This post of Gerard’s brought on quite a few comments. I think, my first comment to this post of Gerard’s was this one:
“Gerard, your imaginary ‘obituary’ shows your great imagination and humor! It is so humorous, that I made me laugh instantly.
But then I thought a bit more about it, why is it that ‘obituaries’ nearly always deal only with the ‘good’ things a person has done during a life-time?
It leads me to what I call my ‘personal’ belief about ‘Jesus’. I am not sure, whether I am a sort of ‘odd’ Catholic convert. I really do not have a lot of contact to other Catholics. I do not want to go into the reason for that. It is really another subject I would have a lot to say about . . . .
So, at age 40 I became a Catholic convert!
I was attracted by everything that related to what Jesus is supposed to have said.
He said, something like that if a great sinner (for instance someone who did commit murder) if this ‘mortal’ sinner is truly sorry for having done such a horrible sin, Jesus says, In this case a forgiveness of this sin can be granted!
I find the ‘Hail Mary’ Prayer has great faith value!
The first part of the Prayer says how blessed Mary is.
The second part of the Hail Mary goes like this:
Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
Pray for us Sinners,
Save us from the Fires of Hell,
And bring all Souls to
Heaven, especially those
That most need thy mercy. Amen
The Catholic belief, as far as I know, is that every person can become as wholesome as Jesus at death’s door, and then go straight to ‘Heaven’ so to speak. So when a person is dead and has regretted every bit of ‘Wrongdoing (Sin)’ then this person is totally blame-free, meaning nothing bad at all should be said about this deceased person!
Church people, that tend to threaten a mortal Sinner, as for instance
a murderer, with everlasting ‘Hell’ in my view do not act the way the (imaginative) ‘Jesus’ would have acted towards a ‘mortal’ Sinner!
The way, I imagine Jesus, he would have talked gently towards this person who committed a very grave Sin! Probably in most cases, there would not have been an instant forgiveness, but some urging to do a lot of ‘penance’!
When you do ‘penance’, you try extremely hard, to lead a life of a kind of self-sacrifice to make up for the very great wrong of mortal Sin!
Now to Mary, who is called ‘Mother of God’: This, to my mind wholly imaginary ‘Mother of God’, is just someone, that can pray for us so much better than we can ever be praying for ourselves!
In the Hail Mary Prayer, we think especially about those who do need most this special kind of mercy, so are in need of a lot of prayer!
My feeling is, that it is quite alright, ‘to speak only well’ about the deceased.
However, somebody who says on his deathbed that it was right that it was right to murder a person because that person is from a different race, how a person like this can ever be forgiven – – – – Well, I do not have an answer to this.
What I write here, are my personal feelings.
At this stage, I do just express my personal belief!
I do not claim, that my interpretations about ‘Belief’ are of general value: Really, not at all!
I assume, to be able to talk more sufficiently about the subject of belief, would, for sure, require some proper studying!”
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My other comments, to what Gerard published, I might publish soon as a follow-up!
AuntyUta 