Indulgences
We have in indulgences, so
liberally granted to us by the Church, a means at once easy and efficacious to
wipe out the debt of our sins. This means is attached directly, by its origin,
to sacramental penitence, which requires of the penitent contrition,
confession, and satisfaction.
Satisfaction is represented by
the penance imposed by the confessor. Its purpose is to satisfy divine justice
for the sins committed after Baptism. In the early centuries of the Church,
long and hard penances were imposed on those who confessed grave sins, and only
after the performance of these penances did the penitent receive full absolution,
that is to say, not only the absolution of sin itself, which can be had
immediately by Confession, but also the total absolution of the temporal
punishment due to sin. IN other words, to that final reconciliation the Church
attached what we call today a plenary indulgence. The Church has received from
Christ the full an entire power to absolve the faithful, not only from the sins
themselves, but also from the punishment due to sin. “Whatsover you shall bind
upon earth, shall be bound also in Heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon
earth, shall be loosed also in Heaven,” said Christ to St. Peter. The same
words were spoken, on another occasion, to all the apostles together (Matt.
18:18). The temporal punishment due to sin is a binding chain, which prevents our
entry into Heaven unless and until we have been delivered from it. It is in our
hands, then, to have ourselves delivered from these chains by those who, in the
Church, have receive the power to do so. But it is understood that the
deliverance must respect the requirements of equity. Divine justice demands a
compensation commensurate with the sin. Formerly, the Church demanded far more
from the penitent than she demands today. It is true that our confessors impose
very light penances on us, even for mortal sins, if one compares them to those
which were in use in the early Church. What is a chaplet or an entire Rosary,
or a Way of the Cross, or a day’s fast, or a small alms, next to whole years of
series, of fasts on bread and water, or long pilgrimages on foot? However,
divine justice remains ever the same: its tariff has not changed. One must pay
the price. What does the Church do in order to aid us? Knowing our weakness,
and the frayed health of these latter times, she dips her hands deep into her
treasury—the treasury of the satisfaction of Christ and His saints, of which she
is the dispensatrix. We call this divine coinage by the name “indulgences.” An
indulgence is a random from the temporal punishment which we owe to divine
justice for our sins, even after we have repented of them and obtained
absolution. It does not concern the remission of sin, but the remission of
the pain due to sin already pardoned. This must not be forgotten.
How can we acquire this precious
currency? We have only to observe the conditions which the Church very wisely
imposes, whether there is question of plenary or partial indulgence. These
conditions are not draconian, for they contain nothing that is beyond the power
of goodwill, and they are easy to fulfill. For a plenary indulgence, which remits
all debts and makes the soul immaculate for Heaven, there is required a full repentance
for all sin, both mortal and venial, without wilfull attachment to the least of
them. The soul must renounce all that displeases God and unite itself with all
its powers to His Will. In a word, it must love God, according to the first and
the greatest commandment. It is so difficult to love in this way an all-good
and all-lovable Father, especially when we are aided to this perfection by
Confession and Communion, which are ordinarily (not always) required for the
gaining of a plenary indulgence? Add to this, usually, a visit to a church with
prayers for the Pope’s intentions, and you are delivered from the heavy weight
of your sins, in their pains as well as their culpability. If we were to make
this exercise every day, or at least once a week, we would stand a very good
chance of escaping Purgatory.
Perhaps you find that, now, it is
all so easy that you are inclined to be skeptical about it. But ask yourself
the question: what have I done more difficult than this, to obtain a remission incomparably
greater than that of the temporal punishment, the remission of the mortal sin
itself and of the eternal pain it entailed? You went and knelt at the feet of a
priest who represented Christ, and you said: “Father, I have sinned”; and he
raised his hand over you, forgiving you in the Name of Jesus Christ. What more
simple in its means, what more marvelous in its effects? Do you forget that the
love of God for us knows no bounds; that He has given to us His Only Son, and
has allowed Him to offer Himself as a victim for our sins, that the rights of
justice might be fully satisfied? What God asks of us in faith in His love and
a return of love. If we give that return of love, He will forget all. “For
charity covereth a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8). (Martin Jugie, The Truth
About Purgatory and The Means to Avoid it [Westminster, Ma.: Newman Press,
1949; repr., Manchester, N.H.: Sophia Institute Press, 2022], 154-57, emphasis in
original)
