Indulgences

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Growing up Catholic, I remember my dad’s prayer book. At the bottom of each prayer was a statement that said how many indulgences were granted for saying that prayer.

Can someone clear up the whole indulgence belief for me.
 
Indulgences are things you can do now that will lessen your time in purgatory. If someone is going to be damned, they have no effect.

Just little things to try to make up for things you’ve done wrong, they can be dedicated to another also.
 
That time in purgatory is caused by having effects of sin on your soul. They take away the temporal effects of sin. So if you cursed your neighbor yesterday, and you receive an indulgence today, not only is the sin forgiven, but your sould is rendered healed (I think this is how it can be explained) and the specific instance of sin will no longer be affecting you.

There is actually a process to gaining indulgences, and they can be earned for a dead person or for yourself.

One must be in a state of grace, and moreso, has to have confessed in the past couple of days. I think one must receive communion that day. One may not have sinned even venially that entire day. One must also ask for the intentions of the Pope (via the Our Father and a Hail Mary) and perform an act for the indulgence. One of these is 30 minutes of adoration. Another is the stations of the cross. And there are a few other ways for a full indulgence.

God bless,
Aaron
 
I took World Religions in college. I found this class to be very interesting. I wrote a term paper about the protestant reformation. Through my research I found that popes found indulgences to be very lucrative. So lucrative that Pope Leo X proclaimed his sale of indulgences to build St. Peter’s Basilica.

According to Marius author of Martin Luther The Christian Between Life and Death I quote, "In melancholy and terror before uncertainty and death, an anxious population flocked to any relief it could to get, and inkulgences were snapped up by the masses. With the profit, bisops often built new churches or repaired old ones.

The sale of indulgences really bothered Luther. So much in fact that he included several statements in his Ninety-five Theses.

I wrote a paper on the protestant reformation because I am a devout cradle Catholic who wanted to understand protestant view points.

Thanks!
 
They were abused at certain times in history, as I’m sure u found out.
 
For each step we take away from the Lord, we have one step more to bring us closer to him. Our goal is to align our steps with his, never out of step. Of course, we all fail. How do we bring our steps back in line with his? We pray. We fast. We give alms. We confess our sins and turn from our ways. We discern. We perform works of mercy. In other words, we live the life we are called to live. Each step we take in so doing brings us closer again to the Lord. The church, in realizing this, outlines specific ways that are known to help the faithful to head back towards the Lord. There are so so so many. One is prayer. Your father’s prayer book recognized this fact and pointed it out. When we know we’ve done wrong, we know the process to get us back. We seek out the Sacraments, the institutions of grace the Lord left us. We seek the Lord in prayer. We seek to humble ourselves before him and offer our sufferings to him. We help those less fortunate than ourselves. “Indulgences” are just a fancy title given to this concept of bringing our steps back into line with his.

Purgatory is a process of cleansing. Only perfection can enter the presence of the Lord. When we die without our steps in line with the Lord’s (but in a genuine attempt to head in that direction) we are cleansed of our sins. Some people believe purgatory is a place. Some believe it is outside time and space. Some believe it is instantaneous cleansing. Some believe it takes time. The church does not teach which is correct. We don’t know. We do know that God, in his providence, has provided a way to cleanse us of our sins to allow us to enter into his eternal presence. This we call purgatory. Or course, every step we bring ourselves closer to the Lord NOW will bring us ever closer LATER. Thus, if purgatory is in time or space it would limit the amount of cleansing necessary of our souls.

What does all this mean? It is a bunch of fancy words to say that we believe we should forever be bringing our steps in line with Christ’s through the ways he taught us.
 
Whether or not someone sold them, and whether or not someone bought them, they are gained, I think, by the grace of charitable intentions.

We do not receive papers for them anymore. We have faith that they are granted on high.

If it were so easy to buy your way into heaven, I think more would make themselves millionaires.

God bless,
Aaron
 
To add to that new question, I don’t think suffering equals grace. But a saintly life equals a better chance for Grace. If you participate in the sacraments regularly, stay away from sin, and do good charitable works, and finish your penance (this takes out the purgatory time too) you will have no worries.

St. Thomas Aquinas said that the way to become a saint is to will it.

On the other hand, if you are in purgatory, you know you are on your way up!

God bless!
Aaron
 
Can you give me an example of when an indulgence might be granted? Would this include helping the elderly, the poor?
 
As I had explained a bit ago, there are several steps to take to receive an indulgence. See the post three or four before this one. There is a conscious effort to gain an indulgence, not just an automatic indulgence.

Partial indulgences are more like what you’re asking about. Where you do something not prescribed, consciously.

If you complete your penance your purgatory will be lessend or gone, I am pretty sure. However, as far as gaining them for others, you have the task of consciously following the prescribed methods…I am pretty sure.

God bless,
Aaron
 
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Jocelyn:
Do our sufferings on earth lessen our time in purgatory?
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It depends on how you respond to them. Look at Job. He suffered greatly, but stood steadfast in his faith. On the other hand, if you chose to instead curse the darkness and turn your back on the Lord, the suffering would be because of your own personal decisions bringing them onto yourself. Every step you take leads you one way or the other. When you have a roadblock, you get to choose which way you will head. If you keep heading for the Lord, then you keep walking in his grace and bringing yourself ever closer to him. Suffering does provide us a unique opportunity to unite ourselves to the sufferings of Jesus on the cross, if we so wish.
 
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Forest-Pine:
It depends on how you respond to them. Look at Job. He suffered greatly, but stood steadfast in his faith. On the other hand, if you chose to instead curse the darkness and turn your back on the Lord, the suffering would be because of your own personal decisions bringing them onto yourself. Every step you take leads you one way or the other. When you have a roadblock, you get to choose which way you will head. If you keep heading for the Lord, then you keep walking in his grace and bringing yourself ever closer to him. Suffering does provide us a unique opportunity to unite ourselves to the sufferings of Jesus on the cross, if we so wish.
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Great clarification!
 
I want to clarify something that may have been mistated earlier in the thread. There is no “time” in Purgatory, so you don’t lessen your “time” there through Indulgences. When a prayer said that it had so many days of Indulgences attached to it, it meant that it was equal to that amount of time doing penances. It never meant that you would take away a certain amount of “days” in Purgatory.

Here is a link discussing misunderstandings about Indulgences, from this very website. Of particular note is this:
*Myth 5: An indulgence will shorten your time in purgatory by a fixed number of days.
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*The number of days which used to be attached to indulgences were references to the period of penance one might undergo during life on earth. The Catholic Church does not claim to know anything about how long or short purgatory is in general, much less in a specific person’s case.
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Peace and God bless!
 
There are a few confusions on this thread so I thought I would look it up on the Vatican’s web site so you could read it in their words. My comments are in red.

Maybe this quote from a document I got off the Vatican’s web site can help you:

"General Remarks On Indulgences
  1. This is how an indulgence is defined in the Code of Canon Law (can. 992) and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 1471): “An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven (the indulgence does not forgive sins, they have to be previously forgiven), which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints”.
  2. In general, the gaining of indulgences requires certain prescribed conditions (below, nn. 3, 4), and the performance of certain prescribed works (nn. 8, 9, 10 indicate those specific to the Holy Year).
  3. To gain indulgences, whether plenary or partial, it is necessary that the faithful be **in the state of grace ** (you can be in the state of grace even if you commit venial sins) at least at the time the indulgenced work is completed.
  4. A plenary indulgence can be gained only once a day. In order to obtain it, the faithful must, in addition to being in the state of grace:
— have the **interior disposition ** of complete detachment from sin, even venial sin; (this is like having the disposition to not want to commit any sin at all.)
— have sacramentally confessed their sins;
— receive the Holy Eucharist (it is certainly better to receive it while participating in Holy Mass, but for the indulgence only Holy Communion is required);
— pray for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff.
  1. It is appropriate, but not necessary, that the sacramental Confession and especially Holy Communion and the prayer for the Pope’s intentions **take place on the same day ** that the indulgenced work is performed; but it is sufficient that these sacred rites and prayers be carried out within several days (about 20) before or after the indulgenced act. Prayer for the Pope’s intentions is left to the choice of the faithful, but an “Our Father” and a “Hail Mary” are suggested. One sacramental Confession suffices for several plenary indulgences, but a separate Holy Communion and a separate prayer for the Holy Father’s intentions are required for each plenary indulgence.
  2. For the sake of those legitimately impeded, confessors can commute both the work prescribed and the conditions required (except, obviously, detachment from even venial sin).
  3. Indulgences can** always ** be applied either to** oneself or to the souls of the deceased**, but they cannot be applied to other persons living on earth.
 
Also, here is an analogy with which I learned about indulgences and the effects of sins when I was little. It worked pretty well to help me understand.

Our soul is like a wooden table. When we sin, we are hammering nails into that wooden table (our souls are no longer pure). When you do a valid confession, all the nails are removed from the table, but holes remain. The bigger sins leave bigger holes, the smaller leave smaller. When we die, our table has to go back to being without holes for eternity, so in purgatory we suffer to fill those holes up. Indulgences can help us fill up our own holes here on Earth or those of people that are already dead. Plenary indulgences fill up all of our holes and leave us with a table free of holes, while partial indulgences fill of some holes or fill them partially.
 
Beautiful analogy. Bishop Fulton Sheen used that in the 50s in one of his tv shows in explanation of indulgences to children…
 
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lifeisbeautiful:
  1. Indulgences can** always be applied either to oneself or to the souls of the deceased**, but they cannot be applied to other persons living on earth.
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Lifeisbeautiful,
Thank you for the document from the Vatican Website! I think that point number 7 may actually be better read as “normally always be applied to oneself”, because it is my understanding that the All Souls Day indulgence is only applicable to the Holy Souls in Purgatory.

What do you think? Is there a conflict here?
See ourladyswarriors.org/indulge/g67.htm for the Enchiridion of Indulgences section regard the All Souls Day indulgence.

VC
 
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