The Anima Christi Prayer

[Paladin D]

[b]1.[/b] What does "Anima" mean?

[b]2.[/b] On this EWTN catalogue, it says under the prayer [i]"Indulgence of 300 days each time - Pius IX Jan. 9th 1854"[/i], what's an indulgence? Does this mean if I pray it 2 times, it lasts for 600 days?

Thank you very much in advance.

[Paladin D]

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01515a.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01515a.htm[/url]

Some information here.

[drewmeister2]

Anima is Latin for soul, or mind. In the case of Anima Christi prayer, it means Soul of Christ.

An Indulgence is the remission of temporal punishment which is due to sin that has been forgiven. Keep in mind, an indulgence isn't an excuse to commit a sin! It also doesn't get rid of temptations to sin. They can shorten the time for souls in Purgatory.

Yes, I do believe, as I have always been taught, that every time you say it, you gain 300 days indulgence. So if you say it two times, you get 600, three times, 900, etc. But someone please correct me if I am wrong! But that is how it has always been explained to me.

Hope this helped! God bless

[Paladin D]

Thanks.

[drewmeister2]

You're welcome!

[Cure of Ars]

[quote]
[b]TIME OFF FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR? [/b]

If you uncover a holy card or prayer book, you'll notice pious acts or recitation of prayers might carry an indication of time, such as "300 days or "two years." Most fundamentalists, and even many Catholics, think such phrases refer to how much "time off for good behavior" you'd get in purgatory. If you perform a pious act labeled as "300 days' partial indulgence," then you'd spend 300 fewer days in purgatory.

It's easy to see how misinformed Catholics might scurry around for years, toting up indulgences, keeping a little register in which they add up the days. "Let's see, last year's tally comes to one thousand three hundred twelve years, give or take a week or so, and my lifetime tally is now past the twenty thousand mark. I can cancel out a lot of sinning with this!"

Or so some people might think. Well, there are no days or years in purgatory-- or in heaven or hell, for that matter -- and the indication of days or years attached to partial indulgences never meant you'd get that much time off in purgatory.

[b]AS GOD SEES FIT[/b]

What it means was that you'd bet a partial indulgence commensurate with what the early Christians got for doing penances for a certain length of time. But there has never been any way for us to measure how much "good time" that represents. All the Church could say, and all it ever did say, was that your temporal punishment would be reduced -- as God saw fit.

Since some Catholics were confused by the designation of days and years attached to partial indulgences, and since nearly all Protestants got a wrong idea of what those numbers meant, the rules for indulgences were modified in 1967, and now "the grant of a partial indulgence is designated only with the words "partial indulgence," without any determination of days or years," according to the Enchiridion. [/quote]

[url="http://www.catholic.org/clife/prayers/indulgc.php"]http://www.catholic.org/clife/prayers/indulgc.php[/url]