Prayers from hell and other places?

Started by gsas, October 22, 2019, 03:04:22 PM

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gsas

Is it true, that God doesn't accept prayers from hell?  But when I ask a priest, he says that we are never completely removed from God.  So, can one pray from hell?

Also, is it true that the Bible says somewhere that after death nobody can pray more than who was never born?  But then how do all the saints pray? 

So in short, can you pray to God from hell or from anywhere after your death?

Stubborn

Quote from: gsas on October 22, 2019, 03:04:22 PM
So in short, can you pray to God from hell or from anywhere after your death?

The people in hell hate God, they do not pray to God, if they did, which they won't, but if they did, God would never hear their prayers.

Even after a long life of sin, if the Christian receives the Sacrament of the dying with the appropriate dispositions, he will go straight to heaven without having to go to purgatory. - Fr. M. Philipon; This sacrament prepares man for glory immediately, since it is given to those who are departing from this life. - St. Thomas Aquinas; It washes away the sins that remain to be atoned, and the vestiges of sin; it comforts and strengthens the soul of the sick person, arousing in him a great trust and confidence in the divine mercy. Thus strengthened, he bears the hardships and struggles of his illness more easily and resists the temptation of the devil and the heel of the deceiver more readily; and if it be advantageous to the welfare of his soul, he sometimes regains his bodily health. - Council of Trent

Gardener

The damned do not pray, but curse.

Where in scripture are you seeing the other question? Context and actual phrasing would help.

The departed can pray if in purgatory or heaven, but not hell.
"If anyone does not wish to have Mary Immaculate for his Mother, he will not have Christ for his Brother." - St. Maximilian Kolbe

gsas

The second question is because of what I saw on TV, I am not sure if it is actually Biblical but they said it was.  The first question is now made more interesting by your replies.  What prevents God from hearing prayers from hell if those prayers ever existed?

Gardener

They don't pray. There's nothing for God to hear, since they don't do it. One might as well ask what cold fire would be like, or dry water.
"If anyone does not wish to have Mary Immaculate for his Mother, he will not have Christ for his Brother." - St. Maximilian Kolbe

Matto

Quote from: Gardener on October 22, 2019, 03:32:32 PM
The damned do not pray, but curse.

Where in scripture are you seeing the other question? Context and actual phrasing would help.

The departed can pray if in purgatory or heaven, but not hell.

The rich man in Luke 16 prays to Abraham from hell. Perhaps hell is different after the ascension.
I Love Watching Butterflies . . ..

Gardener

Quote from: Matto on October 22, 2019, 05:46:38 PM
Quote from: Gardener on October 22, 2019, 03:32:32 PM
The damned do not pray, but curse.

Where in scripture are you seeing the other question? Context and actual phrasing would help.

The departed can pray if in purgatory or heaven, but not hell.

The rich man in Luke 16 prays to Abraham from hell. Perhaps hell is different after the ascension.

Solid counterpoint. I'll have to research that aspect.
"If anyone does not wish to have Mary Immaculate for his Mother, he will not have Christ for his Brother." - St. Maximilian Kolbe

Stubborn

Quote from: Matto on October 22, 2019, 05:46:38 PM
Quote from: Gardener on October 22, 2019, 03:32:32 PM
The damned do not pray, but curse.

Where in scripture are you seeing the other question? Context and actual phrasing would help.

The departed can pray if in purgatory or heaven, but not hell.

The rich man in Luke 16 prays to Abraham from hell. Perhaps hell is different after the ascension.
That is a parable, one the Fathers say can never happen and was used strictly for the purpose of the lesson - although for a time, some of the Fathers speculated the rich man was in purgatory rather then hell, but they themselves soon found that they could not make sense of that idea.

The damned in hell suffer forever, they hate God with a deep, eternal hatred, they can't even mention His name they hate Him so much, they hate the sacraments, they hate the Church and everybody in it, all they can do is hope that while in this life that their sins influenced their relations and others so that they too end up in hell.

They want everyone to join them in hell. Next to their pains and suffering, the only thing they want is to defeat God by getting the whole world into hell. They know they will never leave hell, they know they will remain in hell forever because they are disembodied spirits and have perfect knowledge of their sins and their eternity and why they are where they are.

The souls in purgatory can pray to God for us after they get to heaven. I think, as members of the Church Suffering, that He hears their prayers from purgatory, but I don't remember ever hearing anything on that taught by the Church.

Limbo is said to be a place of perfect happiness but they will never see God. Limbo is the place where the souls of unbaptized babies spend their eternity, and if there are any unbaptized souls over the age of reason who died without mortal sin on their souls, this is where they too spend their eternity. If these were to pray, God would not hear their prayers either.
Even after a long life of sin, if the Christian receives the Sacrament of the dying with the appropriate dispositions, he will go straight to heaven without having to go to purgatory. - Fr. M. Philipon; This sacrament prepares man for glory immediately, since it is given to those who are departing from this life. - St. Thomas Aquinas; It washes away the sins that remain to be atoned, and the vestiges of sin; it comforts and strengthens the soul of the sick person, arousing in him a great trust and confidence in the divine mercy. Thus strengthened, he bears the hardships and struggles of his illness more easily and resists the temptation of the devil and the heel of the deceiver more readily; and if it be advantageous to the welfare of his soul, he sometimes regains his bodily health. - Council of Trent

james03

QuoteThe rich man in Luke 16 prays to Abraham from hell. Perhaps hell is different after the ascension.

Abraham was in hell at the time.  This was before Jesus opened Heaven.
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

St.Justin

Quote from: james03 on October 23, 2019, 08:28:11 AM
QuoteThe rich man in Luke 16 prays to Abraham from hell. Perhaps hell is different after the ascension.

Abraham was in hell at the time.  This was before Jesus opened Heaven.

Abraham was in Patristic Limbo at the time.  This was before Jesus opened Heaven.
The Rich man was in the real hell.
Some of the fathers do say that Limbo is a part of hell but without the suffering.

Gardener

Semantics, perhaps, since hell of the damned is what we modernly refer to as hell, but technically hell is the underworld and the Limbo of the Fathers was part of that.

More to the point though, the counterpoint was that someone in hell (of the damned) seems to have prayed. That's irrespective of the location of the entity prayed to.
"If anyone does not wish to have Mary Immaculate for his Mother, he will not have Christ for his Brother." - St. Maximilian Kolbe

james03

Ultimately it's a parable.  It didn't happen. 

If we want to get in the weeds, you have a conversation between people in hell.  The rich man didn't pray to God.
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

gsas

Wow, so 98 % of children are destined to go to hell automatically, pre-arranged at birth, because every country has Church membership down to 2 % these days.  And even if you are in the Limbo, given eternity you will have enough time to mess up and end up in the real hell with all the sufferings.  Bravo humanity: God 0 - satan 1?  So we are not created for the purpose of fellowship with God, but for the purpose of suffering in hell, and consequently we can now say with 98 % confidence, that creation itself is a mortal sin.

Stubborn

Quote from: gsas on October 23, 2019, 11:17:21 AM
Wow, so 98 % of children are destined to go to hell automatically, pre-arranged at birth, because every country has Church membership down to 2 % these days.  And even if you are in the Limbo, given eternity you will have enough time to mess up and end up in the real hell with all the sufferings.  Bravo humanity: God 0 - satan 1?  So we are not created for the purpose of fellowship with God, but for the purpose of suffering in hell, and consequently we can now say with 98 % confidence, that creation itself is a mortal sin.

Always remember that those who are lost are lost because they will. No one is saved against his will and no one is damned against his will.

"Before man is life and death, good and evil, that which he shall choose shall be given him." Eccl 15:18
Even after a long life of sin, if the Christian receives the Sacrament of the dying with the appropriate dispositions, he will go straight to heaven without having to go to purgatory. - Fr. M. Philipon; This sacrament prepares man for glory immediately, since it is given to those who are departing from this life. - St. Thomas Aquinas; It washes away the sins that remain to be atoned, and the vestiges of sin; it comforts and strengthens the soul of the sick person, arousing in him a great trust and confidence in the divine mercy. Thus strengthened, he bears the hardships and struggles of his illness more easily and resists the temptation of the devil and the heel of the deceiver more readily; and if it be advantageous to the welfare of his soul, he sometimes regains his bodily health. - Council of Trent

gsas

Quote from: Stubborn on October 23, 2019, 11:28:25 AM
Quote from: gsas on October 23, 2019, 11:17:21 AM
Wow, so 98 % of children are destined to go to hell automatically, pre-arranged at birth, because every country has Church membership down to 2 % these days.  And even if you are in the Limbo, given eternity you will have enough time to mess up and end up in the real hell with all the sufferings.  Bravo humanity: God 0 - satan 1?  So we are not created for the purpose of fellowship with God, but for the purpose of suffering in hell, and consequently we can now say with 98 % confidence, that creation itself is a mortal sin.

Always remember that those who are lost are lost because they will. No one is saved against his will and no one is damned against his will.

"Before man is life and death, good and evil, that which he shall choose shall be given him." Eccl 15:18

So now I am confused, why would a man's choices be immune from the games of the devil when everything else is not?  God gives everyone the body and the necessary provisions for life, and we see it every day everywhere how the devil harvests all of these before they even reach the intended recipient human.  So, why would the choices and the free will be any different?