Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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HEROIC ACT

An act of charity by which a person offers to God, for the benefit of the souls in purgatory, all the works of satisfaction he or she will perform during life, and all the suffrage that will come to him or her after death. It is not a vow but an offering that can be revoked at will. Its heroism consists in the readiness to undergo sufferings here and in purgatory in order to relieve others of their purgatorial pains. The Church has more than once approved such a heroic act of charity.