Indulgences???

[jmcrae]

How are indulgences given? Does the church bless you with them when you’ve finished your penance. Or does God grant them.

God grants them. In most cases, at least in my case, nobody but me knows I have them. (And after a week or so when I have forgotten everything I did that week, only my Guardian Angel knows about them.)

 

[MALACHYONE]

indulgences are “get out of jail cards” for purgatory (well, more or less). when a sin is forgiven in the confessional, the guilt is wiped away, but not the temporal punishment. divine mercy allows for the healing of the sin, but divine justice demands reparation be made (this is why you do a penance after confession). moreover, the church has access to the spiritual treasuries of heaven, and so grants some of those treasures in the form of an indulgence, meaning that when you fulfil the conditions of an indulgence, the church hands you that get out of jail card. the punishment you owed to sin has been payed off by the church’s treasury- therfore you owe no purgatory time to make reparation for the sins, and thus justice is satisfied. there is a book called the handbook of indulgences, and it explains how to get them.

This is difficult theology to comprehend or belief. Thus faith. But, when and who gave the Church these treasures of heaven to pass out? Hard to get my mind around this.

 

[jmcrae]

This is difficult theology to comprehend or belief. Thus faith. But, when and who gave the Church these treasures of heaven to pass out? Hard to get my mind around this.

Jesus, on the Cross, by means of the blood and water poured out from His side.

 

[Linda_Marie]

A Primer on Indulgences by Jimmy Akin

From the Catechism

1. An indulgence is obtained through the Church who, by virtue of the power of binding and losing granted her by Christ Jesus, intervenes in favor of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishments due for their sins. Thus the Church does not want simply to come to the aid of these Christians, but also to spur them to works of devotion, penance, and charity (Indulgentarium Doctrina 5).

(bolding mine)
CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON INDULGENCES