Indulgences? How its earned or given?

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In_Jesus_I_Trust

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I have a question about indulgence.
I know that by confession we are escaping hell,but we still need to be in purgatory before going to heaven.

How can we escape purgatory and earn indulgence?Is it by any prayer?Through rosary?

Example:If we were living in sin for a decade and we were just Catholic on paper,not practical or True one.We didnt know God at all and his Love and mercy,but after it we start to live Holy life(Not without sin,but trying to be Holy),should we escape purgatory or not?Should we earn indulgence or not?Through prayer and rosary?

What about Saints who were big sinners before repentance.Saint Paul is the most pooular of them, but there are others too.
St.Theresa Avila…
 
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In_Jesus_I_Trust said:
we still need to be in purgatory before going to heaven.
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God decides for each person at the time of their death whether purgatory is necessary. It’s not a given that every one of us is going to “need” to be there.
How can we escape purgatory
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You can’t be guaranteed of avoiding purgatory, but you can make your best effort.

Fr. Paul of Sullivan wrote a book called “How to Avoid Purgatory” which was a best seller.
Thanks to EWTN, you can read it online for free here.

St. Therese of Lisieux, a Doctor of the Church, also taught on how to avoid Purgatory. You can read St. Therese’s guidance here.
and earn indulgence? Is it by any prayer? Through rosary?
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To earn indulgences, simply follow the instructions in the current Manual of Indulgences, available for free online here:


Please note that if you follow the advice of St. Therese above, then you’ll give all your indulgences away to the Holy Souls and just throw yourself on God’s mercy for your own Purgatory avoidance.
Example:If we were living in sin for a decade and we were just Catholic on paper,not practical or True one.We didnt know God at all and his Love and mercy,but after it we start to live Holy life(Not without sin,but trying to be Holy),should we escape purgatory or not?Should we earn indulgence or not?Through prayer and rosary?
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As one who did all the things you mention and now earns indulgences and hopes to avoid Purgatory, I personally do all the stuff suggested in the above links I posted to you and I have great confidence that God will just take care of me in the best way. In short, I don’t worry about Purgatory any more for myself, only for getting other souls out of it.
What about Saints who were big sinners before repentance.Saint Paul is the most pooular of them, but there are others too.
St.Theresa Avila…
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They didn’t worry about their own Purgatory. They trusted God to take care of them and if God had willed them to go to Purgatory, they would have accepted it as being God’s will.

I would guess that they probably didn’t have to go to Purgatory, especially St. Paul as he was martyred for the faith and it is generally thought in the Church that martyrdom will send you straight to Heaven. That is why martyrs can be beatified without a miracle.
 
Thanks so much for the links and clear explanation ❤️ God Bless you.Cant wait to read this on the internet even if English isnt my mother toungue.
 
No problem. When I came back to the Church at first I didn’t worry about Purgatory, then one night I got thinking about it and I worried for a few weeks until St. Therese basically showed me the way to skip the whole thing, and Fr. O’Sullivan’s book added some new things to try.
I’ve not worried much for myself ever since.
But I pray every day for Souls in Purgatory and give them all my indulgences.

God bless
 
This question makes me think of when Ascension Presents addressed the question on “Is the Church sexist?” The answer given was that although women couldn’t become priests, there was nothing stopping them from becoming saints. Obviously, saint is higher than priest. By way of the same token, instead of asking how can one get indulgences, think of the bigger picture and ask “How can I lead my life as well as possible so that I don’t need to earn indulgences?” Coincidently, the time spent otherwise earning an indulgence for yourself can be spent praying for others in purgatory.
 
Daniel27 said:
By way of the same token, instead of asking how can one get indulgences, think of the bigger picture and ask “How can I lead my life as well as possible so that I don’t need to earn indulgences?” Coincidently, the time spent otherwise earning an indulgence for yourself can be spent praying for others in purgatory.
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Um, many people are earning indulgences not for themselves, but for the souls in purgatory. In many cases it’s for their family and friends. As I said above, I give all of mine away.

Also, many of the activities one does to get an indulgence involve praying, which can certainly be (and often is) a prayer for others in purgatory or for others on earth, or helping others in some other way such as by providing food for the hungry.

In addition to that, the indulgenced works such as saying Rosaries, doing Stations of the Cross, reading Scripture, etc. are activities that the Church wants to encourage in order to bring the person doing them closer to God. The indulgence is like a special bonus for doing something that it’s good for you to do anyway. Like I said, you can give it away. If you consecrated yourself to Mary as many of us do, then all your indulgences go to Mary anyway for distribution according to God’s will.

Why would you assume that people only earn indulgences for themselves?
That would just be silly and Jansenistic.

Why would someone “lead their life as well as possible so that they don’t need to earn indulgences?” If you’re leading your life as well as possible, you’re going to be praying and reading Scripture and so forth anyway, on a frequent basis. Why not earn the indulgence and give it to a poor soul in Purgatory as an extra work of mercy and showing of love for your fellow man?

It’s not an “either/or” as in “either I spend a half hour getting this indulgence OR I spend a half hour praying for a soul in Purgatory”.

You have an odd idea of indulgence practice.
 
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That Is so Great…I Will Pray that Lord Will help me to give all my indulgences for poor souls in purgatory.That is REAL LOVE.
 
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I was referring to earning indulgences for yourself, not indulgences as a whole
 
See, most of us who are really into indulgences aren’t earning them for ourselves.

Indulgence practice is being promoted in recent years by Fr Heilman and Susan Tassone and probably others. They all emphasize earning indulgences for the Holy Souls.
Probably to avoid the Jansenistic/ scrupulous / self centered pitfall you were kind of getting at.
And because everyone is also promoting Marian consecration, and if you do that you can’t keep indulgences for yourself anyway.

Most people have deceased friends and relatives they worry about so they’re really motivated about helping them.
 
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When a baptized person confesses mortal sin and come back into the state of grace, they are forgiven of the enternal punishment due to their sin. God may or may not forgive any temporal punishment that person has. If God does not remit the temporal punishment through Sacramental Confession, a perosn can have that punishmetn reduced or even completely remitted through pennance and indulgences. A partial indulgence is just something that when done in the state of grace, leads to some tempoal punishment being remitted. A Plenary indulgence, when recieved leads to all temporal punishment being remitted. Plenary indulgences usually are reccived in the following way: a person does an indulgenced work, goes to Confession (even if they are already in the state of grace), reccieves Holy Communion worthily, and is fully detatched from all venial and mortal sin. If any of these conditions are not fully met, then the person still reccieves an indulgence, but only a partial indulgence. You may run into writings that attatch time periods to indulgenced works. St. Paul VI supressed all indulgences previously availabe and replaced them with new ones. He added many indulgences. The Church no longer uses time periods for partial indulgences. All those indulgences were spressed unless His Holiness specifically stated otherwise. Even for those that were kept, the time periods attatched to them are no longer considered valid. Here is a link on indulgences from a great website: The Enchiridion of Indulgences - Prayers - Catholic Online
God bless
 
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