiply". And even then, as sinful humans, we can't know their motives in their procreation, it could have been purely selfish though.

I don't have an opinion personally, but I think it's interesting that everyone puts them in the "heaven" category. [/quote]
Actually, there was a feast of St. Adam and St. Eve in the Church at one time. Also, if you've read "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ," at one point, when it mentions limbo, it lists Adam and Eve among some of the people who were there.

[God Conquers]

hmmm, intersting, I'd never heard that. Were they de-canonized?

[Dave]

[quote name='God Conquers' date='Apr 19 2004, 12:26 AM'] hmmm, intersting, I'd never heard that. Were they de-canonized? [/quote]
De-canonized? No, to my knowledge the feast still exists. Don't know what day it is, though.

[Dave]

Ok, I found the feast day for Sts. Adam and Eve -- Dec. 24.

[cmotherofpirl]

Before Jesus opened the gates of heaven, everybody went to the bosum of Abraham, also called Sheol. When Jesus died, he preached to all the souls there, so everybody had a chance to hear Jesus Christ.

Jesus took all the righteous to heaven with him.

Title: 'He Descended Into Hell'
Author: Pope John Paul II

Description: General Audience of Pope John Paul II on January 11, 1989.
Categories: Persons > Christ
Catholicism > Faith > Scripture

Larger Work: January 16, 1989 issue of
Publisher & Date: Vatican, January 16, 1989

1. In the most recent reflections we have explained with the help of biblical texts, the article of the Apostles' Creed which says of Jesus "He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified... and was buried". It was not merely a case of narrating the history of the Passion, but of penetrating the truth of faith contained in it and which we profess in the Creed: human redemption effected by Christ with his sacrifice. We dwelt particularly on his death and on his words during the agony on the Cross as recorded by the Evangelists. These words help us to discover and understand more profoundly the spirit wherewith Jesus immolated himself for us.

That article of faith ends, as we have just noted, with the words: "...and was buried". It might appear a mere factual statement; on the contrary, it is a fact whose significance enters the wider sphere of the whole of Christology. Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh in order to assume the human condition and to be like us in everything except sin (cf. Heb 4:15). He truly became "one of us" (cf. Conc. Nat. II Const. Gaudium et Spes, 22), to be able to redeem us, thanks to the profound solidarity established with every member of the human family. In that condition of true man he experienced completely the lot of man, even to death, which is usually followed by burial, at least in the religious and cultural world in which he lived. Christ's burial is therefore an object of our faith inasmuch as it reproposes for us his mystery of Son of God who became man and ventured to the limit of human experience.

The abode of the dead

2. To these final words of the article on the passion and death of Christ is linked in a certain way the following article which says: "He descended into hell". This article reflects some texts of the New Testament which we shall see shortly. It is well to mention, however, that, although in the time of the Arian controversies the same formula was found in the writings of those heretics, it was nevertheless introduced also into the so-called Creed of Aquileia, one of the professions of the Catholic faith then in use, which was drawn up at the end of the fourth century (cf. DS 16). It entered definitively into the teaching of the Councils with the Fourth Lateran (1215) and the Second Council of Lyons in the profession of faith of Michael Paleologus (1274).

It should also be mentioned straight-away that the word "hell" does not mean the hell of eternal damnation, but the abode of the dead which is sheol in Hebrew and hades in Greek (cf. Acts 2:311.

3. There are numerous New Testament texts from which the formula is derived. The first is found in the Apostle Peter's discourse of Pentecost. Referring to Psalm 16 to confirm the announcement of Christ's resurrection contained in it, he states that the prophet David "foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption" (Acts 2:31). The Apostle Paul's question in the Letter to the Romans has a similar meaning; "'Who will descend into the abyss?' (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)" (Rom 10:7).

Also in the Letter to the Ephesians there is a text which, in reference to a verse of Psalm 68: "When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men" (Ps 68:18), asks a significant question: "In saying, 'he ascended', what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things" (Eph 4:8-10). In this way Paul seems to link Christ's "descent" into the abyss (among the dead), of which he speaks in the Letter to the Romans, with his ascension to the Father, which begins the eschatological "fulfilment" of all things in God.

In line with this are the words placed in Christ's mouth: "I am the First and the Last, and the Living One. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades" (Rev 1:17-18).

4. As is evident from the texts quoted, the article of the Apostles' Creed, "he descended into hell", is based on the New Testament statements on the descent of Christ, after his death on the Cross, into the "region of death", into the a abode of the dead", which in Old Testament language was called the "abyss". If the Letter to the Ephesians speaks of "the lower parts of the earth", it is because the earth receives the human body after death, and so it received also the body of Christ who expired on Calvary, as described by the Evangelists (cf. Mt 27:59 f, and parallel passages; In 19:40-42). Christ passed through a real experience of death, including the final moment which is generally a part of the whole process: he was placed in the tomb.

It is a confirmation that this was a real, and not merely an apparent, death. His soul, separated from the body, was glorified in God, but his body lay in the tomb as a corpse.

During the three (incomplete) days between the moment when he "expired" (cf. Mk 15:37) and the resurrection, Jesus experienced the a state of death", that is, the separation of body and soul, as in the case of all people. This is the primary meaning of the words "he descended into hell"; they are linked to what Jesus himself had foretold when, in reference to the story of Jonah. he had said: "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Mt 12:40).

Death and glorification

5. This is precisely what the words about the descent into hell meant: the heart or the womb of the earth. By dying on the cross, Jesus had delivered his spirit into the Father's hands: "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!" (Lk 23:46). If death implies the separation of the soul from the body, it follows that in Christ's case also there was, on the one hand, the body in the state of a corpse, and on the other, the heavenly glorification of his soul from the very moment of his death. The First Letter of Peter speaks of this duality when, in reference to Christ's death for sins, he says of him: "Being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit" (1 Pt 3:18). Soul and body are therefore in the final condition corresponding to their nature, although on the ontological plane the soul has a relationship to be reunited with its own body. The Apostle adds however: "In spirit (Christ) went and preached to the spirits in prison" (1 Pt 3:19). This seems to indicate metaphorically the extension of Christ's salvation to the just men and women who had died before him.

6. Obscure as it is, the Petrine text confirms the others concerning the concept of the "descent into hell" as the complete fulfilment of the gospel message of salvation. It is Christ-laid in the tomb as regards the body, but glorified in his soul admitted to the fullness of the beatific vision of God-who communicates his state of beatitude to all the just whose state of death he shares in regard to the body.

The Letter to the Hebrews describes his freeing of the souls of the just: "Since... the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature, that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage" (Heb 2:14-15). As dead-and at the same time as alive "forevermore" - Christ has a the keys of death and Hades" (cf. Rev 1:17-18). In this is manifested and put into effect the salvific power of Christ's sacrificial death which brought redemption to all, even to those who died before his coming and his "descent into hell", but who were contacted by his justifying grace.

Metaphors of space and time

7. In the First Letter of Peter we read further: "...the gospel was preached even to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God" (1 Pt 4:6). This verse also, though not easy to interpret, confirms the concept of the "descent into hell" as the ultimate phase of the Messiah's mission. It is a phase "condensed" into a few days by the texts which try to present in a comprehensible way to those accustomed to reason and to speak in metaphors of space and time, but immensely vast in its real meaning of the extension of redemption to all people of all times and places, even to those who in the days of Christ's death and burial were already in the "realm of the dead". The word of the Gospel and of the Cross reaches all, even those belonging to the most distant generations of the past, because all who have been saved have been made partakers in the Redemption, even before the historical event of Christ's sacrificial death on Calvary took place. The concentration of their evangelization and redemption into the days of the burial emphasizes that in the historical fact of Christ's death there is contained the super-historical mystery of the redemptive causality of Christ's humanity, the "instrument" of the omnipotent divinity. With the entrance of Christ's soul into the beatific vision in the bosom of the Trinity, the "freeing from imprisonment" of the just who had descended to the realm of the dead before Christ, finds its point of reference and explanation. Through Christ and in Christ there opens up before them the definitive freedom of the life of the Spirit, as a participation in the Life of God (cf. St. Thomas, III, q. 52, a. 6). This is the "truth" that can be drawn from the biblical texts quoted and which is expressed in the article of the Creed which speaks of the "descent into hell".

8. We can therefore say that the truth expressed by the Apostles' Creed in the words "he descended into hell", while confirming the reality of Christ's death, at the same time proclaims the beginning of his glorification; and not only of his glorification, but of all those who, by means of his redemptive sacrifice, have been prepared for the sharing in his glory in the happiness of God's Kingdom.

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