Senator Ted Kennedy *sigh*

The *sigh* is because this just isn't a topic I want to blog about. It's the type of thing I'd more like to discuss in person with small groups, perhaps while having tea. But I know that people will wonder what I think, so here it is.

First of all, people are saved by grace (through faith) not works. So you can forget all the fund raising, the caring nice guy, etc regarding whether he achieves heaven or not. Being a good charitable Christian is expected of a Christian, not a check off list for salvation. Faith and God given grace are required for entry to heaven.

For those who do not understand the faith vs. works issue, here's a simple analogy. Millions of believers have achieved heaven who have never had the financial means to perform "good deeds" as people refer to them today. It's only the modern mindset that thinks that donations and legislation for "good causes" issues a "get in heaven easy pass." Millions and millions of people who have lived during the past thousand years by scratching the fields with a stick and keeping their families from starving have achieved heaven without "good deeds" because they had belief and faith in the one God, through Jesus Christ. I hope that helps you to understand that if you really honor the poor, you recognize that entry into heaven is for the poor who believe but who are unable to "perform good deeds," "fund raise" or "lobby for good causes."

Having said that, as I've repeatedly said, God has provided a means for genuine confession and repentance for sins. Only the Senator's confessor knows the status of his completeness in availing himself of that process, instituted and promised by Jesus Christ himself. Denying him a church funeral Mass would be churlish and wrong, assuming a knowledge that one simply does not possess, which is between him and God, and witnessed by his confessor priest.

My far greater worry is that many men and women of influence, in politics, government and law enforcement, have accepted assistance in their office from providers of false idols (money) and those who practice occult beliefs (influence). If Senator Kennedy has tainted his Roman Catholic beliefs with either idolatry or occult beliefs, even if he did "only a little of it," that would, of course, put him in a very precarious position with God. I really hope that he neither did this, but frankly, so many do and are in dire peril of their souls, and thus I also hope that if he did that he genuinely repented and confessed before his passing.

RIP.