Indulgences - and the usual conditions

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To get an indulgence, there is two parts:
  1. the indulgenced action
  2. the usual conditions - confession, eucharist, pray for Pope’s intentions.
Does each indulgenced action must have one set of usual conditions to count for indulgence?

Or can I combine multiple indulgenced actions with one set of usual conditions?

Example: Holy door, read scripture for an hour = 2 partial indulgences with one set of usual conditions or only 1 partial indulgence?

(note: I’m assuming I’m getting the partial one, I’m nowhere near perfect enough for a plenary one)
 
BobCatholic said:
To get an indulgence, there is two parts:
  1. the indulgenced action
  2. the usual conditions - confession, eucharist, pray for Pope’s intentions.
Does each indulgenced action must have one set of usual conditions to count for indulgence?

Or can I combine multiple indulgenced actions with one set of usual conditions?

Example: Holy door, read scripture for an hour = 2 partial indulgences with one set of usual conditions or only 1 partial indulgence?

(note: I’m assuming I’m getting the partial one, I’m nowhere near perfect enough for a plenary one)
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It’s a little bit of both. The Norms for Indulgences states:

23.2 Several plenary indulgences may be gained on the basis of a single sacramental confession; only one may be gained, however, on the basis of a single Eucharistic communion and prayer for the pope’s intentions.

Note, this is for plenary indulgences. Those three conditions are not required for receiving a partial indulgence.
 
Joe_5859 said:
Those three conditions are not required for receiving a partial indulgence.
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Are you sure? I saw this part:
23 (d) If a person is not fully disposed or if the prescribed work and the three mentioned conditions are not fulfilled, the indulgence will only be partial
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and
From the ENCHIRIDION OF INDULGENCES
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N. 7. To acquire a plenary indulgence it is necessary to perform the work to which the indulgence is attached and to fulfill three conditions : sacramental confession, Eucharistic Communion and prayer for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff. It is further required that all attachment to sin, even to venial sin, be absent.
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If this disposition is in any way less than complete, or if the Prescribed three conditions are not fulfilled, the indulgence will only be partial, except for the provisions contained in No. 11 for those who are “impeded.”
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So yeah, it looks like what you’re saying:
 
So that I may be the Debbie Downer, I will go ahead with it.

Others may get into complicated actions where they do this, that and the other and it will somehow help them in Purgatory. Maybe it will, and the things may be wonderful things to do. To me it sounds like we are playing Let’s Make a Deal or something. Quid pro quo.

It just sounds a teeny bit too much like hocus-pocus follow the recipe for the brew and the spirits will be pleased. Like get out the old spell book and take x-years off your Purgatorial visit. Maybe it is interesting symbolically, and the alleged indulgences are motivational and that’s all good, but I claim that all of these formulas can be done with a heart devoid of love. Yes they may be good, but they don’t prove love – 1 Cor 13 alone testifies to that. All the works and words in the world can be completely hollow and without value, so why would the indulgence formulations be any different?

Is it some kind of penance? Like the prayers themselves are supposed to be transformative? If that’s the case then why all the gyrations about indulgences, why not just have the formulations as a prayer regimen and quit trying to make deals with God?

I may be totally wrong.
 
Mystical_Seeker said:
So that I may be the Debbie Downer, I will go ahead with it.

Others may get into complicated actions where they do this, that and the other and it will somehow help them in Purgatory. Maybe it will, and the things may be wonderful things to do. To me it sounds like we are playing Let’s Make a Deal or something. Quid pro quo.

It just sounds a teeny bit too much like hocus-pocus follow the recipe for the brew and the spirits will be pleased. Like get out the old spell book and take x-years off your Purgatorial visit. Maybe it is interesting symbolically, and the alleged indulgences are motivational and that’s all good, but I claim that all of these formulas can be done with a heart devoid of love. Yes they may be good, but they don’t prove love – 1 Cor 13 alone testifies to that. All the works and words in the world can be completely hollow and without value, so why would the indulgence formulations be any different?

Is it some kind of penance? Like the prayers themselves are supposed to be transformative? If that’s the case then why all the gyrations about indulgences, why not just have the formulations as a prayer regimen and quit trying to make deals with God?

I may be totally wrong.
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Indulgences are an extension of the authority that Christ gave to the Apostles and their successors: “What you bind on earth is bound in heaven; what you loose on earth is loosed in heaven.”

Sin has two consequences: eternal (i.e. everlasting) and temporal (i.e. last only for a time). The Sacrament of Confession wipes away the eternal consequences, and indulgences chip away at the temporal consequences.

It’s not magic. Every indulgence has to do with prayer. And when we pray, we draw closer to the Lord and grow in holiness. And we start to make restitution for all of our sins. The Church gives us indulgences not as a way for us to trick God into letting us into heaven but rather to give the faithful sure access to grace. That doesn’t mean we can just go through the motions and expect stellar results. We have to be open to the Lord.

If we believe that God gave mere men the ability to administer His forgiveness of the eternal consequences of sin in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, it’s not really a stretch to imagine He would give them the authority to determine how the temporal consequences can be diminished or removed. Frankly, that’s a lot easier than the forgiveness of sins.
 
Thank you for the information.

But what exactly is an indulgence? This entity the Church has the authority to give?

First, I agree there is purpose and value to the prayers; I’m not questioning that.

What I’m questioning is, what precisely is an “indulgence” in terms of what is different compared to if the person said the same prayers and did the same things for the same intentions? If the ones receiving the indulgences are dead then they have not gone through the same process as the person who actually did the prayer. This is one place the “magic” seems to appear. Someone said these prayers and I get cuts in the line or something, or that somehow God can be more efficient with the processing of this soul because of an activity performed by living humans on behalf of themselves or the dead.

I guess what is the actual substance supposed to be? I want to be in Purgatory exactly as long as God takes to heal me and if other people praying for my process to go faster is actually causal to that happening, that’s the spooky stuff I’m talking about. Not to say that it couldn’t happen; from a particle physics point of view just about any “spooky action at a distance” (Einstein’s term) that is beyond our notice could conceivably be mediated by some kind of bosons; maybe that’s where some of the “dark energy” is – literally the Cloud of the Unknowing because it is not directly observable.
 
Mystical_Seeker said:
Thank you for the information.

But what exactly is an indulgence? This entity the Church has the authority to give?

First, I agree there is purpose and value to the prayers; I’m not questioning that.

What I’m questioning is, what precisely is an “indulgence” in terms of what is different compared to if the person said the same prayers and did the same things for the same intentions? If the ones receiving the indulgences are dead then they have not gone through the same process as the person who actually did the prayer. This is one place the “magic” seems to appear. Someone said these prayers and I get cuts in the line or something, or that somehow God can be more efficient with the processing of this soul because of an activity performed by living humans on behalf of themselves or the dead.

I guess what is the actual substance supposed to be? I want to be in Purgatory exactly as long as God takes to heal me and if other people praying for my process to go faster is actually causal to that happening, that’s the spooky stuff I’m talking about. Not to say that it couldn’t happen; from a particle physics point of view just about any “spooky action at a distance” (Einstein’s term) that is beyond our notice could conceivably be mediated by some kind of bosons; maybe that’s where some of the “dark energy” is – literally the Cloud of the Unknowing because it is not directly observable.
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We can pray indulgences for those who have died because of our connection to each other as part of one human family (just as we might pray for other people who are alive).

The reason we can offer an indulgence for someone in Purgatory is because we know they are in the necessary state to receive it. They are bound for heaven, not hell.

The Catechism goes into Indulgences on paragraphs 1471-1479.
 
Interesting note regarding prayer for the dead from Pope Benedict XVI-- this is off topic for an indulgence for a person who is has left this pilgrimage here in a state of grace …in the state of true life in Christ…and who is being purified more prior to entry into heaven… is more than just my prayer…it involves the Church etc…as has been explained…but I offer it anyhow for it is a beautiful quote:

“The belief that love can reach into the afterlife, that reciprocal giving and receiving is possible, in which our affection for one another continues beyond the limits of death—this has been a fundamental conviction of Christianity throughout the ages and it remains a source of comfort today. Who would not feel the need to convey to their departed loved ones a sign of kindness, a gesture of gratitude or even a request for pardon? Now a further question arises: if “Purgatory” is simply purification through fire in the encounter with the Lord, Judge and Saviour, how can a third person intervene, even if he or she is particularly close to the other? When we ask such a question, we should recall that no man is an island, entire of itself. Our lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve. And conversely, my life spills over into that of others: for better and for worse. So my prayer for another is not something extraneous to that person, something external, not even after death. In the interconnectedness of Being, my gratitude to the other—my prayer for him—can play a small part in his purification. And for that there is no need to convert earthly time into God’s time: in the communion of souls simple terrestrial time is superseded. It is never too late to touch the heart of another, nor is it ever in vain.”

w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi.html
 
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