What is an Indulgence?

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DanaReale

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I don’t remember anyone discussing Indulgences during RCIA. Could some kind soul help me understand what they are?

I am a recent convert, so “baby words” are good for me right now 🙂
 
An indulgence is akin to working off a debt. It is not the forgiveness of sins. Your sins are forgiven at baptism and when you receive absolution at confession. However, for sins committed after baptism, there will still be a “fine” you have to pay. That fine is “temporal punishment.” This is generally time in purgatory. But, you can work off your fine in this life, too.

The Church has the authority to approve certain actions for the paying of these fines/working off this debt. Most traditional prayers and devotions have some sort of indulgence attached to them.

There are two types of indulgence. A PLENARY indulgence removes all temporal punishment - pays off the entire fine in your Purgatory Balance Book, so to speak. There are some very specific things that are endowed with a plenary indulgence, and specific conditions for earning them. The trickiest is you must have “no attachment to even venial sin.” People seem to disagree with exactly what that means, but suffice to say that you can’t really be certain of earning a plenary indulgence. If you aren’t 100% detached from venial sin, you’ll still get a PARTIAL indulgence, however. So, it’s not a waste of time to try.

A PARTIAL indulgence is exactly what it says: it pays PART of your fine. The Church does not specify how much each indulgence is worth or anything. You just do these things as a way of working off your penance on Earth so you’ll spend less time in Purgatory.

You can earn indulgences for yourself or for the dead, to help them get out of purgatory. You cannot earn them for other living people.

This web site has a really good amount of information on indulgences, and how to earn them:

ourladyswarriors.org/indulge/index.html
 
Essentially it is an application of the suffering of Christ by joining your suffering to his. This has tremendous atonement qualities.

From the Catechism.
 
i heard a good example one time, it is like you threw a rock through your neighbors window, you go to your neighbor and confess and he forgives you - but you still have to PAY him for the broken glass.
 
Thanks so much, all of you were incredibly helpful!! I get it now 🙂
 
I have another way of looking at it…

Say I am taking my son to the doctor and he asks, “mom, will I get a shot” And I tell him, no. Although I know that he will be getting a horrible shot. I lied to him.

Then we get to the doctor and shot time happens. He’s upset with me, now he’s scared, my sin of lying has hurt him.

So, I ask him to forgive me. And he does…yet…

Next trip to the doctor comes up. He asks me the same thing “mom, will I get a shot” and I tell him, no. And he really is not getting a shot, however, he doesn’t trust me, he thinks that I am lying again to him, the stain of my previous sin still remains with him…

And as time goes on, he gets older, I’ve stopped lying to him about shot time, I’ve earned his trust again through my actions, the stain of that sin slowly leaves and our relationship gets better.

Now, that’s how I see it!
 
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