Question on partial Rosary indulgences

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Cataleya

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I know what the requirements are for getting a plenary indulgence using a Rosary. But I was wondering if anyone knows…if I pray the Rosary at home by myself can I still get a partial indulgence? And does it have to be a blessed Rosary?
 
Cataleya said:
I know what the requirements are for getting a plenary indulgence using a Rosary. But I was wondering if anyone knows…if I pray the Rosary at home by myself can I still get a partial indulgence? And does it have to be a blessed Rosary?
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I think for Rosary it had to be public prayer, I do know if you read Sacred Scripture for half an hour you could get a partial of full indulgence with usual conditions.
 
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Cataleya said:
if I pray the Rosary at home by myself can I still get a partial indulgence?
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Normally, yes, you get a partial for saying the Rosary by yourself at home.

However, since March the Vatican has had a special decree in place that if you pray the Rosary “to implore from Almighty God the end of the [COVID] epidemic, relief for those who are afflicted and eternal salvation for those whom the Lord has called to Himself” you get a plenary under the usual conditions. If you cannot fulfill the “usual conditions” of Communion or confession due to COVID then you must just have the will to fulfill those conditions as soon as possible. For this plenary, it is okay if you say the Rosary by yourself in your home.
And does it have to be a blessed Rosary?
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No.
 
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OurLadyofSorrows said:
I think for Rosary it had to be public prayer
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No, under normal circumstances you can receive a plenary for reciting the Rosary out loud with a family group or with any group gathered for a pious purpose, even if you’re not in a public place. So if you say the Rosary out loud with your spouse or child or friend in your home you both can get the plenary. You can also get the plenary by devoutly joining in with the Pope’s live broadcast of the rosary.

Normally (in non-COVID times) you get a partial for saying the Rosary in any other circumstances, which would include saying a Rosary by yourself in a private place like your home.

Since March the Vatican has gone even further and allowed people to get a plenary for reciting the Rosary for the stated intentions regarding COVID-19 that I listed above, even if they are alone in their homes.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
No, under normal circumstances you can receive a plenary for reciting the Rosary out loud with a family group or with any group gathered for a pious purpose, even if you’re not in a public place. So if you say the Rosary out loud with your spouse or child or friend in your home you both can get the plenary. You can also get the plenary by devoutly joining in with the Pope’s live broadcast of the rosary.
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Yep. that is what I meant by public prayer, praying out loud with others.

In regards to normal times, would you have that link to the pdf that you normally post.
Thanks.

Also for the Covid plenaries, thanks
 
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This is great, thank you! I am already praying Rosary at home so I was curious if instead of asking for graces, I could just put the intention into getting a partial indulgence and doing it like that. I tried googling it but it was really confusing. Baby Catholic here 🙂
 
Graces and indulgences are two different things.

You will always get graces by praying. Graces come from God.

An indulgence is a separate benefit given by the Church, not by God directly. Indulgences reduce the temporal punishment for forgiven and absolved sins. In short, they reduce or make easier our Purgatory, or the Purgatory of another deceased person. You can earn an indulgence for yourself, and this is on top of any graces you get from God from your prayer activity. You can also earn an indulgence for a deceased soul in Purgatory, and still get the graces from God for yourself. Note that you can’t earn an indulgence for another person who is still living, but of course you can pray for them and God will help them.

I linked the current Manual of Indulgences above. It has been simplified a lot since 100 years ago, but it is still really complicated. So if you read it you might find it confusing. I’ll try later to find some good easy articles to post to you on indulgences. If it makes you feel any better, most Catholics, including many clergy, don’t understand indulgences very well either and some of them actively dislike indulgences as being too complicated, too legalistic, or reminding people of Martin Luther objecting to the “sale of indulgences” in the 1500s.

Many of us who regularly earn indulgences are doing it to pray for dead people, not ourselves. I personally think it’s pointless to earn indulgences for oneself, since if one prays habitually during one’s life, one will get a plenary indulgence automatically upon death even if the priest doesn’t show up in time to grant one via his Apostolic Pardon.
 
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Got it! I see where you are going with this however I’m slightly confused now when it comes to graces.

Because I read The Secret of the Rosary by St. Louis de Montfort. And in the book he says “Take great care to avoid the two pitfalls that most people fall into during the Rosary. The first is the danger of not asking for any graces at all, so that if some good people were asked their Rosary intention they would not know what to say. So, whenever you say your Rosary, be sure to ask for some special grace or virtue, or strength to overcome some sin.”

So he’s saying to always ask for grace whereas you’re saying we get grace automatically when we’re praying the Rosary?
 
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St. Louis just wanted to be sure people knew why they were saying the Rosary, like it had meaning to them and they weren’t just repeating it like trained monkeys. God is not legalistic and won’t somehow withhold his grace if someone doesn’t explicitly request it each time. Even a general intention to grow in faith or stay close to God by saying prayers is understood by God without someone having to recite that intention to God every time.

Having said that, it is a nice practice to have a Rosary intention, or several intentions, or one for each decade if you like. You can have intentions for yourself or for others or just an intention to praise God or thank God or thank Mary or a saint.
 
Hello, I don’t mean to be off topic but I am not a Catholic although I hope to be in full communion with the Church and start RCIA soon, can I receive an indulgence being a non-catholic?
 
Hello,
I’m so happy you are planning to join the Church and will be soon starting RCIA! I will pray for you as you start on this important faith journey and I really hope all goes well and smoothly.

Unfortunately, indulgences are only available to Catholics in a state of grace. They are like a special “Member Benefit” that the Church gives to its members, usually to encourage certain behaviors such as publicly witnessing our faith.

However, I would still recommend that you pray in order to obtain graces from God to help you on your journey into the Church. At this point, it is more important that you focus on what you need to know for RCIA, and the grace will help you with that.

Once you are initiated into the Church, then as a member of the Church, you can earn indulgences.
 
Thanks for your kind words! I want to start RCIA when my local church starts operating normally. I trying to start praying the rosary daily because Mary indeed our spiritual mother 🙂
 
That’s a great way to pray. Mary will certainly pray for you and help lead you closer to Jesus if you pray the Rosary, which anyone can do, even if they aren’t Catholic.
 
Thank you, I have read the pdf! There is one thing that is unclear to me. When we want to get a plenary indulgence, we have to go to confession. But do we have to go to the confession with the intention of getting a plenary indulgence? Or we can just go to confession without that intention (let’s say on Tuesday) and then on Thursday we decide to say the Rosary in a Church with the intention of gaining the indulgence?
 
I believe the intent to earn an indulgence must be there when you do the indulgenced work (as in, saying the rosary or doing the Stations or whatever). It is also sufficient to have a general intent to earn as many indulgences as you can, so if you have that general intent but forget to specifically mention or think of the indulgence before doing some work, you’ll still get the indulgence.

You don’t have to specifically mention or specifically think of getting an indulgence when you go to confession in order to use that confession to later fulfill plenary indulgence conditions.
 
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