Protestant Guilt?

[EnglishTeacher]

Hm! I recall my old black missal - Latin on the left page, English on the right, with lay responses in bright red. Below many of the prayers, in small print and in parentheses (as I remember), would be printed such notations as ‘indulgence, 5 days’ or ‘indulgence, 10 days’. The indication clearly was that you would merit that many ‘points’ (less days in purgatory) if you prayed that particular prayer, or that you could use the points on behalf of loved ones in purgatory. Clearly, these prayers were seen as ‘good works’, winning such favor from God by praying them.

My post was addressing sacraments, not indulgences, because your post implied that sacraments are “good works” that we do to please God:

which is why so many Protestants give less attention to the sacraments - ‘works’ as opposed to faith.

As I mentioned before, the sacraments are grace from God–they are something that He does for us, not that we do for Him (although obviously we have to cooperate with that grace).