A Spirituality For All Seasons
With the promulgation of this jubilee year within the Catholic Church, the Holy Father had this to say in his papal bull for the jubilee year, Incarnationis Mysterium (Nov. 29, 1998)1:
Every jubilee year is like an invitation to a wedding feast. From the different churches and ecclesial communities throughout the world, let us all hasten to the feast now being prepared; let us bring with us everything that already unites us and, by fixing our gaze on Christ alone, let us grow in the unity which is the fruit of the Spirit. The present task of the Bishop of Rome, as the successor of Peter, is to make the invitation to the jubilee celebration all the more insistent, in order that the 2,000th anniversary of the central mystery of the Christian faith may be experienced as a journey of reconciliation and a sign of true hope for all who look to Christ and to His Church, the sacrament "of intimate union with God and the unity of the entire human race" [no. 4].
Within the context of this jubilee year, John Paul II returns to an ancient theme within the dogmas of the Catholic faith:
Another distinctive sign, and one familiar to the faithful, is the indulgence, which is one of the constitutive elements of the jubilee. The indulgence discloses the fullness of the Father's mercy, who offers everyone His love, expressed primarily in the forgiveness of sins. Normally, God the Father grants His pardon through the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. Free and conscious surrender to grave sin, in fact, separates the believer from the life of grace with God and therefore excludes the believer from the holiness to which he is called. Having received from Christ the power to forgive in His name (cf. Mt 16:19; Jn 20:23), the Church is in the world as the living presence of the love of God who leans down to every human weakness in order to gather it into the embrace of His mercy. It is precisely through the ministry of the Church that God diffuses His mercy in the world, by means of that precious gift which from very ancient times has been called "indulgence" [Incarnationis Mysterium, no. 9].
To rediscover or reclaim the teaching on indulgences in a more contemporary manner, one needs to go first to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). With the coming of the Holy Year 2000, the indulgences to be gained that are offered to pilgrims need to be properly understood and prepared for so that they will be received and lived correctly rather than superstitiously.
Based upon the sacred Tradition of past centuries and updated by Pope Paul VI in his apostolic constitution Doctrine of Indulgences2 Catholics can be more easily guided into the way of the Lord Jesus if they appreciate the particular doctrine of indulgences and apply their efforts to gain them. What an indulgence is can be more easily found in the Catechism when it says, based upon the constitution of Paul VI:
"An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints."
"An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin." Indulgences maybe applied to the living or the dead [no. 1471].
What this signifies, the Catechism goes on to delineate:
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 punishments due for their sins. Thus the Church does not want simply to come to the aid of these Christians, but also to spur them to works of devotion, penance and charity [no. 1478].
What all this means, we shall see in the treatise below.
An outmoded dogma? Many years ago, when I was a student in France, a certain eminent theologian I had gotten to know once claimed with complete certitude that certain dogmas of the Church were antiquated and no longer relevant. He thought that sooner or later they would pass into oblivion. The example he offered was the doctrine on indulgences.
However, it was no surprise to those that know the history of dogma when Pope Paul VI promulgated his constitution on this subject in 1969. Unfortunately, most theologians at the time paid little attention to it. Others were heartbroken because their theories about irrelevant dogmas were once again quashed, just as their ideas favoring contraception had previously been extinguished, in theory at least, by the encyclical letter Humanae Vitae.
Years later, rarely does anyone write on indulgences, nor have bishops or priests encouraged or explained their importance in the life of the ordinary Christian. This has only added to the contemporary crisis of developed countries where many people of God still refrain from receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation and go to holy Communion in the state of grave sin or even in an invalid second marriage.
Sin, penance and punishment. To have a sense of reverence for God and the things of God, the human person must be aware of the transcendence of God as the basis for appreciating His immanence in Creation—and this applies even more profoundly to His new creation by sanctifying grace and the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity. Christ is not simply a friend who accepts mediocrity, but one who challenges His friends to change, to atone for past misconduct, especially sins of omission and other negligences.
He takes the choices of human beings seriously. Since the human person is going to be judged by Eternal Mercy and Justice, one has to work out a lifestyle in "fear and trembling" as well as in faith, hope and divine love.
Hence, the need arises that the People of God make acts of self-purification or satisfaction (as it is called in theology), not to rid the guilt of sin (already taken away by the Sacrament of Penance) but to put aside the hangovers or leftovers of sin (bad habits that still exist in the faculties of the soul, which may also include psychological guilt) and to work off the insults brought to God by disobeying His intelligent and loving directives. This is a work very close to Christ the Victim.
If we look carefully at the Catechism, we will find much of the teaching on penance well established and clarified:
To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the "eternal punishment" of sin. On the other hand, every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the "temporal punishment" of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain [no. 1472].
The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the "old man" and to put on the "new man" [no. 1473].
Why an all-loving God should establish temporal punishments due to sin is really a false question. We have been created in such a way that certain natural repercussions flow from committing sin, not because God wants them to but because created human nature acquires these unfortunate characteristics as a result of committing sin.
Somehow, many Catholics have the erroneous impression that Christ's passion and death were enough to satisfy for sin and no more is needed, except simply participating in Sunday Mass, as if personal penance were passe. With such ignorance abounding, it is no wonder that the dogma of indulgences has all but been forgotten.
To be sure, it is not a primary truth of the Catholic faith, but it rests upon many more important teachings — for example, those on merit, Christ and Mary, the Communion of Saints, the papacy, confession, asceticism, prayer, sin and the justice of God. There is an organic unity among these revealed realities, which, on a practical level, the apostle Paul describes as "making up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ" (Col 1:24). So, as regards the teaching of the Church, even after we receive sacramental absolution, there are corresponding attributes of sorrow that are needed to prolong our desire to remain in union with the Lord Jesus:
Jesus' call to conversion and penance, like that of the prophets before Him, does not aim first at outward works, "sackcloth and ashes," fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart, interior conversion. Without this, such penances remain sterile and false; however, interior conversion urges expression in visible signs, gestures and works of penance.
Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed. At the same time, it entails the desire and resolution to change one's life, with hope in God's mercy and trust in the help of His grace. This conversion of heart is accompanied by a salutary pain and sadness which the Fathers called animi cruciatus (affliction of spirit) and compunctio cordis (repentance of heart) [CCC, nos. 1430-31].
The contribution of St. Thomas Aquinas. Moreover, one of the signs that conversion is alive and well in a person is the desire to do the works of penance and satisfaction. It has always been taught that only in baptism are all temporal punishments flowing from sin remitted by God, along with the guilt of sin and eternal punishment. It is interesting to note that according to St. Thomas an individual can have some indirect or probable knowledge as to whether or not he or she is in the state of sanctifying grace (ST 3 I-II 112, 5).
But neither St. Thomas nor anyone else has ever given any certain or probable criteria to discern how much temporal punishment remains after the forgiveness of mortal sin, though Thomas is of the opinion that solemn profession of vows is a kind of second baptism and therefore may also remit all temporal punishment due to sin (ST II-II 189, 3 ad 3). This personal ignorance of owed temporal punishment is certainly meant to spur one to live a life of penance and satisfaction that keeps alive a desire for perfection and the abhorrence of all sin.
St. Thomas is of the opinion that sins remitted by baptism remain altogether unpunished on a personal level since Christ made satisfaction for their punishment (ST III 68, 5). On the purely subjective level, he states another case whereby one may not have to make personal satisfaction for punishment due to sin:
The necessity of suffering satisfaction and purgative punishment may be excluded by the vehemence both of love of God and of loathing for past sin; and, even when this vehemence is not such as will exclude punishment totally, nevertheless, the greater the vehemence the less the degree of punishment needed to suffice (SCG III, 158).
Given the way people normally live, persons moved (such as Aquinas describes) would be the first to continue their penitential acts, as can be seen in the lives of the canonized saints.
St. Thomas also raises the question of whether or not Holy Communion can remit the entire debt of the punishment due to sin. He answers in the following way:
Considered as a sacrament, its effect is wrought in two ways. First, directly to the power of the sacrament, secondly, as certain concomitants. . . . Through the power of the Sacrament it produces directly that effect, for which it was instituted. Now this was not for the satisfaction of sins but for spiritual nourishment through union with Christ and His members, as food becomes one with the person fed. However, because this union is through charity, from the fervor of which comes forgiveness, not only of fault, but also of penalty, it follows as a consequence, and by way of concomitance to the principal effect, that a person obtains pardon of the penalty of sin, not indeed of all of it, but proportionately to the measure of his devotion and fervor (ST III 79, 5).
Thomas further explains that human nature seems to be incapable of rising to such heights of devotion to remit all punishment of sin, for he goes on to say: "That part and not the whole of the punishment is pardoned comes about from a defect of human devotion, not of Christ's power" (ST ad 3). It is one thing to redeem humankind; it is another thing for individuals to appropriate or take in that redemption and make it their own. Other than babies, individuals must make a personal contribution. To save mankind from the punishments due to original sin, God took on himself those punishments essentially (certain forms of suffering, and death). Wondrously, He did the superabundant acts of satisfaction for man as the God-man.
Nevertheless, there is always something lacking to the cross and passion of Christ, since God expects us to make our own acts of satisfaction in union with Christ. Integral to Aquinas' understanding of satisfaction is that while Jesus Christ has suffered and died for our sins, we have to work out our salvation in conjunction with His life. Just as God created the world, yet told us to subdue it (Gn 1:28), so He likewise re-created mankind in principle and told him to work at the process by not only passively accepting Christ and His gifts but also by contributing something of ourselves to the work of restoring the Image of God within.
For St. Thomas, satisfaction is made to God like restitution is made to our neighbor (IV Sent. dist. 15, a. 1, sed contra). It consists in penal works, not simply good works (Suppl. 15, 3). It is necessary that a penal work be against the will of him who suffers while doing the work (ST I-II 87, 2). The reason why it normally has to be this way (baptism excepted) is put in the following way: "Only punishment can repair the disorder of sin and restore it to the order of justice for it is right that he who has been too indulgent to his own will should suffer something repugnant to his will and thus restore the balance" (ST I-II 86, 4).
Another reason is asserted in Aquinas' De Veritate4: "Satisfaction involves punishment as a compensation for the pleasure wrongfully taken in sin" (26, 6 ad 4).
Similarly, St. Thomas again teaches in the Summa Theologiae: "A man effectively atones for an offense when he offers to the one who has been offended something which he accepts as matching or outweighing the former offense" (III 48,2).
Acts of satisfaction are also described by Aquinas as "medicine, healing past sins and preserving from future sins" (Suppl. 15, 2). The principal works of satisfaction are prayer, almsgiving and fasting (Suppl. 15, 2). The Catechism teaches the same doctrine and adds several more ideas when it says:
The seasons and days of penance in the course of the liturgical year (Lent, and each Friday in memory of the death of the Lord) are intense moments of the Church's penitential practice. These times are particularly appropriate for spiritual exercises, penitential liturgies, pilgrimages as signs of penance, voluntary self-denial such as fasting and almsgiving, and fraternal sharing (charitable and missionary works) [no. 1438].
The Council of Trent and the same Catechism (no. 1473) go on to say that the great sign of love and satisfaction is to accept patiently the trials and pains of life with Christ. But what in the final analysis gives penal acts the value of satisfaction is not pain but charity — love which must undergird them (ST III 48, 2; Suppl. 14, 2). In a good summary form, all is put into a wider perspective in St. Thomas' Commentary on Colossians:
"I am glad of my sufferings on your behalf as, in this mortal frame of mine, I help to pay off the debt which the afflictions of Christ still leave to be paid, for the sake of his body, the church (Col. 1:24)." Not that we are to jump to the conclusion that our Savior's satisfaction was, objectively speaking, insufficient — Christ's blood was enough to redeem any number of worlds — but Christ is a single Mystical Body, of which He is the head and we the members, and God, in His wisdom, disposes the merits and the sufferings of each and all, of the head as of the members. Christ's merits are infinite, and each member has that degree of merit which corresponds with his vocation as one of the God's children. There is nothing lacking in the afflictions of Christ, but for love Paul must bear in his flesh some share of personal afflictions and so share in the merits of the Redeemer for the building up of the Mystical Body. Christ must suffer in Paul, His member, as He does in all His members. All the saints have suffered, are suffering and will suffer thus for the Church until the end of time (Comm. in Col. 1, lect. 6, n. 61).
The meaning of personal conversion. In other words, if we are to gain total reconciliation with God, we must make our own personal effort and contribution in the process. But the problem for most people in the spiritual life is that many find it too difficult to live intensely a life of personal penance. And so the Church offers an encouragement in the form of indulgenced works. St. Thomas was very critical of those who thought such inducements were meaningless when he said, "All admit that indulgences have some value, for it would be blasphemy to say that the Church does anything in vain" (Suppl. 25, 1). Yet he was willing to concede that, "Although indulgences avail much for the remission of punishment, yet works of satisfaction are more meritorious in respect of the essential reward which infinitely transcends the remission of temporal punishment" (Suppl. 27, 2 ad 2).
So often the more difficult works of penance such as fasting — and to some extent prayer itself, when offered by the average person — may lack much charity behind it to sustain the personal difficulties involved, especially, for example, when prayer is dry and distracting and so a seeming waste of time. Still, each and all must try to seek God through daily conversion. As the Catechism describes this process:
Conversion is accomplished in daily life by gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice and right, by the admission of faults to one's brethren, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness. Taking up one's cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance.
Eucharist and Penance. Daily conversion and penance find their source and nourishment in the Eucharist, for in it is made present the sacrifice of Christ which has reconciled us with God. Through the Eucharist those who live from the life of Christ are fed and strengthened. "It is a remedy to free us from our daily faults and to preserve us from mortal sins."
Reading Sacred Scripture, praying the Liturgy of the Hours and the Our Father — every sincere act of worship or devotion revives the spirit of conversion and repentance within us and contributes to the forgiveness of our sins [nos 1435-37].
It is in this atmosphere of trying to live out one's adopted sonship that we are now in a ready position to fathom the nature of indulgences.
Pope Paul VI and the nature of indulgences. In the magnificent Doctrine of Indulgences written by Pope Paul VI, we find a clear statement about the effects of sin and punishment (no. 2). Sin not only harms the individual but also disrupts an objective universal order that must in some way be compensated for its twofold harmful effects on the person and the human community:
It is therefore necessary for the full remission and —as it is called — reparation of sins not only that friendship with God be re-established by a sincere conversion of the mind and amends made for the offense against His wisdom and goodness, but also that all personal as well as social values and those of the universal order itself, which have been diminished or destroyed by sin, be fully re-integrated whether through voluntary reparation which will involve punishment or through acceptance of the punishments established by the just and most holy wisdom of God, from which there will shine forth through the world the sanctity and the splendor of His glory. The very existence and the gravity of the punishment enable us to understand the foolishness and malice of sin and its harmful consequences [no. 3].
To spur one another on to grow in the process of doing penance, Pope Paul reminds us of the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ. The great saints who have gone before us, and even those at present, have been "immersed in the fervor of charity." They grew in love of God as they carried "their crosses in expiation for their own sins and those of others, certain that they could help their brothers to obtain salvation from God the Father of mercies. This is the very ancient dogma of the Communion of Saints" (no. 5).
The influence of Paul VI on the Catechism. The Catechism prolongs Pope Paul's meditations on the subject and makes them its own:
In the Communion of Saints, "a perennial link of charity exists between the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home, those who are expiating their sins in purgatory and those who are still pilgrims on earth. Between them there is, too, an abundant exchange of all good things." In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus, recourse to the Communion of Saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin.
We also call these spiritual goods of the Communion of Saints the Church's treasury, which is "not the sum total of the material goods which have accumulated during the course of the centuries. On the contrary, the 'treasury of the Church' is the infinite value, which can never be exhausted, which Christ's merits have before God. They were offered so that the whole of mankind could be set free from sin and attain communion with the Father. In Christ, the Redeemer himself, the satisfactions and merits of His Redemption exist and find their efficacy."
"This treasury includes as well the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are truly immense, unfathomable and even pristine in their value before God. In the treasury, too, are the prayers and good works of all the saints, all those who have followed in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by His grace have made their lives holy and carried out the mission the Father entrusted to them. In this way, they attained their own salvation and at the same time cooperated in saving their brothers in the unity of the Mystical Body" [nos. 1475-77].
At the heart of personal efforts of penance is the settled conviction that each of us can and must depend upon the merits of Christ, Mary and Joseph and all the saints to become cleansed and purified. We do not do so merely on our own merits, either for the remission of sins or the healing of the wounds of sin.
This is why the early Church, Paul VI goes on to remind us in The Doctrine of Indulgences, "established the manner and the measure of the satisfaction to be made [for sin] and indeed permitted canonical penances to be replaced by other possibly easier works, which would be useful to the common good and suitable for fostering piety, to be performed by penitents themselves and sometimes by others among the faithful" (no. 6). Essentially, this is what gave birth to the whole notion of indulgences, whereby certain acts could replace whole years of penance if done under certain conditions.
For many years, indulgences were criticized as being outside of the Christian life, creating a piety foreign to the spirit of the liturgy. Over the centuries, popes had so indulgenced certain prayers and religious articles (think of the brown scapular) that they might have given the impression to the untrained that these things were as great as sacraments. Since there were days, years and quarantines attached to such a variety of prayers, one could have also become confused about the meaning of indulgences. And so, Pope Paul VI made some very significant changes, of which the following are the most crucial.
First, Paul VI reduced all indulgences to a temporary or plenary value, eliminating the notion of days, years and the like. Then he gave all good and meritorious human actions an added equal remission of sin through the power of the Church. The ordinary ways of gaining a plenary indulgence are: making the Stations of the Cross; praying the Rosary in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament; meditation of a half-hour in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament and reading the Bible for a half-hour.
So that people would not try to substitute the gaining of indulgences for the obligation of charity or personal penances, the Holy Father simply ordained that a plenary indulgence could be acquired only once a day, save for death, while partial indulgences may be received many times during the day, applicable only to self or the souls in purgatory, provided one made a simple aspiration or invocation to Jesus or another Person of the Blessed Trinity.
To gain a plenary indulgence, the Pope simply renewed the traditional four conditions of the past: sacramental confession, reception of holy Communion, prayer for the Pope and absence of attachment to all sin.
Second, Paul VI abolished the triple division of indulgences — personal, real and local — to make it abundantly clear that indulgences are attached to morally good acts. All special blessings of rosaries formerly reserved to some religious orders were abolished.
Finally, Paul VI taught that every Mass celebrated anywhere can befit to the widest extent possible the souls in purgatory. In addition, the following three grants were authorized by the Pope to bring a greater harmony between Christian life and indulgences.
- A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful who, in the performance of their duties and in bearing the trials of life, raise their mind with humble confidence to God, adding — even if only mentally — some pious invocation.
- A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful who in a spirit of faith and mercy give of themselves and their goods to serve their brethren in need.
- A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful who in a spirit of penance voluntarily deprive themselves of what is licit and pleasing to them.
New additions for gaining plenary indulgences. With the coming of the Holy Year, we find the Apostolic Penitentiary profiting from the constitutions of Paul VI. In addition to what we already find there, for the Holy Year, other works of penance and mercy are newly created for receiving the same plenary indulgences gained from more traditional practices. As stated in Conditions for Gaining the Jubilee Indulgence (L'Osservatore Romano [Dec. 2, 1998], p. IV):
The faithful can gain the jubilee indulgence . . . [i]n any place, if they visit for a suitable time their brothers and sisters in need or in difficulty (the sick, the imprisoned, the elderly living alone, the handicapped, etc.), as if making a pilgrimage to Christ present in them (cf. Mt 25:34-36), and fulfilling the usual spiritual and sacramental conditions and saying the usual prayers.5 The faithful will certainly wish to repeat these visits throughout the Holy Year, since on each occasion they can gain the plenary indulgence, although obviously not more than once a day.
The plenary indulgence of the jubilee can also be gained through actions which express in a practical and generous way the penitential spirit which is, as it were, the heart of the jubilee. This would include abstaining for at least one whole day from unnecessary consumption (e.g., from smoking or alcohol, or fasting or practicing abstinence according to the general rules of the Church and the norms laid down by the bishops' conferences) and donating a proportionate sum of money to the poor; supporting by a significant contribution works of a religious or social nature (especially for the benefit of abandoned children, young people in trouble, the elderly in need, foreigners in various countries seeking better living conditions); devoting a suitable portion of personal free time to activities benefiting the community, or other similar forms of personal sacrifice.
Forgetting about indulgences. What happens, therefore, when the People of God abandon the teaching and practice of the Church on the question of indulgences?
The negligence on striving to receive indulgences from the Church leads to a lessening of devotion to the Sacrament of Penance. Confessions of devotion become needless to some since eucharistic communion becomes a substitute. The point here is that because one is no longer motivated to receive a plenary indulgence, one does not fulfill the condition of confession.
Second, to abandon the doctrine of indulgences is to practically ignore the needs of the souls in purgatory, since one renounces in principle the conditions for receiving a plenary indulgence, as well as the authorized prayers for partial or plenary indulgences that can be applied to the deceased.
Third, for priests to ignore indulgences in their preaching is to place a heavy burden of satisfaction for sin on the personal efforts of the penitent, leading not to greater union and trust in God, but to more trust in self and thus eventual discouragement, the twin enemies of the spiritual life.
Fourth, to encourage a neglect of indulgences is to implicitly refuse to submit to the keys of Peter in these seemingly easy or minor matters that can make satisfactory acts easier. How much more difficult it then becomes to submit to Peter and his successors in more difficult teachings.
Fifth, while it is true that the Mass is the greatest act of satisfaction in our way of life as Christians, still there are many who cannot always get to Mass, or who fail to prepare for the liturgy. Indulgenced prayers and daily activities can then be a source of encouragement in these matters.
Sixth, according to the official list of indulgences, the Marian Rosary prayed before the Blessed Sacrament or with a group, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for a half-hour, the reading of the Scriptures for a half-hour and the praying of the Stations of the Cross are the principal actions that gain the plenary indulgence outside of the Holy Year. To ignore the question of indulgences, therefore, is implicitly to put aside what are the more preferred forms of private prayer that are in the Church, and which are also mentioned both in the Code of Canon Law and the Catechism.
In other words, the living God has provided through His bride, the Church, a secure and easy way to do atonement, proving that it is ultimately easier for us sinners to make amends for our sins of commission and omission by falling into the merciful hands of the living God than by relying on our own efforts.
Finally, the overall effect of excluding indulgences on the spiritual life is that the People of God are possibly exposed to additional crosses and crucifixions of life without the help God wants to give them. It is better to take the easier methods of atonement given to us by the Church than to forge through more painful crosses that may come our way as the result of personal sin. The works associated with indulgences will also keep up our spirit of penance so that we will fall less and less into sin.
Endnotes
1 This essay is based upon a revision of my article "Whatever became of Indulgences," in Homiletic and Pastoral Review (May 1980), pp. 60-68, with permission of the editor.
2 Cf. Enchiridion of Indulgences (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1969).
3 ST refers to the classical work of St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. The translation used is from the Blackfriars edition under the editorship of Thomas Gilby, O.P. The Supplementum's translation (hereafter cited as Suppl.) is the Benzinger edition under the direction of the English Dominican Fathers. SCG refers to Aquinas' work Summa Contra Gentes, the Image Book edition translated by Anton Pegis.
4 Translation taken from the Regnery edition On Truth.
5 The Our Father, any approved profession of faith and prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary — e.g. the Hail Mary.
FATHER COLE is an invited professor of moral and spiritual theology at the Dominican House of Studies, Washington, D.C.
© The Priest, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 200 Noll Plaza, Huntington, In 46750.
This item 2627 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
