Questions on Indulgences

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tlongdon

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Ok…here goes…
  1. Say for instance I was baptized yesterday, so today I wake up and I am as pure as the driven snow.
  2. So I go out and use the Lord’s name in vain and I have sex with my girlfriend. 1 sin venial 1 sin grave.
  3. This afternoon I go to confession and receive forgiveness/absolution for the two sins. However now I have been assigned some “temporal punishment” because of the act of sinning.
  4. Ok…I grab my “Manual of Indulgences” and notice that if I say the Lord’s Prayer I will receive a partial indulgence or if I pray for 1/2 hour on my knees in front of Blessed Sacramento I will receive a “plenary indulgence”. (total)
  5. Here is the big question. Is the “temporal punishment” assigned to both sins or is it assigned to each sin individually? Or is it not attached to the “sins” at all but to the act of sinning?
What is being removed by the indulgence. Does it take more to remove the temporal punishment for the grave sin than the venial sin?

If I receive a partial indulgence and continue saying the Lord’s prayer to receive partial indulgence will this go on forever since it is only partial indulgence and is like a half life?

If I spend a 1/2 hour on my knees before the Blessed Sacrament and receive a plenary indulgence will the temporal punishment be removed completely, in other words for both sins, all sins, and even the act of sinning?
 
In order for you to receive a plenary indulgence you must be free from any attachment to sin. This requirement is difficult to fulfill for most (but certainly not all people).

If you receive a plenary indulgence, all of the temporal punishment for your sins is removed (both for the venial and grave sin).

If you receive a partial indulgence, you remove a part of the total temporal punishment that resulted from both of these sins. Receiving multiple partial indulgences will result in more temporal punishment being removed but the exact amount that you have merited by your sinful acts and the amount removed in a plenary indulgence is fully known only to God.

If you are close to having all temporal punishment removed by repeated partial indulgences, it would seem to me that you are likely close to fulfilling the most difficult criterion for obtaining a plenary indulgence. In that case, there need not be a real distinction.

Trying to count up and account for exactly how much temporal punishment has been removed is in my opinion not a fruitful way to use your energy. If you are serious about your spiritual life, you will desire to please God above all else. Doing what you can and leaving the rest up to God seems to be the wisest path.
 
Dr_Paul said:
In order for you to receive a plenary indulgence you must be free from any attachment to sin. This requirement is difficult to fulfill for most (but certainly not all people).

Perhaps I do not understand what you mean here by “attachment” to sin. Isn’t one free from the attachment after receiving absolution through reconcillation/confesion?

If you receive a plenary indulgence, all of the temporal punishment for your sins is removed (both for the venial and grave sin).

**I so seldom hear about Indulgences, nearly every one I have asked has had a different conception on what Indulgences are and how they work or what the affect.

When I was a small boy, sitting in Sister Rose’s catechism class, I was told that indulgences were doing good works and that would get you to heaven. Now people are making it something much more complicated. I often wonder why?**
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No, one isn’t necessarily free from the ‘attachment’ (attraction) to sin merely by going to confession or being absolved. If it were, the only requirement would BE the confession and absolution, so obviously it’s something separate.

For example, you may rightly confess adultery and have the DESIRE to cease, but still not yet have brought yourself to the place where you see your sin in its true horror, as God does. There may be a part of you that still remembers it as being ‘fun’ or something of the kind. Now we can’t always control our thoughts, so such a thing might not necessarily impact your absolution or forgiveness, but it sure does mean you’re not completely detached from your sin.

And Sister Rose was right - it really isn’t that much more complicated, than that certain good works WILL help you get to heaven by either shortening or bypassing entirely your purgatory. I don’t know how old you were when she was teaching you, so it may have been about putting it in a way suitable for your class’s level of understanding.
 
Okay, wait a sec. . . I thought taking the Lord’s Name in vain was a grave sin, not just a venial one. . . ?
 
twosweetgirls said:
Okay, wait a sec. . . I thought taking the Lord’s Name in vain was a grave sin, not just a venial one. . . ?
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Ok…so there are two grave sins in the hypothetical question. What is your response to my question?
 
LilyM said:
No, one isn’t necessarily free from the ‘attachment’ (attraction) to sin merely by going to confession or being absolved. If it were, the only requirement would BE the confession and absolution, so obviously it’s something separate.

In other words one still owns the sin even though complete contrition, absolution, and penance has been satisfied i.e. Moses and the Promised Land and no one but God knows how many past sins a person “owns”. If a person is “properly disposed” to receive the Eucharist after confession and absolution apparently temporal punishment does not stand as a bar to the Sacrament/s So…can one conclude from this that temporal punishment is something not to be worried about because, in truth, there isn’t anything other than good works and prayer that can remit the punishment and isn’t that what our life as Catholics is all about?
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There are two kinds of indulgences: plenary and partial. Partial indulgences remit only part of the temporal punishment due your sins. A plenary indulgence takes away all the temporal punishment due your sins. This means that if you died immediately after receiving a plenary indulgence, you would go straight to heaven! To obtain a plenary indulgence, you must:
  1. have the intention of gaining the indulgence
  2. go to Confession and be free of all sin including venial sin at the time of saying the required prayers.
3)meet the four requirements mentioned earlier,
  1. You must also not be in the habit of committing any sin, whether it is mortal or venial.
 
paramedicgirl said:
There are two kinds of indulgences: plenary and partial. Partial indulgences remit only part of the temporal punishment due your sins. A plenary indulgence takes away all the temporal punishment due your sins. This means that if you died immediately after receiving a plenary indulgence, you would go straight to heaven! To obtain a plenary indulgence, you must:
  1. have the intention of gaining the indulgence
  2. go to Confession and be free of all sin including venial sin at the time of saying the required prayers.
3)meet the four requirements mentioned earlier,
  1. You must also not be in the habit of committing any sin, whether it is mortal or venial.
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Thank you for your response. Can you please tell me which magisterial document your are citing?
 
tlongdon said:
Thank you for your response. Can you please tell me which magisterial document your are citing?
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I never said I was citing a magisterial document. This is just well-known Church teaching, as taught in the Baltimore Catechism. I’m sure if you really want to, you can find the correct magisterial document to answer all your questions, though.
 
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tlongdon:
In other words one** still owns the sin **even though complete contrition, absolution, and penance has been satisfied i.e. Moses and the Promised Land and no one but God knows how many past sins a person “owns”. If a person is “properly disposed” to receive the Eucharist after confession and absolution apparently temporal punishment does not stand as a bar to the Sacrament/s **So…can one conclude from this that temporal punishment is something not to be worried **about because, in truth, there isn’t anything other than good works and prayer that can remit the punishment and isn’t that what our life as Catholics is all about?
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I don’t think “owns the sin” is the right way to word it. You don’t “own” it anymore, due to you repentance/confession and the absolution you received. However, in many cases you are likely to buy or rent that sin again, because you have attachment to it. In your example, you mentioned two things that the sinner would most probably still be attached to - taking the Lord’s name in vain (most likely a habit) and fornication with a girlfriend (is the relationship broken off? Is the penitent truly dedicated to chastity?).

catholic.org/clife/prayers/indulgc.php
THE TOUGHEST REQUIREMENT
The greatest hurdle is the last. Making a good confession is not particularly difficult, and going to Communion and praying for the Pope’s intentions are easier still. It’s being free from all attachment to sin that’s hard and it’s quite possible that even evi-dently good people, who seek plenary indulgences regularly, never, in their whole lives, obtain one, because they are unwilling to relinquish their favorite little sins.

There is an account of St. Philip Neri, who died in 1595, preaching a jubilee indulgence in a crowed church. A revelation was given to him that only two people in the church were actually getting it, an old char-woman and the saint himself. Not exactly encouraging, huh? But don’t worry. If you aren’t perfectly disposed and can’t get the plenary indulgence. you’ll at least come away with a partial.
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As far as your conclusion is concerned, we don’t know what Purgatory is like. Painful? “Long” or “quick” (philosophically both terms are meaningless in comparison to eternity in Heaven)? It is true that if you are in Purgatory, you will be in Heaven. However, to think to oneself, “I don’t care about temporal punishment in Purgatory, since I will be headed to Heaven” may be correct, or it may be shortsighted. I guess we won’t really know until we are in Purgatory. It would then be a little too late to do anything about it. 😛
 
Robert,

Thank you for your reply. The link to Catholic.org was most helpful. This question originated with a young man in our parish RCIA class The catechists answer was misinformed. The catechumen came to me with the question and I knew even less than the catechist. All three of us and hopefully the other catechumens will now be better informed.

Thank You
 
Here is a response that suggests that the “no attachment to sin” is not particularly difficult and was not meant to be difficult: skellmeyer.blogspot.com/2005/12/no-attachment-to-sin.html
We are not responsible for that which invincible ignorance prevents us recognizing. So, if we just make an act of the will, praying something along the lines of “Lord, I desire only You and Your perfection, I desire nothing of the sins or defects of this world” and MEAN it, that would be sufficient to constitute no attachment to sin. Our flesh may experience a movement towards some illicit thing, but that isn’t the same as an attachment to sin.
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For more info on what the Church has to say about indulgences, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1471-1479) and the Code of Canon Law (Canons 992-997).

Also helpful is the Handbook of Indulgences. It’s not online, but it isn’t too expensive. The intro is very helpful, and it also gives all the things a Catholic can do to get an indulgence.
 
Scottgun said:
Here is a response that suggests that the “no attachment to sin” is not particularly difficult and was not meant to be difficult: skellmeyer.blogspot.com/2005/12/no-attachment-to-sin.html
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The key here is the part about really meaning it when we say “Lord, I desire only You and Your perfection, I desire nothing of the sins or defects of this world”

Having true detachment but experiencing an involuntary lustful temptation (as a result of concupiscence) does not negate the detached state.

Howver, when we read from the writings of the saints, we can see quite clearly how they understood that many who make such a statement of desire for detachment from sin are really still not really ready to let go. As Christ says, the evidence is in our actions. For example, if one says that he has no desire to commit fornication again but continues to willingly place himself in situations that will lead to temptations (even if he does not commit the sin), then one would have to question the true freedom from sinful desire.
 
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