CatholicTheology.info

Choose a topic from Part 3 Suppl:

• Penance (Continued)
  • 1. Contrition
  • 2. The Object of Contrition
  • 3. Degrees of Contrition
  • 4. The Time or Season of Contrition
  • 5. The Effect of Contrition
  • 6. Confession
  • 7. The Nature of Confession
  • 8. The Minister of Confession
  • 9. The Quality of Confession
  • 10. The Effect of Confession
  • 11. The Seal of Confession
  • 12. Satisfaction
  • 13. Possibility of Satisfaction
  • 14. The Quality of Satisfaction
  • 15. Means of Making Satisfaction
  • 16. Those Who Have the Virtue of Penance
  • 17. The Power of the Keys
  • 18. The Effect of the Keys
  • 19. The Minister of the Keys
  • 20. Use of the Power of the Keys
  • 21. Excommunication
  • 22. Persons Concerned in Excommunication
  • 23. Dealing With Excommunicated Persons
  • 24. Absolution From Excommunication
  • 25. Indulgences
  • 26. The Granting of Indulgences
  • 27. The Gaining of Indulgences
  • 28. Public Penance
• Extreme Unction
• Order (Holy Orders)
• Matrimony
• The General Resurrection
• The Last Things
• Appendix I (The Innocents in Limbo)
• Appendix II (Two Notes on Purgatory)

25. Indulgences

1. An indulgence is the remission, in whole or in part, ofthe temporal punishment due to sin. The Church draws from herspiritual treasury (which consists of the inexhaustible meriting ofChrist and the superabundant merits which the saints gained throughChrist) to pay the temporal debt of sin, which, otherwise, thesinner would have to pay by trials and sufferings in this life orin purgatory. For the performing of certain designated good works,or the reciting of assigned prayers, the Church, in her power ofloosing and binding, releases the well-disposed person from thetemporal punishment due to his sins-and this, completely orpartially. This is called "granting an indulgence."

2. The Church has at her disposal the limitless spiritualtreasure of Christ's merits, to which are added thesuperabundant merits of Mary and the saints, and therefore she hasunlimited means for cancelling the debt of temporal punishment dueto human sins. If the indulgence be authoritatively proclaimed, andif the person seeking to obtain it is in the state of grace and hastrue piety as his motive, the indulgence can be perfectlygained.

3. Indulgences are sometimes attached by the Church to thereciting of certain prayers, sometimes to the performing of gooddeeds, such as almsgiving, or the making of pious pilgrimages.

"It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides. "
Thomas á Kempis

* * *

"It is better to be burdened and in company with the strong than to be unburdened and with the weak. When you are burdened you are close to God, your strength, who abides with the afflicted. When you are relieved of the burden you are close to yourself, your own weakness; for virtue and strength of soul grow and are confirmed in the trials of patience."
St John of the Cross, OCD - Doctor of the Church

* * *

"The essence of perfection is to embrace the will of God in all things, prosperous or adverse. In prosperity, even sinners find it easy to unite themselves to the divine will; but it takes saints to unite themselves to God's will when things go wrong and are painful to self-love. Our conduct in such instances is the measure of our love of God."
St Alphonsus de Liguori

* * *

Copyright