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Year of the Priest, which takes place from June 19, 2009 - June
19, 2010, the Church is offering the opportunity to receive a
plenary indulgence for all the faithful.
Priests will be able to gain this indulgence by praying lauds or
vespers before the Blessed Sacrament - either in the tabernacle
or exposed to public adoration. Priests are also to "offer
themselves with a ready and generous heart for the celebration
of the sacraments, especially the sacrament of penance." This
indulgence can also be applied to deceased priests.
Partial indulgences can be obtained by priests through
"devotedly reciting the prayers duly approved to lead a saintly
life and carrying out the duties entrusted to them."
The plenary indulgence available for the faithful can be
obtained on the opening and closing days of the Year of the
Priest, on August 4th – the 150th anniversary of the death of
St. Jean-Marie Vianney, on the first Thursday of the month
throughout the jubilee year, or on other days as established by
the ordinaries of particular places. The faithful on these days
must attend Mass in an oratory or church and offer prayers to
“Jesus Christ, supreme and eternal priest, for the priests of
the Church, or perform any good work to sanctify and mould them
to his heart.”
They must also have gone to confession and prayed for the
intentions of the Pope, as is always the case with obtaining
indulgences.
A partial indulgence is available for the faithful as well when
they pray the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be five times, or
any other approved prayer “in honor of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus, to ask that priests maintain purity and sanctity of
life.”
The plenary indulgence is also available to those elderly, sick,
or otherwise unable to leave their homes, provided that, “on the
days concerned, they pray for the sanctification of priests and
offer their sickness and suffering to God through Mary, Queen of
the Apostles,” with the intention of fulfilling the usual three
conditions – going to confession, receiving the Holy Eucharist,
and praying for the intentions of the Pope.
What
is an Indulgence?
The Decree of Indulgence for Divine Mercy Sunday grants a
plenary or full indulgence to those who satisfy certain
conditions established by the Church and a partial (incomplete)
indulgence to those who fulfill some but not all or the
conditions.
A plenary indulgence means that by the merits of Jesus Christ,
the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints, the full remission
of the temporal punishment due to sacramentally forgiven sins is
obtained. The person becomes as if just baptized and would fly
immediately to heaven if he died in that instant. A partial
indulgence means that a portion of the temporal punishment due
to forgiven sin is remitted. Partial indulgences are received
either by doing some act to which a partial indulgence is
attached (e.g. praying a partially indulgenced prayer), or by
the incomplete fulfillment of the conditions attached to a
plenary indulgence.
Eternal and Temporal Punishment or Guilt
There are two kinds of punishment attached to sin, eternal and
temporal. If the sin is mortal (serious, grave) sin, the person
loses the friendship of God and with it the life of divine grace
within. This punishment is eternal. If the person is not
restored to grace before death he will be punished forever in
hell, since serious sin is an infinite insult to an All-Holy God
and thus deserves a like punishment. It was to repair for such
sin that Jesus became man and was crucified. As God His
sacrifice was infinitely meritorious, as Man He was able to
represent us. He thus could expiate for our mortal sins, which
are not just beyond our power of expiation but infinitely beyond
it.
Mortal sin, and also venial sin (which has no eternal punishment
attached to it), both disturb the right order within us and in
the order of justice in general. We all experience these
temporal (or in-time, in-this-world) consequences of sin, both
both personally and socially. Sin changes us (or rather we sin
because we are not what we are supposed to be), and like a
pebble in a pond these changes have effects beyond us. Not only
must we be sorry for our sins, but we must be more thoroughly
converted to the Lord, and demonstrate that conversion (Acts
26:20) by our actions. So, while sacramental absolution forgives
the eternal guilt of sin, which requires the infinite merits of
Christ, it does not necessarily remove all the temporal
punishment, since they are somewhat within our power to repair
(and somewhat unknown to us). Depending on our degree of sorrow,
absolution may result in the expiation of all the temporal guilt
of sin. However, for that which it does not repair, we must
offer further expiation through prayer, penance, carrying the
Cross etc., or after death be purified in purgatory (Rev 21:27).
What an Indulgence does is to take an occasion of such expiation
(a certain prayer, penance, charity or other designated work)
and add to its intrinsic merit before God an additional value
based on the treasury of merits of Jesus Christ, and those
perfectly united to Him in heaven (the saints). This can either
partially, or under certain conditions, totally remit the
temporal punishment due to sin. This depends, naturally, on our
openness to God's grace. A mechanical performance of an
indulgenced work would not have effect. Performing an
indulgenced work should have the consequence of fixing our will
away from our sins and entirely on God. This is why among the
most important of the conditions for receiving a plenary
indulgence, and the hardest to satisfy, is the complete
detachment or detestation of our sins. By detesting our sins we
orient our will away from creatures (to the degree we love them
inordinately), towards God. In this way we open our will to the
action of His mercy flowing into our souls, which alone is able
to effect the complete remission of the temporal punishment to
our sins.
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. Unlike the
theologies that say "we are washed it the blood of the Lamb and
there is nothing left to do," 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.
Note on Partial Indulgences (days and years)
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.
There are many prayers still circulating on prayer cards and in
prayer books which have partial indulgences in days and years
attached to them. However, all grants of indulgence issued prior
to 1968, unless re-issued in the Enchiridion or specifically
exempted by papal decree or privilege, were suppressed by Pope
Paul VI. Thus, these many specific prayers with their attached
indulgences, as well as the manner of measuring partial
indulgences, are no longer valid. Some of them may still receive
an indulgence, though, because of being re-issued in the new
Enchiridion (e.g. the Anima Christi, the Prayer before a
Crucifix and many other formal prayers). All other prayers
previously indulgenced could, nonetheless, receive a partial
indulgence under the general grants of indulgence which Pope
Paul VI, and Pope John Paul II in his 1999 revision of the
Enchiridion, established. These general grants establish partial
indulgences for devout prayer, penitence and charity, and are a
new and very generous inclusion in the Church's grants of
indulgence. They have made it unnecessary to grant specific
indulgences to prayers and other pious acts, as was done in the
past.
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