For Daily Growth in Holiness, the Beautiful Spiritual Practice of . . . Indulgences

I started this last month, alluded to it on this blog a few times, then had to lay it aside to do preparations for my thesis project.  I’ve finally gotten it done, about something so beautiful, yet so little-understood, I wanted to address it.  I wrote it partly with Protestant readers in mind – which is why it is a bit long, as it is complex for someone outside the Church – but also for Catholic readers.  If you don't want to read all the doctrinal ins and outs, but want to learn how to receive an indulgence, just scroll down to near the end where it says "How to Receive Indulgences."  Here it is, for better or for worse.  Enjoy!

Do you practice indulgences?  Did you know that indulgences are meant to be a daily spiritual benefit, a help from the Church for the purpose of helping you grow in holiness, grow in constant prayer, and grow in union with Christ?  Neither did I.  But I do now – and I am very taken with this beautiful, if little-understood, means that the Church provides us for growing in holiness.  Not that an indulgence is something we "do;" rather it is something we receive, in return for doing the right things, from the Church who grants them to us (indulges us) out of the infinite merits of Christ.

What is an indulgence?  It’s a controversial doctrine; the mere word “indulgences” conjures up images of a greedy Church fleecing its faithful on the pretense of spiritual good, of Luther pounding his 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenburg, of an evil practice that sparked the Protestant Reformation and split the entire Church asunder – and that 500 years later still provokes controversy and confusion.

I admit indulgences aren’t something I studied very closely on my way into the Church, except to make sure it was understandable and not contrary to scripture.  It’s not something one hears about a lot in Church life, except once in a while, like when Divine Mercy Sunday is approaching (do the novena, attend mass and confession, and you get a plenary indulgence).  I don’t think I’ve ever heard a homily explaining exactly what an indulgence is, however.

But a Protestant reader recently wrote in and asked me the question, so I’ve had to go read up on indulgences.  Luckily for me, I have a little book on my shelf, given to me a few years ago by a priest, The Handbook of Indulgences: Norms and Grants, which is the official, up-to-date Vatican teaching and resource on the subject.  I had looked at it only a little before, so now I sat down to really study it.  What I found surprised and intrigued me – and added a whole dimension to my spiritual life, how I think and conduct myself daily in relation to growing spiritually.

But first, a little background.  My reader’s question is two-fold, about both the history of the practice and the doctrine itself.  First, I’ll tackle the history.  The handbook doesn’t go into the history much, so I read several other sources to get a picture.  In brief, here’s what I found:

The History

The practice of indulgences dates to the very earliest days of the Church, where it existed in nascent form (though the term “indulgence” did not come into use until later).  It is based on revelation, is closely associated with repentance and forgiveness of sins, and the understanding and practice of it has and continues to develop. 

From the beginning it was a spiritual practice and did not involve money, but primarily involved prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to the poor.  It wasn’t until around the 11th century (when Europe was moving from a barter economy to a money economy, and money became more widespread) that a donation of money to the Church according to one’s means, as a work of charity, began to be accepted as a spiritual practice that could result in an indulgence.

Giving money to a church, by the way, is a biblical principal, not only required tithing but acts of charity that aid in the upbuilding of the church.  Any Protestant can find corollaries in their own congregations.  For example, when I was an Evangelical and my church was doing a building project, every Sunday we heard appeals for money (with plenty of talk about how God would reward us if we gave), and there was a big chart to one side of the sanctuary that showed progress on the collection.  It was a positive thing, and no one thought the church was just trying to take advantage of us to enrich itself.

But the practice of accepting money is also easily abused, because of the human tendency to greed.  It has been abused by Protestants (think of financial scandals with some of the big Evangelical leaders), and it was abused off and on in the Catholic Church after the practice was introduced, by unscrupulous churchmen here and there who used indulgences as a pretext for gathering cash, and by secular rulers who began to demand a portion of the money given to local parishes or bishops for themselves, treating it like a kind of tax (though there were still plenty of people, priests and bishops included, who participated in indulgences sincerely as the spiritual practice they are).

The Church had to intervene several times to clean up abuses, but they kept cropping up.  They cropped up again at the time of Luther, with the monk John Tetzel who on his own initiative took the practice all out of bounds in his extremes.  It was Tetzel’s outrageous claims while collecting money in Germany that provoked Luther’s rage and helped lead to the Protestant Reformation.

The Catholic Church at the Council of Trent ended the abuses for good, and today indulgences are understood as the spiritual benefit they have been from the beginning.

Sin and Believers

The practice of indulgences is a little hard for Protestants to understand, though it is based on biblical principles, mainly because of a difference in the understanding of the nature of sin, its effects and consequences, between Protestants on the one hand, and Catholics and the early Christians on the other.  And it involves a couple of other doctrines which must also be understood, especially penance and reparation, so I’ll go into those, too, before I get into indulgences.

We live in a time where awareness of sin and its dangers have been greatly muted among Christians of all kinds.  We tend to think of sin as an individual behavior, a thing we do individually that offends God – but many of us anymore don’t think God is really all that offended, and forgives and loves us anyway, so don’t take sin too seriously.  And He does love us, and does forgive our sins, if we are sincerely contrite.  From the Protestant perspective, according to the Protestant doctrine that Jesus paid for our sins, we don’t have to worry about them anymore.

For both Catholics and Protestants, Christ came to save us from our sins and re-bridge the gap between us and God, and when we come to faith in Him (and, for Catholics, are baptized), all of our sins and the consequences for sin are washed away, and we are restored to communion with God.

But our communion is incomplete, because we are still sinful, and most of us do sin again.  In the Protestant view, even though we are still sinful, all of our sins are forgiven, past, present, and future, so we don’t really need to worry about it, even though we avoid sinning and repent of it if we do.  We trust in the work of Christ – which is, from the Catholic point of view also, the right thing to do.  But from the biblical point of view, sin still matters – sin that believers commit after coming to faith in Christ.  Following is a couple of things the bible has to say about sin on the part of believers.

First, in Luke 12, Jesus himself, speaking to the disciples, tells a parable about the servant of the master of a house.  It’s a parable about being ready for the master to return (as Christ will return again).  The servant clearly is a believer, and Jesus illustrates what will happen to the servant, the believer, based on his behavior in his master’s absence: if he runs the house well, and is prepared for the master’s return, he will be rewarded.  But it he doesn’t,

If that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will punish him, and put him with the unfaithful.  And that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating.  But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating.  Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required.  (Lk 12:45-58)

So sin on the part of believers does matter, even if we do it without full knowledge of what we do (though according to Jesus this will mitigate our punishment).  The book of Hebrews makes the seriousness of deliberate sin for a believer crystal clear:

For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment. . . . How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace?  For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”  It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Heb 10:26-31)

So from the biblical point of view, sin on the part of believers is very serious, and does matter to God very much.  My old Protestant pastors used to preach that this passage isn’t really about real believers, but about those who heard and rejected the gospel.  But the wording here is very clear: those who received, not rejected, the truth, and so who were sanctified.  They could not have been sanctified if they had not believed, so they were believers.

And sin has many consequences.  The bible constantly warns against sin, and Pope Paul VI, in his document on indulgences, Indulgentiarum doctrina: Apostolic Constitution on Indulgences (1967; reprinted in the Handbook), has this to say:

Every sin involves the upsetting of the general order that in his inexpressible wisdom and boundless charity God has laid out; sin also involves the destruction of supreme values, pertaining both to the individual sinner and the entire human community [italics mine]. … Sin is a transgression of the divine law, a contempt or neglect toward the personal friendship between God and each person.

. . . All of us, pilgrims in this world, commit at least light and, as they are called, daily sins.

. . . The hidden and gracious mystery of God’s design unites us all through a supernatural bond: on this basis one person’s sin harms the rest even as one person’s goodness enriches them [italics mine].

. . . The life of each of God’s children is in Christ and through Christ conjoined with the life of all other Christians.  That sublime bond exists in the supernatural unity of the Mystical Body of Christ and constitutes the one mystical person [italics mine]. (2-5)

In other words, personal sin harms not only the individual and interferes in the relationship between the individual and God, but upsets the whole order established by God, harming the mystical Body of Christ and the entire human community.  It was one man’s sin, after all, that led to the Fall of the entire human race, brought death into the world, and caused the bondage of the entire creation.  So sin has communal and cosmic, not only individual, consequences.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of sin as having a “double consequence” (1472), eternal and temporal, the eternal being broken relationship with God, and the temporal being the effects of sin on us – individually and corporately, visibly and invisibly, physically and spiritually - in this life.  This includes the temporal effects of our personal sins, and also the temporal effects of sin in general, and the sin of our first parents.  The temporal consequence of their sin was death for all of us, and a fallen creation, which has affected all of creation since and which we will live with until Christ comes again.

The Catechism explains that the eternal consequence of sin, broken relationship with God, for believers has been done away with by Christ, through whom we are forgiven, absolved of guilt and restored to communion with God.  But we still live with the temporal effects and consequences of sin (CCC 1473), including if we sin again after having been forgiven.  The effects of sin can be both external, such as disease or broken relationships, and also interior and spiritual, harming the person, the Body, and even the cosmos invisibly on a spiritual level, upsetting the order intended by God. 

What is sin?  The Catechism speaks of sin this way:

Every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified. (1472)  It is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor by a perverse attachment to certain goods. (1849)

So sin is “unhealthy attachment to creatures,” a perverse attachment to goods, which means attachment to anything in a way that interferes with our love for God or our love for our neighbor, or that causes us to act contrary to how God would have us act.  It is a kind of love – but the wrong kind of love, which in the long run destroys genuine love, leading us away from God, not toward him.

The first “unhealthy attachment,” the first wrong love, was the first sin, that of Adam and Eve, who couldn’t resist the fruit that led to the fall of man, with the eternal consequence of broken relationship with God, and the temporal consequence of disorder and death for the whole human race and bondage of the whole creation.  And we have been sinning ever since, loving wrongly ever since, and suffering the consequences ever since, because we are attached to things other than God and not according to God’s ways.

Sin and Christian Destiny

The work of Christ is to do more than forgive sins, and there is more to Christian life than just being forgiven so we can go to heaven.  There is a reason for our creation, and that reason continues to exist, even now, on the earth: to glorify God, share life with Him, and help make Him visible on the earth, so He can be seen, known, and loved.  And the way we do that is to die to ourselves and be purified of sin, and grow in love and virtue, so that we may be conformed to Christ and attain union with God more and more:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. (Rom 8:29)  Shun immorality. . . . Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? (1 Cor 6:19)  I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. (Gal 2:20)  Escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature. (2 Pet 1:4b)

So the Christian life in a sense is a two-fold movement: a movement away from sin, being forgiven and purified of sin; and toward Christ, becoming more and more Christ-like, and moving toward union with God our Father in and through Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.  And for most of us, it is a long process.

Some of us experience such a radical conversion to Christ that we are truly transformed and set on fire with love for Christ all at once, like St. Paul.  In this case, the Catechism explains that “A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner.” (CCC 1472)  This “fervent charity” is the fervent love of God that overcomes all attachment to sin (for love covers over a multitude of sins - 1 Pet 4:8) and attaches the sinner completely to God.  Remember, sin itself is a type of love – but if we direct all our love to God, wholly and fervently, then we no longer love sin, for we are so caught up in love for God, a love which transforms us and rids us of sin.

But many of us, if we’re honest with ourselves, still have some form of unhealthy attachments and habits which interfere with our love for God and affect us, our relationships, our Body, and our world.  As Christians and followers of Christ, we are to be growing in holiness, growing in sanctity and virtue, growing in God-like love, so as to approach union with God, our destiny.  Sin, unhealthy attachments, slows and impedes our progress.  The more we are freed from sinfulness and grow in virtue, the closer our union with God, the more He can dwell in us – and the better the effects on the entire Body and the whole world.

Sin: Not a Thing, but a Relationship

When I was a Protestant, I tended to think of sin as “things,” like clods of dirt (and sin does dirty us) which God removes through the blood of Christ, sufficient to cleanse all sin forever, which it does all at once, so we can go to heaven.  But sin is not just “things,” something external to us.  It is interior, and relational.  It comes from the inside of us, from the dispositions of our hearts:  “For out of the heart come evil thoughts. . . . These are what defile a man.” (Mt 15:10,18-20)  It is a manifestation of the very fiber of our being, and it affects how we relate: to things of this world, to each other, and to God.  And it causes a way of relating and kinds of relationships – with people and with things - that in the end can destroy relationships, with each other and with God.

So the work of Christ is not only to forgive our sins, but to cleanse and regenerate us interiorly, so we can be made right interiorly, and so restored fully to right relationship with God, each other and the world, by learning to relate rightly from the interiority of our being.  Good and evil come from inside us, so we must be made right not only exteriorly, in the legal sense of Protestantism, but interiorly, for real, on the inside, so that we can truly be “a letter from Christ . . . written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God . . . on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor 3:3), and so relate the right way, and have good effects temporally on earth.  And for most of us, that does not happen all at once, but over time.

It’s a little ironic that the Protestant world dwells so much on relationship with Christ, and thinks that the Catholic world doesn’t.  The Catholic view, properly understood, is intensely relational.  Everything we do matters; everything has an effect on the destiny and welfare not only of our own souls, but on the whole world.  We are all bound together truly as One Body, we are one mystical person in Christ, we are Christ on earth, and so nothing we do is really done in isolation, and everything we do has an effect, visibly or invisibly, on everything and everyone else.

By the way we live, our thoughts and actions and prayers (or lack thereof), what we do and what we love, we are either more closely united with Christ and helping Him act in the Body, or are not, and are impeding Him acting in the Body.  In other words, we are either in Christ helping the whole world towards God, or we are to some extent a dead weight in Christ, dragging the whole world away from God.

Penance

In order to be truly united with Christ, so that He can truly act in us, our hearts must be purified of sin, so that we can truly love God, and love as God loves.  If we sin after we come to faith in Christ, we must be restored, both to right relationship with God and with each other, and sanctified and made right spiritually.  We must be made right, relationally and interiorly.

How do we do this?  By repenting and confessing our sins, and changing for the better, which scripture tells us to do, and in which Jesus forgives and restores us.  That is what the Sacrament of Confession is for, also called Reconciliation or Penance (and it involves all three).  For believers, when we sin we must take several steps to be fully reconciled with God and with each other: repent of our sin, confess it, be forgiven and absolved of guilt, mend our ways, and make amends to others if necessary.  All of these are perfectly scriptural concepts shared by Protestants; in the New Testament, both James and John speak specifically of the need for believers to acknowledge and confess our sins (Jas 5:16; 1 Jn 1:9). 

All of these steps occur in the Sacrament of Confession, which reconciles us to God and aids in our sanctification.  Protestants have difficulty understanding the need for sacramental confession, but it is easy to understand if one realizes that it is simply the practical way that God exercises the forgiveness of sins in the Church.  It’s not that we don’t think Christ’s sacrifice is enough (as many Protestants think of Catholicism).  It’s precisely because of Christ’s sacrifice, and the superabundant graces that flow from that, that we are able to confess our sins, be forgiven and restored, and enabled to be conformed more and more to Christ over time.

Scripture speaks of how the Church is a Body, and we all receive different charisms and gifts in the service of the Body.  Jesus gave the Apostles the power to forgive sins when he breathed the Holy Spirit on them after his resurrection (Jn 20:21-23), and the charism is handed on through the Apostolic Succession in the laying on of hands, and shared with the whole priesthood through ordination.  It is Jesus who forgives sins through the priest, and the Holy Spirit who cleanses and sanctifies the repentant sinner through the priest, who is the designated member of the Body for the charism.  Confession involves the initial contrition of the sinner, confession of the sin, the prayer of absolution by the priest, and mending one’s ways.

The last step, making amends, is what the Church calls satisfaction, and uses a practice called penance.  Penance, scripturally speaking, is an integral part of repentance.  Penance and repentance come from the same root word (pain, in this case the pain of sin), and are different ways of translating the one Greek word in scripture, metanoia, which means conversion, repentance, changing one’s mind in a way that is fundamentally transformative.  True repentance is first of all an interior pain and sorrow for sin, real contrition expressed in repentance, which results in turning away from sin toward Christ, a real conversion aided by penance, a real change.  Penance is a practice that helps us change, after we have repented of our sins.  According to the Catechism,

Sin also injures and weakens the sinner himself, as well as his relationships with God and neighbor.  Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused.  Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more. . . . Such penances help configure us to Christ, who alone expiated our sins once for all.  (CCC 1459-1460)

It is related to this quote from Hebrews, quoting Prov. 3:11-12:

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor lose courage when you are punished by him.
For the Lord disciplines him whom he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?  . . . He disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.  For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Heb 12:5-11)

The word “discipline” used in this passage comes from the Greek word paideia, which means tutorage, education or training, disciplinary correction, chastening, chastisement, instruction, nurture.  Penance is all of these, a spiritual discipline given us by God through the Church to help us change, grow spiritually, deepen our conversion, grow in holiness, be more configured to Christ, and regain our spiritual health after we fall into sin.  It truly is a training in holiness of the sort spoken of in scripture:

Train yourself in godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. (1 Tim 4:7b-8)

It has taken various forms throughout Church history (and could take very challenging forms in the early church), but today usually takes the form of simple prayers to be said devoutly after confession, during which one interiorly refocuses one's mind on the things of God, which helps conform us to Christ and train us in holiness.

It can also be done as an act of its own outside of confession, in awareness of our sinfulness, using penitential acts as a way of conforming ourselves more and more closely to Christ, and as a sign of and a help to deepening interior conversion by developing habits of holiness.  Through many different kinds of prayer, acceptance of suffering, and charitable works our hearts can be gradually softened, we can be purified of sin, and grow in holiness and sanctification. This practice is also sometimes called reparation, and the goal is always the same: turning away from sin, growing in holiness, growing in conformity to Christ, growing in union with God. 

Reparation can also be done on behalf of others as a form of intercession, suffering for their sake in union with Christ for the conversion and salvation of souls.  "In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church." (Col 1:24)

It is also important to understand that all of this is done not by our own natural powers, but in and through the grace of Christ, through whom we have been reborn, and who lives in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.  “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.” (Php 4:13)  “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”  (Eph 2:10)  It truly is Christ living and working in us, purifying and sanctifying us, the more we turn away from sin, and give ourselves to Him.  Penance is just such a turning and giving, according to His will.

The Doctrine of Indulgences

Understanding the nature of sin and its effects and consequences for believers, and how one recovers from sin and is conformed to Christ, we can now turn to the doctrine of indulgences.

As explained, sin has a “double consequence,” eternal and temporal, the eternal being broken relationship with God, and the temporal being the effects of sin on us in this life, before we enter heaven.  Repentance and confession restores us to communion with God, but temporal effects, called “temporal punishment,” can still remain, including the temporal effects of the many slight sins we commit that are never confessed.  Temporal punishment is the consequence of sin, what happens to us, genuine believers in Christ, when we are attached to the wrong things, love the wrong things, love the wrong way, rather than loving God and loving things God’s way. 

It is this remaining effect of sin that indulgences are for.  Here is the technical, formal definition of an indulgence:

n.1—An indulgence is the remission before God of the temporal punishment due sins already forgiven as far as their guilt is concerned, which the follower of Christ with the proper dispositions and under certain determined conditions acquires through the intervention of the Church which, as minister of the Redemption, authoritatively dispenses and applies the treasury of the satisfaction won by Christ and the saints. (from Norms in the Apostolic Constitution On Indulgences)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains,

To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the "eternal punishment" of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the "temporal punishment" of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain. (1472)

The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the "old man" and to put on the "new man." (1473)

For Catholics, as explained, when we sin, we have recourse to the sacrament of confession.  But we commit many more sins than we confess, many light, even unconscious, sins every day: moments when we judge, criticize, find fault, indulge in lust or anger, compare, think more highly of ourselves than we ought, look down on others, fail to love, lack generosity, faith, or compassion – all the different ways, in short, in which we fall short of the perfection of God.  In addition, our contrition for sins we confess may be imperfect – we may be sorry for our sin, but still be attached to it in some way, still love it in some way, though we are to hate it: “Hate what is evil.” (Rom 12:9; and note that this does not mean that we are to hate people.  We are to hate sin, but love people, so as to help them find and love God too, and so turn away from sin; cf. Jude 1:23.)

But it is the perfection of God to which we are called.  God is perfect, perfectly holy and perfectly just, and God is love.  To be perfect is to be like God, is to be holy, and just, and to love as God loves, purely, justly, and selflessly.  We are to pursue the perfection of God, and indulgences are meant to help us do that.

An indulgence is granted in response to a particular prayer or work, specified by the Church, using her authority to “bind and loose,” (Matt 16:19), which when performed with the proper dispositions results in an outpouring of the grace and  merits of Christ upon the faithful person, erasing temporal effects of sin and drawing the person into closer union with Christ.  Indulgences are granted by the Church out of the infinite treasury of the merits of Christ, and are one of the ways in which Christ cleanses and purifies us of the consequences of even slight sin, even that of which we are unconscious and unaware, as we strive to grow in holiness and union with Him.  As Elisha asked Elijah for a double-portion of the spirit that was upon him (2 Ki 2:9), so indulgences, when we request them, are a kind of double-portion of grace and sanctification, out of the sheer gratuitousness of God.

And we should be taking advantage of them.  The prayers and activities granted with indulgences are meant to be regularly practiced, and if so they can change the whole quality of our daily lives, imbuing them with a deeply Christian spirit.  As the Handbook says,

Great care has been taken to put more emphasis on Christian living and on the formation of a spiritual attitude toward prayer and repentance as well as toward the practice of the theological virtues [p. 17]. . . . Indulgenced grants have for their purpose to encourage the Christian faithful to structure into the texture of their everyday activities a Christian spirit and to gear their lives toward the perfection of charity [p. 25]. (emphasis mine)

So, indulgenced grants are to be structured into our daily activities, not as payment for sin or earning salvation, and not just as an occasional thing, but as a constant turning to God our Father, humbly asking Him to, as child might a father, indulge us, by increasing our freedom from sin and its consequences, and increasing us in holiness and prayer, by washing us ever more in the grace of Christ, showering us with His infinite treasures of grace.  Understood this way, indulgences are seen to be a constantly available river of grace, a beautiful spiritual practice in which we daily place ourselves like little children into the hands of God as into a gentle bath, for our increasing sanctification, increasing freedom from sin and its effects, increasing prayer, and increasing union with God, in and through the grace of Christ.

Indulgences and the Souls in Purgatory

Purgatory is another difficult doctrine for Protestants, though it was believed in the early Church and written about by the Fathers, but actually it’s very simple and easy to understand.  Protestants understand that God is so holy He cannot tolerate sin in His presence.  This is true.  But it means that simply being forgiven externally, in a legalistic sense, is not enough, if we are in fact still sinful.  A sinful person cannot enter heaven, so we must be completely sanctified before we enter heaven.  What happens if we are not all the way sanctified before we die?  How can we enter heaven?  I used to wonder that as a Protestant, and never heard a convincing answer.  Does our sinfulness just vanish?

The Catholic doctrine of purgatory explains what happens: purgatory is based on the word “purge,” and is the process by which we are purified of all remaining sinfulness and perfected after we die, before we enter heaven.  Scott Hahn, a Catholic convert and a writer, describes it in a way I like: scripture describes God as a fire.  Purgatory is the fire of God’s love, burning out of us whatever remains in us of sin as He draws us to Himself in love after we die (1 Cor 3:10-15).

Because we are mystically joined as one in Christ’s body, the Church has granted that we can perform indulgences, prayers and works of charity and mercy, as a form of intercessory prayer and work of mercy for purifying souls in purgatory more quickly, helping them enter heaven – much like how we can pray for the conversion of souls on earth.  Purgatory is the final conversion of the soul to God, the final removal of sin and perfecting of the soul that is destined to image and be like God.  Our prayers and works are effective, because done in and by the grace of Christ, and are merciful toward those who died in faith and yet were still sinful – and God does hear and respond.

How to Receive Indulgences

There are two types of indulgences, partial (these are numerous, and each gains a partial remittance of temporal punishments for sin), and plenary (less numerous; these gain complete remittance).  Partial indulgences are easy to gain, plenary more difficult.  Partial indulgences may be gained several times a day, plenary indulgences once a day.

Partial indulgences require the following:

• First, we must be in a state of grace, faithful and participating in the sacramental life of the Church.
• Second, we must be inwardly contrite.  We must have a humble, realistic awareness of our sinfulness and imperfection as we come before God with the intention of gaining an indulgence.
• Third, we must perform the work or prayer prescribed by the Church.

With contrition for all the ways in which we sin, are unconscious and unaware, are imperfect, we turn to God our Father and ask for an indulgence, for Him to indulge us, in the manner in which He has given us through the Church to do.

The purpose of the work or prayer is not to “earn forgiveness,” because the sin is already forgiven, but to grow in holiness by conforming ourselves to Christ more closely in prayer and action, and ridding ourselves of attachment to sin.  This pleases our Father in heaven, who opens up the doors of grace and mercifully indulges us by pouring the grace of Christ upon us, purifying us more and more of sin and its  consequences, enriching us in grace and in union with Christ.

Plenary indulgences, in addition to the above, also require:

• Sacramental confession
• Eucharistic communion
• Prayer for the Pope’s intentions
• Exclusion of all attachment to sin, even venial, light sin.  This is hard, as we all have attachments to sin, and it takes a lot of work and great holiness to rid ourselves of all attachment to sin.  If we still have some attachment to sin, a plenary indulgence will still grant us partial, though not full, remittance.

I’m going to focus here on partial indulgences, as these are easier and can be done daily and several times a day, as a great help to growing in holiness.

The Church has granted three types of general indulgences, each extensively supported with scripture references in the Handbook, that may be done on a daily basis, several times a day or constantly throughout the day.  The first is this:

A partial indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who, while performing their duties and enduring the difficulties of life, raise their minds in humble trust to God and make, at least mentally, some pious invocation.

This is so simple.  It can be done everyday, and several times a day.  In fact, if we are really striving to live for Christ, we’re already doing part of it: enduring the difficulties of life while trusting in God.  We just need to add to it: the intention of receiving an indulgence, being aware of our littleness, our sinfulness and inadequacy before God, and making a “pious invocation,” such as “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner,” or “Jesus, I trust in you.” The Handbook has a whole list of invocations; or you can make up your own.

If we just did this one thing on a regular, daily basis, several times a day as we went through our day, how our lives would change, and how we would grow and deepen in humility, prayer, and trust in God.  Which of course is exactly the intention of indulgences, as the Church has spelled it out. 

If a majority of Catholics would do this, imagine how it would transform the life of the Church.  As explained, sin affects the whole Body, for the worse.  But holiness also affects the Body – for the better.  If we receive the benefits of indulgences, we will not only improve our own spiritual health, we will improve the overall health of the whole Body, by aiding in removing the mystical, temporal effects of sin that weigh her down and disfigure her, and so lighten and uplift the whole Body, by our personal growth in holiness.

Here is the second general indulgence:

A partial indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who, prompted by a spirit of faith, devote themselves or their goods in compassionate service to their brothers and sisters in need.

This can include both corporeal and spiritual works of mercy, helping with both material and spiritual needs, such as giving food or clothing to the poor, or counseling, teaching, or praying for those in need.  And if we did this on a regular, daily basis, how it would help us grow in selflessness, and love and concern for others.

The third general indulgence:

A partial indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who, in a spirit of penitence, voluntarily abstain from something which is licit for and pleasing to them.

If we did this on a daily basis, how we would grow in a spirit of poverty and simplicity, overcome gluttony and strong personal preferences, detach ourselves from sensuality and the world, and learn to focus so much more on God, our true happiness and providence.

All three of these are so simple, and embody the Christian spirit of trusting in and loving God, and loving and serving others, in a spirit of poverty and detachment from the world.  And if we do so with awareness of our own sinfulness, imploring God for His indulgence, how He will indulge us with the increasing grace of Christ!  “Ask, and it will be given you. . . . How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt 7:7, 11b)

The Handbook gives many other kinds of indulgenced grants, beautiful prayers and spiritual works, though it by no means exhausts them all.  Worth special mention are those grants which list works by which the Christian faithful, by performing any one of them, can obtain a plenary indulgence (or at least a partial indulgence, if you are unable to fulfill the requirements for a plenary indulgence) every day of the year:

• adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for at least one half hour (no. 3; if less than a 1/2 hour, it's a partial indulgence);
• devout reading of the Sacred Scriptures for at least one half hour (no. 50);
• the devout performance of the Stations of the Cross (no. 63);
• the recitation of the Marian Rosary in a church or oratory, with members of the family, in a religious Community, or in a pious association (no. 48; or recite the rosary alone anytime for a partial indulgence).  Includes five decades and devout meditation on the mysteries.

Here are a couple of other simple things that are granted a partial indulgence:

• Reading of sacred scripture with veneration, as a form of spiritual reading (plenary if done for at least ½ hour).
• Teaching or studying Christian doctrine (an incentive for all of us to get to know our faith better!).
• Act of spiritual communion.
• Making the sign of the cross.

There are too many other beautiful prayers, litanies, and works to mention here, so it is very worth getting the Handbook so you can get to know them and put them into practice.  They are lovely spiritual activities the Church gives us to do, so we may be ever more enriched, purified, freed of the effects of sin and made holy with the grace of Christ, through the love and mercy of God our Father, who hears and answers our prayers.  And the holier we are, and the closer to Christ we are, the more He can dwell in us, and the more He can be seen in us, on earth, helping make Him visible, and thus knowable and lovable, on earth.

Indulgences and the Church

One last note: The doctrine of indulgences is a beautiful example of the Church truly acting authoritatively as the agent of God, the channel of His grace, binding and loosing, forgiving sins and dispensing rivers of grace from Christ for all who come and ask.  For me, as a member of the Church and her ingrafted child, I intend to make use of this beautiful grace.  I think I need it, and I think the whole Body will benefit from it. 

I hope you will, too.  It is a gift the Church has freely given us.  Let us come to know, use, and love this gift, daily and well, and spread knowledge of it, and so spread its use among the children of our Mother the Church, our brothers and sisters in Christ and members of our own Body.  Let us humbly, with awareness of our sinfulness and littleness, ask our Father in Heaven to daily indulge us, by daily lavishing upon us the riches, merits, and grace of Christ, so that we may be increasingly freed of the effects and consequences of sin, and increasingly made holy, pure and beautiful in the grace of Christ, so that His features may be carved in us, and seen in us, more and more clearly. In pursuing and growing in holiness and grace, we truly will not only help uplift the Church, but help uplift each other and the whole world, by making Christ visible and knowable in the world - which we so need today, and which our Mother the Church is calling for us to do.