Indulgence Requirements

[April]

Hopefully in right category. Here is my question… I need clarification on requirements for indulgences… And I mean CLEAR , lol. I am new to the Faith but have an understanding of what indulgences are, just very fuzzy on requirements. In the morning, I say my Morning Offering, Pray for Holy Pontiff, and state my intentions for indulgences. I say an Act of Contrition for my venial sins, THEN, I Bless myself with Holy Water. I can only receive Communion on Sundays and maybe Wednesday s. So, am I set to receive my one Plenary for the day? And the partials for the Holy Souls in purgatory? Please don’t be ugly to me in comments, I really am trying to understand how to do this with a loving heart because I have wounded my Love with sins in my life of which I have made a FULL and looooong first confession for.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I am copying and pasting Fr. Richard Heilman’s step-by-step instructions for getting a plenary indulgence, for you to follow. I hope this helps.
Please note that because you need one Holy Communion per plenary indulgence, then if you can only receive Communion twice per week, you can only get two plenary indulgences per week.

Here’s a scenario for gaining a plenary indulgence today …

CONDITIONS

First, I have the conditions in place:

1. I’m in a state of grace.
2. I’ve gone to Confession within 20 days (before or after today).
3. Going to Mass and receiving Communion today.
4. I prayed an Our Father and a Hail Mary for the pope’s intentions.
5. I have not let any sin(s) defeat me, by hanging on to it. In other words, at my last confession, I made my confession with a truly “contrite” spirit … meaning, I did NOT confess my sins, while saying to myself something like, “… even though I know I will do this again” or, “… even though I am confessing that I am angry with this person, I am not letting go of that anger.”

DOING THE WORK

Okay, now that the conditions (above) are in place … now I simply need to choose which of the four activities the Church allows on any given day for gaining a plenary indulgence. I call these the “Big Four:”

*Adoring the Blessed Sacrament for at least one half hour
*Devoutly reading Sacred Scripture for at least one half hour
*Devoutly performing the Stations of the Cross (only at approved Stations)
*Reciting the Rosary with members of the family, or in a church, oratory, religious community, or pious association

You do one of the above four activities, and you have a plenary indulgence, assuming you have met all the conditions.
If you do one of the above four activities, but don’t satisfy all the conditions, it will be a partial indulgence.

There are other ways to get plenary indulgences on certain days of the year only or associated with certain activities (like a three-day retreat), but if you are just starting out then you probably want to begin by using one of the four activities, as you can use them on any day of the year and don’t need to worry about a specific day.

There are lots of other prayers you can say and things you can do (like giving your time or money to the poor for their basic needs) to get a partial indulgence; please check in the latest Handbook of Indulgences (also called the Manual of Indulgences or the Enchiridion of Indulgences) for the full list.

 

[April]

Ok, so only one or two plenary per week for me in my current circumstances because of communion. Now, what about partial? Does communion effect those?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Communion does not affect partial indulgences to my knowledge. You should be able to get as many of those as you want per day. If you wish to give them to the poor souls, simply have the intention of doing so. A lot of us mention this in our Morning Offering or some other prayer that we say every day.