Offering mass for deceased relative after receiving plenary indulgence for them?

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Hi, why do people offer Mass for deceased family members even though they could receive plenary indulgence for them. It doesn’t make sense to me. If the temporal punishment is forgiven, then they should be in heaven therefore the Mass offering for them isn’t necessary or is it? Thanks.
 
ThoughtfulMind said:
Hi, why do people offer Mass for deceased family members even though they could receive plenary indulgence for them. It doesn’t make sense to me. If the temporal punishment is forgiven, then they should be in heaven therefore the Mass offering for them isn’t necessary or is it? Thanks.
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A plenery indulgance requires no attachment to sin. I will never be sufficiently confident that I have met that criterion and received the indulgance.
 
As far as I know you are suppose to “plan” (sorry I am not a native speaker so I can not think of better word) not to sin. Which is even required to have a valid confession. Therefore you dont believe you ever had valid confession, do you?
 
ThoughtfulMind said:
As far as I know you are suppose to “plan” (sorry I am not a native speaker so I can not think of better word) not to sin. Which is even required to have a valid confession. Therefore you dont believe you ever had valid confession, do you?
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With mortal sins I’m more confident and all I can do is confess and hope for the best.

With an indulgance I can do more and have Masses said so I would.
 
I listened to talks recently by Susan Tassone, the Purgatory Lady. She spoke about an accidental glory that gives us cause to continue to pray for souls, even though they may no longer be in purgatory.

Q: Why should we pray for the deceased?

A: No prayer is ever wasted with God. Even if we pray for deceased persons who have no need of further purification, the prayers are not unavailing. These prayers allow the deceased in heaven to receive an increase in their intimacy of God’s love and an increase in their own intercessory power. St. Thomas Aquinas called this “accidental glory.” The lesson is: Never stop praying for your dead. God is never outdone in generosity!

More here
 
Because there is no guarantee that one has indeed received a plenary indulgence for them.

Even with an Apostolic Pardon/Catholic Encyclopedia which is granted to the person at the last hour Indulgences at the point of death.

So not knowing how soon the person died after obtaining this indulgence, the person may have sinned between this moment and the actual moment of dying (sinned in thought), nor can we know the extent of their contrition for their sins throughout life, or whether all their confessions were valid or whether they did enough penance for their sins during their life - we can’t know for sure any of these factors. But we trust in God and hope the person is in purgatory on their way to Heaven. There are a lot of unknown factors concerning that persons spiritual life and the actual state of their soul when they died.

So a Mass is offered for them - and depending on whether we obtained for them a partial or plenary indulgence, the person may still be in purgatory - we just don’t know. We should never cease to pray for our deceased relatives and friends, and all the souls in purgatory including souls who no longer have anyone to pray for them.
 
If meeting the conditions for full plenary indulgences were so easy, we would have no need for Confession or to pray for the dead.
 
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