Ted Kennedy, Healthcare & Purgatory (the Anchoress)

First Things ^ | 8-26-09 | The Anchoress

[AnAmericanMother]

Purgatory isn't a "second chance". It is a cleansing of the taint of all sin (even little venial ones) because sin cannot stand in God's presence.

Even when your sins have been forgiven, there is a temporal punishment due in justice. God is merciful, but God is also just.

Read C.S. Lewis's comment on Purgatory posted above, also consider Cardinal Newman's Dream of Gerontius, which you can read here in its entirety.

There is a pleading in His pensive eyes
Will pierce thee to the quick, and trouble thee.
And thou wilt hate and loathe thyself; for, though
Now sinless, thou wilt feel that thou hast sinn'd,
As never thou didst feel; and wilt desire
To slink away, and hide thee from His sight:
And yet wilt have a longing aye to dwell
Within the beauty of His countenance.
And these two pains, so counter and so keen,—
The longing for Him, when thou seest Him not;
The shame of self at thought of seeing Him,—
Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory.

[Salvation]

A re-conversion for Senator Kennedy would have been to ask forgiveness for all his previous actions and receive the Sacraments as a result of that Confession/Annointing of the Sick.

Both healing sacraments.

[TheClintons-STILLAnti-American]

"A re-conversion for Senator Kennedy would have been to ask forgiveness for all his previous actions and receive the Sacraments as a result of that Confession/Annointing of the Sick."

Thanks for the explanation.

Personally I believe in one conversion, although I do believe in confessing our actions that dishonor God to Him.

[fishtank]

Thank you for both of your kind responses.

I was raised Roman Catholic and when I was in my early twenties I got saved when I was reading Ephesians chapter 1. I lost a wrestling match with God that day and he persuaded me that salvation is by grace through faith alone in the full sacrifice of Christ for my sins.

However, the idea of purgatory died a slow death with me, and I think it only did so when I read God’s Word cover to cover about seven times.

I’m not bragging about that, because I have not read his Word cover to cover since many years ago, which is quite regretful.

[AnAmericanMother]

I understand - we all have our own experiences (I am a refugee from the Horrible Episcopalians).

So consider (as Cromwell so memorably said) that you may have been imperfectly catechized or have a misunderstanding regarding your early teachings. Don't know how old you are, but if you were in CCD back in the 60s or 70s, many parishes fell prey to relativism and a desire to 'fit in' by being as 'mainstream' as possible. So a lot of folks were mis-instructed or not instructed at all.

Fwiw, not only is there Scriptural support for Purgatory (e.g., 1st Cor 3:15, 2nd Macc 12:43), but sacred tradition and the earliest writers of the Church confirm it - St. Augustine, Tertullian, Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria. Sacred tradition is present in all churches, Catholics just acknowledge it and conserve it.

And Purgatory does not conflict with salvation or the concepts of grace or faith -- it is simply a cleansing, the tree lies where it falls. Have you read C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce? Splendid book with some very illuminating thoughts on heaven, hell, and purgatory -- and Lewis was an Anglican.

[fortunecookie]

God knows more, and sees more, than the rest of us, because eventually we’ll all need to count on His mercy, as we face his justice.

Amen to that. We all count on His Mercy. He's in God's hands now.

[HighlyOpinionated]

As a Catholic, I’ll pray for the repose of his soul.

I think a lot of people are going to meet Mr Teddy Kennedy in their dreams, just like my father met Frank Sinatra in his dream. During Armed Forces Radio days in early 40’s, my Dad controlled the electronics and Frank kept missing his cue. My Dad just turned on the sound, it was Frank who kept messing up, but Frank got madder and madder at my Dad. Frank finally got so angry that he threw his cigarette lighter at my Dad (he missed). Then Frank got his cues right. Well, my Dad forgot all about it, because my Dad just isn’t one to hold a grudge against ANYone (sometimes even when I think he should). A few years ago, Dad had a dream and told me the story I just told you about Frank Sinatra and that Frank had appeared in a dream (a very vivid dream) and had apologized to my Dad for the incident. My Dad said that Frank’s apology was the first time he’d thought of the occasion since it’d happened. I told my Dad: You don’t necessarily believe in a place of Purging, but I do and old Frank will not be able to enter Heaven until he’s purged himself of all the unChrist-like actions during his life.

Now, some will play God and damn both Frank and Teddy to Hell. We can’t make that call. And I think it is a presumptuous sin for anyone to try to assign someone other than Satan and his fallen angels to the place God created solely for Satan and his angelic host.

New American Standard Bible (©1995) For my Catholic family
Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; Let them not rule over me; Then I will be blameless, And I shall be acquitted of great transgression.

King James Bible for my Protestant family members
Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

PS that was Psalm 19:13 I quoted above.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123086375678148323.html

Jan 2, 2009 WSJ article entitled How Support for Abortion Became Kennedy Dogma

[nanetteclaret]

Don’t forget the first major bill that Kennedy pushed through as a Senator was the Immigration Act of 1965. It did away with favoring immigrants from Europe to favoring immigrants from other parts of the world. Before that, illegal immigrants had been rounded up and sent back (Eisenhower had a program of rounding up “wetbacks”), but after his bill was pushed through, it became “politically incorrect.” Kennedy’s bill paved the way for our country being overrun by people who have no intention of ever assimilating into our American culture or learning our language. His bill exponentially sped up the destruction of America from within.

[fishtank]

On my Catholic education:

8 years Catholic grade school

4 years Catholic high school

weekly CCD classes by quite conservative Novus Ordo RCC priest

parents subscribed to National Catholic Register, the Wanderer, Fidelity and The Remnant, and I read them while growing up

my parents fought the Novus Ordo modernism tooth and nail and are now in the SSPX - I would politiely challenge you to ask them if they considered me to be inadequately catechized

I subscribed to Fidelity and Remnant in undergrad college and never stopped contending against modernism in the Catholic Church

---

Yes, on 1 Cor 3:15 and Maccabees, I was thoroughly catechized in those passages. “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment.” Heb 9:27

I got saved when God convinced me that only Christ’s death is acceptable as full payment for my sin.

[television is just wrong]

that pic is the one after he neglected to do the right thing with Mary Joe Kopechne. that is what is in my mind every time Mr Swimmer Kennedy comes up.

[AnAmericanMother]

Possible overreaction? (Sometimes the SSPX crowd do go a bit overboard, as do the sedevacantists. I had to advise my daughter at college against attending their chapel there, even though the local parish is Loony Jesuits. She has to drive 20 miles to get to an orthodox parish. Sometimes I swear the Catholics can be as bad as the Piskies, what with the High, Middle and Low . . . )

I wish it were possible for everybody to get just the right amount of catechesis, like Goldilocks.

Speaking seriously, I don't believe that it is Catholic teaching that Christ's sacrifice is NOT a "full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world". It doesn't appear that Purgatory has anything to do with that. And I for one will be exceedingly grateful for the opportunity to get cleaned up, whether (as another poster said) it takes a fuzzy cloth or a wire brush . . . or a sandblaster.

[AnAmericanMother]

That's an interesting story.

I wish I could remember the FReeper who told the story about her grandfather having passed away - he was a very good man and much loved but not particularly religious.

Her mother began having a vivid, repetitive dream in which her father was begging, "Get me out of here!" and she had no idea what it meant. It scared her. But she figured she ought to pray for her grandfather, and she did. Months later she asked her mother if she was still having the dream, and she said she had had another dream in which he basically said, "It's o.k. now."

Sort of thing that makes you go, hmmmmmmm.