Question for Catholics?

Question

I was at a catholic Church before in Las Vegas and I took a piece of the literature home with me in a creed, I think the "Nicene Creed" from the church the part after it said Jesus died...it said "He descended to hell...." I am utterly confused by this and asked the priest who explained to me but he had to get somewhere and I never grasped the meaning of this..how could Jesus descend into hell?

Answer 1

Jesus descended to the dead.
The Neither world or Hell.

Jesus opened the gates of Hell to release the Righteous ones from the grasp of the devil.

This website is a good place to ask questions to priests for correct information. http://www.askfather.net/

You'll find a wealth of information in reading other peoples questions and the answers that are given. I found out answers to questions I wouldn't have ever thought of.

God Bless You, ;-)

Answer 2

It was not hell in the way that you are thinking but a place of waiting for those souls who did not merit hell and yet could not enter Heaven as the gates were closed to mankind until Jesus came and opened it back to us. He went there to free these good souls and allow them to enter Heaven.

Answer 3

It means "sheol", a Hebrew word meaning the grave of mankind, the abode of the dead. The Greek equivalent is "Hades". English has no equivalent so we say "hell". Supposedly Jesus went there to release the righteous ones who died before his arrival and sacrifice. It was NOT the nasty place.

Answer 4

Hell=grave

Jesus went to the other side of the gulf that divides Paradise.
If it's too much, then just put it on the shelf for a while. Take care.

Answer 5

--Is Catholic--


If you look at the creed, the creed means all of hell, not simply Abraham's Bosom (the place where the righteous dead went). If you check the early Church Fathers, the teaching is clear that Christ went all the way to the deepest and darkest pits of hell. Why? Let me quote for you.

Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him - He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . "I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead." Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday

Do not [the Scriptures] show that the Lord preached the Gospel to those that perished in the flood, or rather had been chained, and to those kept ‘in ward and guard’?… And, as I think, the Saviour also exerts His might because it is His work to save; which accordingly He also did by drawing to salvation those who became willing, by the preaching [of the Gospel], to believe on Him, wherever they were. If, then, the Lord descended to Hades for no other end but to preach the Gospel, as He did descend, it was either to preach the Gospel to all or to the Hebrews only. If, accordingly, to all, then all who believe shall be saved, although they may be of the Gentiles, on making their profession there..St. Clement of Alexandria Stromateis 6, 6.

As the ruler of darkness could not approach the presence of the Light unimpeded, had he not seen in Him something of flesh, then, as soon as he saw the God-bearing flesh and saw the miracle performed through it by the Deity, he hoped that if he came to take hold of the flesh through death, then he would take hold of all the power contained in it. Therefore, having swallowed the bait of the flesh, he was pierced by the hook of the Deity and thus the dragon was transfixed by the hook...St. Gregory of Nyssa...The Homily on the Three-Day Period

When you hear that the Lord in the old days delivered souls from hell and prison and that He descended into hell and performed a glorious deed, do not think that all these events are far from your soul… So the Lord comes into the souls that seek Him, into the depth of the heart’s hell, and there commands death, saying: ‘Release the imprisoned souls which have sought Me and which you hold by force’. And He shatters the heavy stones weighing on the soul, opens graves, raises the true dead from death, brings the imprisoned soul from the dark prison… Is it difficult for God to enter death and, even more, into the depth of the heart and to call out dead Adam from there?… If the sun, being created, passes everywhere through windows and doors, even to the caves of lions and the holes of creeping creatures, and comes out without any harm, the more so does God and the Lord of everything enter caves and abodes in which death has settled, and also souls, and, having released Adam from there, [remains] unfettered by death. Similarly, rain coming down from the sky reaches the nethermost parts of the earth, moistens and renews the roots there and gives birth to new shoots....Spiritual Homilies 11

…He showed the way to salvation not only to us, but also to the spirits in hell; having descended, He preached to those once disobedient, as Peter says. For it did not befit for love of man to be partial, but the manifestation of [this] gift should have been extended to all nature… Having preached to the spirits in hell and having said ‘go forth’ to the prisoners, and ‘show yourselves to those in prison on the third day, He resurrected His temple and again opens up to our nature the ascent to heaven, bringing Himself to the Father as the beginning of humanity, pledging to those on earth the grace of communion of the Spirit. St. Cyril of Alexandria Festival Letters

Answer 6

Because Paul said he is cursed. Gal 3:13

Answer 7

There are several Churches in Vegas which are not Roman-Catholic but state that they are catholic.