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Did the Jews accept 2 Maccabees as scripture? Nope.

Can one pay cash for forgiveness of sins? Nope, for we read, “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

And now?

“24For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”

Of course, you can assume the payment made was for a blood offering that would make everything OK, but the whole scene of Jesus cleansing the Temple kinda puts a damper on that, too. Although I have no doubt that at one time, that passage was used to show paying for an indulgence was OK...

The real problem with Purgatory is not that it relies on a verse (or maybe 3) in the Apocryphal books to set up such a sweeping doctrine, but that it contradicts the finished work of Jesus Christ. Justification, in the New Testament, after the resurrection of Jesus, is spoken of in the past tense.

“And every [Jewish] priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected [past tense] for all time [not just the moment] those who are being sanctified.

And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
“This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds,”

then he adds,

“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.”

So NO! There is no cash payment, no good-deed doing, NOTHING left to do to secure our forgiveness of sin. Nothing but to believe in Jesus, for “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already”.

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” — Hebrews 10

No penance you do will win you merit with God, nor can any Mass performed or gift given to the Church win you merit with God. JESUS provides the merit to those who believe. And God says, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

Perhaps because I’m the father of two adopted kids, I would paraphrase Heb 10:14 as “For by a single offering he has adopted for all time those who are being made part of his family”. The kids I adopted couldn’t speak a word of English when I adopted them. They took a long time to start to act like their parents...but the adoption was once, for all time.

It is finished!

Maybe I'll address this in a rational manner tomorrow (which, after all, is when we pray for the souls in Purgatory --- not that we don't at other times, but Catholics are weird) but we are SO not communicating on this!

Yes. We're hip. At least I am. We are forgiven. Purgatory doesn't get us forgiveness. It couldn't. Forgiveness can't be "gotten" it's a free gift of God in Christ Jesus (Insert Alleluia here.)(Insert another Alleluia.)(Oh, go ahead, insert another Alleuia -- if you can't be happy about this, you're hopeless.)

The souls in Prugatory know they're forgiven and they rejoice. That's why Dante's Purgatory is such a lovely and happy poem -- he's presenting a lovely and happy doctrine. (Don't believe what you read in the funny papers. Don't e ven believe a fair amount of Catholic sermons. YES it would be WAY better not to go to Purqatory, as going straight to the banana split made with Haagen Daz and homemade hot fudge sauce beats having to eat our vegetables first. But if, as I hope, one day I find myself in Purgatory my first word will be "Alleluia!"

I promise I'll work some more on the eternity thing and on the Purgatory thing. There's got to be a way, not persuade, but to make contact on this.

This post is just an exuberant place holder. Serious thought (maybe -- to the extent, if any, that I am capable of thought) will come later.

At the time of Christ, there were Jews who read only the five books of Moses as scripture (the Sadducees), Jews who read only the books of Moses plus the Prophets, and Jews who read the entire Old Testament canon plus several books which not even Catholics include. There were no groups of Jews which read the entire Protestant canon, and only the Protestant Canon. The Catholic canon consists of those books which had been translated into Greek for the benefit of Jews living in diaspora.

After the destruction of the Temple, the Jews decided that they had to agree on a set canon. The reason that they did not include the book of 2 Maccabees is that it argued for a resurrection of the body, and seemed to suggest an imminent arrival of the Messiah. These notions were blamed for causing the Christian movement, which the Jews in turn blamed for their destruction, so they were removed from the bible. (There was a false notion at the time of Luther that 2 Maccabees had been a Greek book; we now have pre-Christian, Hebrew manuscripts.)

Regardless of whether 2 Maccabees was read by Jews as scripture, it offers historical proof that notions such as participatory atonement, purgation, and the Resurrection of the Dead were already held as truth, before the Catholic Church, since manuscripts of 2 Maccabees are older than Christ.