Indulgence question...

[joyfulthanks]

Hi all,

Just a quick question about indulgences. I've read the section of the CCC about indulgences. It was over a year ago, however, so please excuse me if this is a stupid question. I think I get the basic idea about the treasury of merits of Christ and the saints, however what I don't quite understand is this: what exactly is meant by remission of temporal punishment for sins? Are we talking about punishment during this lifetime, or in purgatory, or both? And what kind of punishment might be remitted?

Also, if the Pope has the ability to remit the punishment for sins, why not just do so freely as an expression of mercy and charity?

Thanks for your help with this.

-Grace

 

[Davidnic]

Hi all,

Just a quick question about indulgences. I've read the section of the CCC about indulgences. It was over a year ago, however, so please excuse me if this is a stupid question. I think I get the basic idea about the treasury of merits of Christ and the saints, however what I don't quite understand is this: what exactly is meant by remission of temporal punishment for sins? Are we talking about punishment during this lifetime, or in purgatory, or both? And what kind of punishment might be remitted?

Also, if the Pope has the ability to remit the punishment for sins, why not just do so freely as an expression of mercy and charity?

Thanks for your help with this.

-Grace

Once I posted this and I think it covers it fairly well:

Temporal punishment is the effect of sin. The disorder it creates in the world. Being temporal it happens here on earth, but if we are still under the effect of it when we die we must be purified in Purgatory.

I’ll quote here from a good example on the EWTN page since it sums it up better than I could:

An example will perhaps better illustrate these points. A boy playing ball breaks a window of his home. Contrite and sorrowful he goes to his father, who forgives him. However, despite the forgiveness the window is still broken and must be repaired.

Since the boy's personal resources are insufficient to pay for a new window, the father requires him to pay a few dollars from his savings and forego some of his allowance for several weeks, but that he, the father, will pay the rest. This balances justice and mercy (generous love).

To ask the boy to do nothing, when it is possible for him to make some reparation, would not be in accordance with the truth, or even the boy's good. Yet, even this temporal debt is beyond the boy's possibilities. Therefore, from his own treasury the father generously makes up what the child cannot provide. This is indulgence.

Catholic teaching respects the natural order of justice, as Jesus clearly did in the Gospels, yet recognizes that man cannot foresee or undo all the temporal consequences of his sin. However, God in His mercy will satisfy justice for what we cannot repair

Now this has nothing to do with eternal damnation. Christ took care of that. We have to choose that. We can not stumble blindly into hell.

The rescue from death and separation from God…these were paid for by Christ.

Indulgences and temporal punishment are not about those. They are about the effects caused by our continued inclination to sin and the damage it causes on human relationships with each other and the created world.

I’ll quote from the same source here to highlight the very important point that the days and years that used to be assigned to indulgences have nothing to do with time in Purgatory. This is a very common misconception even by Catholics. The sum up on that:

In the past partial indulgences were "counted" in days (e.g. 300 days) or years (e.g. 5 years). Catholics often mistakenly thought that this meant "time off of purgatory." Since there is no time in purgatory, as we understand it, it meant instead the remission of temporal punishment analogous to a certain amount of penitence as practiced in the early Church.

This was a very generous standard, since the penitence required for sacramental absolution in the early centuries was arduous, indeed. However, with Pope Paul VI's 1968 revision of the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum (Collection or Handbook of Indulgences), this confusing way of counting partial indulgences was suppressed, and the evaluation of a partial indulgence left to God.

Look at it this way. A prayer or devout practice has an indulgence attached to it because the proper and true Christian execution of that helps the soul and the world. If the practice is done without faith and love in Christ. Or done only as a series of actions or a vain repetition of words, it is useless. So it is not a matter of just reciting words or performing empty actions.

Another thing about the treasury of merits of Christ and the saints. When we say merits of Christ they are the infinite merits of Christ. So salvation and remission of sin is all through Christ.

 

[PolskiKrol]

Think of it this way- if a man were to commit a sin of lust once, and repent, it would be easier for him to remain pure than a man who has lived half of his life in lust when he repented. Even though both have repented and both have been forgiven by God, its still harder for the man who lived with lust longer, because he is more inclined to lust.

Thus when we die, we will still have to become as God wanted us to be without these sinful inclinations, even though the guilt of sin is washed away.