I Don't Understand Indulgences. Please Explain.

[Luigi]

How are "days" counted in purgatory? Isn't purgatory outside of time?

 

 

1. The Church tries to make subtle & complex concepts accessible to all Catholics, including those who don't think all that subtly or complexly. Remember that until the 20th century, the vast majority of people on the planet - including heavily Catholic Europe and the New World - were illiterate or minimally educated. So an awful lot of these explanations are actually analogies, or more specifically, metaphors - comparisons that don't use LIKE or AS.

 

2. People in Western society think of sin in terms of kind and number, as required by the Council of Trent - "Father, I skipped Mass four times." We have also traditionally thought of punishment in terms of number and kind, although that's not mandated by Trent - forty lashes, ten years in prison, execution (there can be only one of these, if done properly).  

 

3. Priests were not always available to the dying - or to the average Catholic if s/he lived outside of an urban area. Additionally, death was often very quick in the old days - it still is in situations like wars or car accidents. But in the times of plague, people might be dead within a few days of contracting the disease, such great numbers of people were ill simultaneously  that priests couldn't get around to all of them, and priests died of the plague, too, so their numbers were reduced. 

 

4. The sacrament of penance is required only for serious sin. Light sins can be "worked off" through acts of charity and piety - including prayer. 

 

Combining points 1 through 4, we can interpret indulgences as a way for the Church to provide/minister forgiveness of sin (through prayer), even in advance - a sort of "forgiveness savings account" for light sin - to Catholics who don't have ready & regular access to a confessor or to Extreme Unction, couched in terms that the average Catholic can understand.

 

What actually happens after death remains a mystery, but indulgences provide some comfort & encouragement. Like everything else the Church teaches, the concept of indulgences has been misunderstood and/or misinterpreted by many people.     

[4588686]

I am poor, not poverty but poor, can you give me my indulgence for free. :) :P hey hasan did you get to check out Nick Vujicic ?

 

 

I'll write to the Pope and see what I can do.  I haven't seen Nick Vujicic.  Looks interesting.  

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

 As St. Thomas says (Supplement.25.1 ad 2um), "He who gains indulgences is not thereby released outright from what he owes as penalty, but is provided with the means of paying it." The Church therefore neither leaves the penitent helplessly in debt nor acquits him of all further accounting; she enables him to meet his obligations.

 

I love this bit, clears something up for me.

[dUSt]

"An indulgence is obtained through the Church who, by virtue of the power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ Jesus, intervenes in favor of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishment due for their sins." The Church does this not just to aid Christians, "but also to spur them to works of devotion, penance, and charity" (CCC 1478). 

 

Jesus gave the church the authority to intervene for us by granting us indulgences, which atone for our sins that have already been forgiven (like when you do a penance). These indulgences come from the over abundance of merits gained by Christ, Mary and all the saints on our behalf.

[Nihil Obstat]

1. The Church tries to make subtle & complex concepts accessible to all Catholics, including those who don't think all that subtly or complexly. Remember that until the 20th century, the vast majority of people on the planet - including heavily Catholic Europe and the New World - were illiterate or minimally educated. So an awful lot of these explanations are actually analogies, or more specifically, metaphors - comparisons that don't use LIKE or AS.

 

2. People in Western society think of sin in terms of kind and number, as required by the Council of Trent - "Father, I skipped Mass four times." We have also traditionally thought of punishment in terms of number and kind, although that's not mandated by Trent - forty lashes, ten years in prison, execution (there can be only one of these, if done properly).  

 

3. Priests were not always available to the dying - or to the average Catholic if s/he lived outside of an urban area. Additionally, death was often very quick in the old days - it still is in situations like wars or car accidents. But in the times of plague, people might be dead within a few days of contracting the disease, such great numbers of people were ill simultaneously  that priests couldn't get around to all of them, and priests died of the plague, too, so their numbers were reduced. 

 

4. The sacrament of penance is required only for serious sin. Light sins can be "worked off" through acts of charity and piety - including prayer. 

 

Combining points 1 through 4, we can interpret indulgences as a way for the Church to provide/minister forgiveness of sin (through prayer), even in advance - a sort of "forgiveness savings account" for light sin - to Catholics who don't have ready & regular access to a confessor or to Extreme Unction, couched in terms that the average Catholic can understand.

 

What actually happens after death remains a mystery, but indulgences provide some comfort & encouragement. Like everything else the Church teaches, the concept of indulgences has been misunderstood and/or misinterpreted by many people.     

IMO this is a misleading explanation.

Indulgences assume the 'penitent' has already had his sins forgiven through sacramental confession. It is a misunderstanding to think of it as a built-up penance 'just in case'. I am going by the Catholic Encyclopedia entry I posted above.

Basically, the clearest way to state it is as the remission of some or all temporal punishment due to sin. I think it would cause confusion to indicate even tentatively that we should understand it, as you said, as a "forgiveness savings account".

 

The mortal or venial nature of sin is not relevant when it comes to indulgences, because we are assuming the person is in a state of sanctifying grace already. Otherwise one cannot obtain an indulgence.

The sin is forgiven - it is the punishment that is being remitted. I think an explanation of indulgences has to be careful to maintain that distinction.

Edited October 18, 2013 by Nihil Obstat

[ToJesusMyHeart]

"When you sin, you hammer a nail into the wall (of your soul). Confession removes the nail (the sin), but the hole is still there after you take the nail out. Purgatory/indulgences fill the hole left by the nail."

 

-words of my confessor

[CatherineM]

You break a neighbor's window. (Sin). You apologize to the neighbor. (Confession). You have to replace the window. (Atonement). Purgatory is your atonement. If you can't afford to replace the window, you might have to work it off doing chores. (Indulgences).

[CrossCuT]

Its kinda like spilling a plate of spaghetti on white carpet.

The sin has already been committed, but even after you pick up the spaghetti there is a nasty tomato stain left behind. 

 

So you could leave the stain and clean it up later (after you die and go to purgatory), or you could get an indulgence and just clean up the tomato stain now.

 

It is typically recommended to clean stains off sooner than later because if you let them sit they tend to get harder to remove.

Edited October 18, 2013 by CrossCuT

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

Its kinda like spilling a plate of spaghetti on white carpet.

The sin has already been committed, but even after you pick up the spaghetti there is a nasty tomato stain left behind. 

 

So you could leave the stain and clean it up later (after you die and go to purgatory), or you could get an indulgence and just clean up the tomato stain now.

 

It is typically recommended to clean stains off sooner than later because if you let them sit they tend to get harder to remove.

 

 

I love you :P i use the whole you don't leave brushing your teeth till the day before visiting the dentist(death). So sin is dropping the spaghetti, confession,absolution and penance is picking up the spaghetti and indulgences and purgatory are removing the stain, i hope i remember this, so beautiful and simple. thanks CrossCut, god bless you.

Edited October 18, 2013 by Tab'le Du'Bah-Rye

[dUSt]

You break a neighbor's window. (Sin). You apologize to the neighbor. (Confession). You have to replace the window. (Atonement). Purgatory is your atonement. If you can't afford to replace the window, you might have to work it off doing chores. (Indulgences).

 

After confession, the priest gives you a penance. Where does that penance fit into this analogy?

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

Don't let the stain get ingrained, or Jesus will have to get out the carpet cleaner on you in purgatory and steam clean yo soul, ouch.

Edited October 18, 2013 by Tab'le Du'Bah-Rye

[CrossCuT]

I love you :P i use the whole you don't leave brushing your teeth till the day before visiting the dentist(death). So sin is dropping the spaghetti, confession,absolution and penance is picking up the spaghetti and indulgences and purgatory are removing the stain, i hope i remember this, so beautiful and simple. thanks CrossCut, god bless you.

 

Haha you're welcome!! :)

Spaghetti was the first thing that popped into my head! Maybe Im hungry...

[Nihil Obstat]

After confession, the priest gives you a penance. Where does that penance fit into this analogy?

 

Sorry, I am not sure how to relate it to the analogy, but maybe you can piece it together.

 

The satisfaction, usually called the "penance", imposed by the confessor when he gives absolution is an integral part of the Sacrament of Penance; an indulgence is extra-sacramental; it presupposes the effects obtained by confession, contrition, and sacramental satisfaction. It differs also from the penitential works undertaken of his own accord by the repentant sinner — prayer, fasting, alms-giving — in that these are personal and get their value from the merit of him who performs them, whereas an indulgence places at the penitent's disposal the merits of Christ and of the saints, which form the "Treasury" of the Church.

Edited October 18, 2013 by Nihil Obstat

[Aloysius]

After confession, the priest gives you a penance. Where does that penance fit into this analogy?

from the Newadvent article on Indulgences:

 

 

 

• The satisfaction, usually called the "penance", imposed by the confessor when he gives absolution is an integral part of the Sacrament of Penance; an indulgence is extra-sacramental; it presupposes the effects obtained by confession, contrition, and sacramental satisfaction. It differs also from the penitential works undertaken of his own accord by the repentant sinner — prayer,fasting, alms-giving â€” in that these are personal and get their value from the merit of him who performs them, whereas an indulgence places at the penitent's disposal the merits of Christ and of the saints, which form the "Treasury" of the Church.

 

basically, the penance and other ordinary personal penitential acts operate the same way in terms of repairing the damage caused by sin.  the penance is the satisfaction within the sacramental context, but it is also aimed at repairing the damage.  an indulgence granted by the church to a particular kind of penance or prayer basically in some way amplifies the grace that would have otherwise been attained by that penitential act or prayer by connecting it through the grace of the communion of the Church.  

 

the difference between an indulgence and any other prayer or good deed that helps repair the damage caused by sin is that the indulgenced prayer has more grace granted by the Church... but they're all involved in the repairing of damage that has been caused by already forgiven sins.

 

though I think the 'satisfaction' of sacramental confession is also connected to the forgiveness, but it is not contingent upon it... so if you fail to do your penance it doesn't mean the absolution wasn't still valid, for instance.

[Lil Red]

if you're a mother, you automatically get time off in purgatory, no indulgences needed.

[dUSt]

So, in a way, the actual effects of a personal act of "penance", or things such as prayer, fasting, and alms-giving, are the same as an indulgence. The difference being, the former things come from your personal merits, and the latter come from the "treasury" of merits from Christ and the saints.

 

So, getting back to CatherineM's analogy, would this be accurate?

 

You break a neighbor's window (Sin).

You apologize to the neighbor (Confession).

You replace the window yourself (Atonement: From personal merits, such as doing penance after confession, prayer, fasting and alms-giving).

You get professional help from window replacement experts (Indulgences: Church granted, from the merits of Christ and the saints). 

If you never get around to getting the window replaced (Purgatory).

 

 

[Nihil Obstat]

Analogies always break down if you push them too hard. :P I think that the difference between penance and indulgence reaches the limits of simple analogies, for our purposes. :hehe:

[Aloysius]

So, in a way, the actual effects of a personal act of "penance", or things such as prayer, fasting, and alms-giving, are the same as an indulgence. The difference being, the former things come from your personal merits, and the latter come from the "treasury" of merits from Christ and the saints.

 

So, getting back to CatherineM's analogy, would this be accurate?

 

You break a neighbor's window (Sin).

You apologize to the neighbor (Confession).

You replace the window yourself (Atonement: From personal merits, such as doing penance after confession, prayer, fasting and alms-giving).

You get professional help from window replacement experts (Indulgences: Church granted, from the merits of Christ and the saints). 

If you never get around to getting the window replaced (Purgatory).

I really like that analogy, it actually helps me understand it better than all my attempt to make distinctions directly.  indulgences are basically the Church's professional repair expertise.

[Aloysius]

Analogies always break down if you push them too hard. :P I think that the difference between penance and indulgence reaches the limits of simple analogies, for our purposes. :hehe:

of course, though it depends on whose purposes.  If I were writing some kind of master's thesis or phd dissertation on theology, this analogy wouldn't be sufficient for the whole story... but if I wanted to explain indulgences to a Catholic who just wanted to understand how to apply them to their spiritual life, this is actually quite perfect.

[Nihil Obstat]

of course, though it depends on whose purposes.  If I were writing some kind of master's thesis or phd dissertation on theology, this analogy wouldn't be sufficient for the whole story... but if I wanted to explain indulgences to a Catholic who just wanted to understand how to apply them to their spiritual life, this is actually quite perfect.

That is true. Although I think as we get deeper, specifically the difference between penance and indulgence, that the analogy starts to hinder.

Maybe I just ave not heard that connection made in a way that makes sense to me.

 

Anyway, I like the analogy right up until that point.