Padre Pio also said the at the moment of dying all Souls get to see Jesus and make their final choice. However having said this it is clearly not a total get out of jail free card. If you have been travelling at a hundred miles an hour in one direction your whole entire life it would be pretty hard to reverse and go totally 100 miles in another. Take someone, for instance who had been a miser and only interested in money her entire life, Money being her God to suddenly turn from this.
I had a friend one time a few years ago whom I knew for , I suppose about thirty years. He was a little country man , very gentle, everyone who knew him liked him. But he was a I suppose you could say totally, totally Godless, I mean God did not even enter the equation like so many these days. God was irrelevant. Anyway a few years before he died I was having a drink with him in his appartment and I noticed he had no holy pictures or statues around, none at all, quite unusual for a man of his generation and background. I mentioned this to him and it came out a lot of the rejection of God and all things God had to do with anger at his mother who had treated him very badly as a child. This sparked off into anger at God too. I spoke to him of the need for forgiveness and to my delight the next time I visited he had all the Holy Stuff (which he had hidden away back on display. He did seem to have gotten over the hump. But in the years before his death he changed back to a very dark place. He fell in with some very bad friends , took to very bad friends. He just changed , very much for the worse. He seemed so bitter angry going inwards. He had much , much less time for me ,for instance. One day he asked me for help with his TV. He said the picture was bad. I went up to see but to me the picture seemed perfect. I asked him what he saw when he looked at the scene and when he did I new their was something seriously wrong. I asked him if he had been to a Doctor and if not he should go so at once and describe his vision as changing. I just felt at this moment he was very ill, but I don;t think he ever did go to the Doctor. I didn't see him for some time was worried ,called the police and we found his dead in his bedroom. I can only say his face was a horror picture. I often think of him and pray for his soul but with no great hope. I have the strongest feeling he made his final inner radical commitment to the Dark Path in the period before his death. here was this Darkness about him that was never there before. Even when I went into his home I could feel it. He just reminded me that we are real people making real choices , that everything is not pink mists and perfumes.
When I was young it seems to me that our Catholic Faith was much more Masculine in hue. It think a firm belief in the reality of hell and Purgatory had a lot to do with this. If we truly believe that our choices have Eternal Consequences i is a Great Killer of Heresies. There would be lot less of, #I think , 'I feel' , thought and a lot more thought given to staying on the Rails of True Doctrine. There is Mercy it is true and fullness of Redemption. But there is also False Mercy, the Sin of Presumption which finds its Roots in Satan's Great Sin. Pride.
Well it is all down to our personal choice at the end. For most people though I believe they drift away and don't believe practice of faith has any great importance. I believe they get the grace through our prayers to realise God is real and we owe him everything. I think this realisation will change most
St Paul talks about, 'Th Mystery of Iniquity'. It really is a Mystery why people and angels choose hell. ..and no one goes to hell without choosing to be there. But they do. An entire Junior school was at mass this morning for their dead. I idly wondered wondered how many of them will wind up in hell. I am sure many, many of them will. St John Bosco was t prefect realist in this.
Yes things look very bleak at the moment but we hope in God's mercy & grace especially for family members. We need the warning. If it is delayed much more many more souls will be lost. I try to encourage my family to pray and always get my grandchildren to pray to their angels and to pray to Jesus & Mary. My family go to Mass every week but not all pray the rosary. It's a constant battle but I don't know what else to do other than praying for them and encourageing them
It's apparent that everyone with family is in the same dire state of seemingly helpless state of apostasy along with most clergy in the world. Yet, I will not let me own journey in the Lord be sour. It has helped me to pray more, pray better and worship with more focus at the Eucharistic feast. It has deepened my own faith life and I find myself praying for more things now then ever before. It will get very dark soon in our beloved church, so lets be the light that Cardinal Ratzinger spoke of coming 50 years ago, in his 1969 prophecy, to those in our midst who have hope and the joy of the Lord in us. https://ucatholic.com/blog/the-lost-prophecy-of-father-joseph-ratzinger-on-the-future-of-the-church/
I am into my 8th year of the 12 Year Prayers of St. Bridget, and part of the promises that are attached to it says that no one in the 4 successive generations of the soul that prays them will be lost. So, that’s what I am counting on. I’m not sure whether or not my spouse would be included in that, but I know my children are!
Wow! I never heard this before and I am a huge fan of her promises. I must look this one up/ Wonderful.
It took me about 2 years to memorize the prayers which made it much easier as you could say them while brushing your teeth and getting dressed in the morning! I did the 1 Year St. Bridget Prayers before I found out about the 12 year ones. Had I started the 12 year one back then I’d be finished already. But it is what it is and I hope to finish the 12 year prayers, although one of the promises is that if you die before getting to the end it’s as though you did the whole thing. So it’s a win- win thing!
we’d better pray they do! God, please show everyone mercy....even the ones with hearts of stone.....until they meet you+++
Most of us here gifted with faith and accepting it as truth are here to help others get to heaven too. We are all tied together in a mysterious way otherwise praying for other sinner and those in purgatory wouldn't continually be asked for by God. It's almost impossible to imagine a loved one ending up in hell and yourself in heaven but I am certain it can and does happen often. It reminds me of Gloria Polo's NDE where she meet her parents. Her mom a great Catholic woman and her dad a terrible moral sinner. It was revealed to her that her mother;s prayers for her husband saved his soul, but he wasn't in the same state of heaven she was, it was much lower. Perhaps he was still in purgatory or there are actually levels in Heaven. I believe there are. There are times I wonder if I am doing enough to warrant Heaven let alone helping others get there.
There are times I wonder if I am doing enough to warrant Heaven let alone helping others get there. We must be very careful when we contemplate this... this can be the crack where the devil can seep into our lives..we are very strong in our faith and he knows he cannot break us there, but he can make us doubt our effectiveness which can lead to despair...which can ultimately lead to our spiritual death. The strong will prevail...don't open doors to the unknown...God will show us and make us aware when we need to do more.
I love the words St Francis used to say to the brothers, 'Let us beging today'. If all my previous Spiritual Life has been a complete failure and I have been totally decieving myself, wel lthen, very well. I will throw myself into the arms of God's Mercy and begin today!!
Notice the vision is not only external but internal. These kids actually got to experience the reality of Hell themselves. Otherwise how could they dwell on the fact that hell is Eternal? They actually went there. Now Our Lady took these kids to hell. The Church , today, which is so much like our surrounding society would lock a woman up for a very, very long time for taking children to hell. But hell is the truth. The reality. Mary thought it better they should foresee the truth than to go there. Sigh. When was the last time I heard a sermon on hell? When I was very, very young. I suppose 50 years ago. A good priest who preached on hell today would be sent away by his Bishop in a straight jacket.
