Category Archives: Sacramentals

Symbolic Superstition

Church, Church Authority, Devils, Sacramentals, , ,

Over on X, there is a video circulating of a woman who, while struggling during a particularly hard season of life, decided to pour grape juice around her yard in order to protect her and her family with the Blood of Christ. While claiming that it is just a symbol, nevertheless she is willing to roll the dice that it might work saying, “at worst, I wasted $6 on grape juice, and at best my house is protected by the blood of Jesus and we finally hop off this wild, chaotic, awful rollercoaster that we’ve been stuck on.” 

Not surprisingly she was met with accusations of superstition which seems to be fair given she has no faith that it will actually work.  She seems particularly prone to this given that she claims to have recently thrown out her crystals.  She, like many others in our day and age, fell victim to the what is best described as “Self-help Witchcraft”.  In both cases it is not so much the superstition that is noteworthy but the fact there is an expectation that symbols when combined with faith ought to have some power to effect a situation.  In other words, what is worth examining is that there seems to be an innate desire among Christians for Sacramentals.

Sacramentals and Scripture

This desire is more than just an intuition, it has a biblical basis.  St. Paul, in writing to the Romans speaks of creation waiting “with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:19-22).  Every element in Creation was meant to serve man in worshipping and revealing God.  With the Fall, that purpose “was subjected to futility,” but with the dawn of the New Creation in Christ, it is eager to have the power to do this restored.  This capacity it made more explicit when St. Paul tells St. Timothy “Everything created by God is good…for it is made holy by the invocation of God in prayer” (1Tim 4:4-5). 

The battle over creation is ongoing and Christians have the power to take it back.  In fact it becomes a key element of spiritual warfare to take individual things in creation and make or constitute them as holy so that they can be put to service of God and are no longer under the dominion of the devil.  Jesus, when he made mud and put it in the eyes of the blind man was taking the cursed dust of the earth and restoring it to a holy use (John 6:6-7).  Likewise, to make holy water is to render the water no longer under the control of the devil who is prince of this world.  This is why the best way to fight the use of crystals and amulets is by using Sacramentals.

Many Catholics would not immediately pick up on the fact that the woman is looking for a Sacramental.  This is because, for the most part, they have fallen into disuse in the last fifty years.  Sacramentals, in order to be effective, require that those who use them be educated in their use.  This is because, unlike Sacraments, they depend on the faith and moral condition of the recipient in order to be effective (referred to theologically as ex opere operantis—”from the work of the doer”).  They are causes of actual grace that disposes person to receive Sanctifying grace.  The effectiveness of sacramentals depends upon three things—(1) disposition of minister (2) disposition of recipient (3) intercessory power of the Church.

The Prayer of the Church

This third element, in a certain sense, is the most integral part.  The Sacraments are instituted by Christ and of a fixed number.  Sacramentals are instituted by the Church and there is no fixed number of them.  It belongs to the Church’s binding and loosing power and it gives to the Church the power to affect a blessing.  It is also an essential element of the Church’s holiness—“The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (James 5:16).  The power comes from the prayer of the Church which is efficacious.  For example, when a candle is blessed and the priest asks that the light from it drive away the powers of darkness, it really does drive demons away when it is lit.

Since it depends upon the prayer of the Church, it is the actual formula of blessing that matters.  One of the changes that was made shortly after the Second Vatican Council was to the Book of Blessings.  Many of the specific blessings of objects were dropped in favor of a generic blessing and an emphasis on blessing persons rather than things.  What has emerged from that is a set of Sacramentals that is less powerful and consequently used less frequently.

As a comparison, look at the older blessing of the St. Benedict medal versus the one recommended in the Book of Blessings:

In the name of God the Father + almighty, who made heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them, I exorcise these medals against the power and attacks of the evil one. May all who use these medals devoutly be blessed with health of soul and body. In the name of the Father + almighty, of the Son + Jesus Christ our Lord, and of the Holy + Spirit the Paraclete, and in the love of the same Lord Jesus Christ who will come on the last day to judge the living and the dead, and the world by fire. Amen.

Let us pray.  Almighty God, the boundless source of all good things, we humbly ask that, through the intercession of Saint Benedict, you pour out your blessings + upon these medals. May those who use them devoutly and earnestly strive to perform good works be blessed by you with health of soul and body, the grace of a holy life, and remission of the temporal punishment due to sin. May they also with the help of your merciful love, resist the temptation of the evil one and strive to exercise true charity and justice toward all, so that one day they may appear sinless and holy in your sight. This we ask through Christ our Lord. Amen.  

And the Book of Blessings:

May this (name of article) and the one who uses it be blessed, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, + and of the Holy Spirit. 

The medal under the Old Blessing has the power to protect the person who devoutly and intentionally uses it from attacks of the evil one.  Under the New Blessing, its power is essentially unknown (other than to “bless” the person) making it practically impossible to use it devoutly and intentionally.  Thankfully, the Old Blessing is still an option, but you usually have to ask for it.

Returning to the video above, it seems that the woman intuitively grasps that Sacramentals are a thing and that they are effective in protecting us.  Perhaps what she was really looking for was the Four Corners’ Blessing with St. Benedict’s medal.

Masking and the New Religion

Apologetics, Church and State, Church Authority, Conscience, Culture, Human Dignity, Magisterium, Marxism, Moralilty, Natural Law, New Age, Paganism, Politics, Sacramentals, Sacraments, Virtue, , , ,

We have been hearing for decades that we are living in a post-Christian society.  This has mostly been a way to describe the fact that Christian values have been in decline.  But Christianity has still been the dominant religion; dominant, that is, until the Covid-19 crisis hit.  The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic in our society marked the official changing of the guard.  While we have been hearing about the emergence of a post-Christian society for decades, Christianity was still the dominant religion.  No longer is this true, however.  Christianity has been toppled and replaced by a new Gnosticism that we call Science. 

To be clear, the issue is not against science per se, but what is more accurately described as religion masquerading as science.  After all, as Aquinas says “He who neglects the experimental order in natural science falls into error” in all aspects of knowledge.  To solve the Covid-19 crisis, natural science plays a necessary, although not sufficient, role.  The peddlers of the new religion, would have us believe that it is sufficient because all we need to do is “trust the science.”  We are saved by faith, not in Christ, but in Science.

The New Priesthood

Nor should we be quick to dismiss expert opinion.  But expert opinion is not fact, it still must be based on solid reasoning.  The problem is that expert opinion is often treated like dogmatic truth because the Scientific Elite are the new priests.  Based on their secret knowledge that only “experts” such as themselves can understand, they dictate religious dogma.  Spoken word becomes fact.  Thus says the Scientist—“Masks don’t work” and it is so.  Thus says the Scientist two months later—“Masks do work” and it is so.  The Shepherds have spoken and the Sheeple must follow suit.  Laws are made to punish heretics who dare to question the spoken word.

This, by the way, is why masks have elicited such a strong response.  The High Priest initially said that they don’t work.  Then he spoke again saying they did and that the Priests lied because they were worried about a shortage.  But if a person unapologetically lies once, how do you know they are telling the truth now?  Actually, a leading Priest at Johns Hopkins says, it wasn’t lying but that “[A]t first, researchers and scientists did not know how necessary mask wearing would be among the general public. Now we are aware that wearing masks is an effective way to help prevent spread of this coronavirus” (Emphasis added).  Given the timeframe and the rather dramatic shift from no-mask to mask, where did this awareness come from? Changing your mind is fine. But changing your mind without a change in the data is based not on science, but fiat.  If you search prior to the dogmatic declaration, scientific opinion for the most part deemed them ineffective.  The fact is that the Priests exercised their hidden knowledge (because there was no new data) and declared them so.  I would probably be clothed in a scarlet mask for this statement alone, but let me go a little further as a statistician and speak about what a reasonable approach to this question would look like.

The Statistician Speaks

First, proving a negative is extremely difficult.  To conclusively say “masks don’t work” is a practical impossibility.  Having said that, there is little data to suggest that they do work (a complete summary that is thoroughly documented can be found here).  There have been studies in the last few months that have suggested they might, but these are inconclusive at best.  They are all very poorly done because they are being done in the midst of the crisis.  To study the problem properly you need to set up what would be something akin to a clinical trial in which you had a placebo group to compare it to.  But you also have the problem that mask usage is almost certainly confounded with social distancing.  Is social distancing the thing that helps, or is it masks, or is it both?  You’d have to set up a study to separate them.  Secondly, not all masks are created the same or are equally effective.

Carnegie Mellon tracks (among many other things) mask compliance here.  Notice that many places are in the high 80ish% for compliance and yet “cases” continue to increase in all of those areas.  If any intervention works, then you should expect the slope of the line of increase to decrease (“flatten the curve”).  But the data suggests that the lines are actually steeper.  For example, see the plot below of my home state of North Carolina which instituted a Mask Mandate on June 26th and has had above an 85% mask compliance rate (currently 91%).  North Carolina is far from unique in this regard and you can find similar data for all your favorite states.

If we were true to “Science” we would look at this medical intervention and determine that it does not work.  A drug company running a clinical trial (where they are using their own money) would stop the trial and might even decide that the intervention is actually making it worse.

This might mean that…wait for it…masks are making it worse.  You would again need to study this, but it is a reasonable supposition given the data.  It also makes sense in that it could easily be creating a false sense of security or become a petri dish of germs just waiting to be deposited on someone else or an aritficial barrier suppresses the body’s natural barrier of the immune system.  To be sure though, if we were testing a drug and the data looked like this, we would stop giving it to people.

This tangent was necessary because it speaks to the reasonableness of mask mandates.  Law, according to St. Thomas, is “an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community and is promulgated.”  Any law that does not fulfill those four requirements—reasonable, aimed at the common good, proper authority, and made known—is not, properly speaking, a law.  Therefore, because they are not reasonable (or at least can not be proven to be at this point reasonable) we have no obligation to obey them.  As true Shepherds of the Flock, Bishops and Priests need to stop being so deferential to mask mandates precisely for this reason.

The New Sacrament

The revolt against masks then is really a revulsion to what they symbolize.  They have been made into sacraments through the words of the New Priests.  They are said to protect and so therefore they do.  Those who do not want to subscribe to this religion therefore will not want to wear them.  It seems like a small thing to do, but it plays a key role in the overall narrative that Science can save us.  As a sacrament it symbolizes the fact that the Coronavirus is a serious threat to our overall well-being.  If you are tempted to think “well 99.99% of people that get this will survive”, then you only have to look around at everyone wearing a mask to tell you that you should be scared anyway.  The smiling face of your neighbor, which would normally comfort you, is now hidden from your sight.  The masks will permanently disfigure us because when the next virus comes along, and it will, they will tell us “this is more serious than the Coronavirus (which it likely will be) you must put the mask back on.” 

By blessing the mask, the Priest also makes it into a Secular Scapular.  Through the words of Mary to St. Simon Stock, we know that the Brown Scapular helps to save you eternally.  Through the words of the Scientist, the mask saves us from Covidoom.  The Brown Scapular is an aid to our growth in virtue, the Covid Scapular signals that we have virtue.

One of the things that the totalitarian regimes of the 20th Century was their exaltation of Science as the new religion.  Lenin, Stalin, Chiang Kai-Shek, and Hitler all committed their atrocities using “Science” as their justification.  Had someone stood up to them early on, one has to wonder whether things would have been different.

The Power of Sacramentals

Church, Grace, Prayer, Sacramentals, Sacraments, , , ,

As Jesus entered the town of Bethsaida, some people there brought to Him a man who was born blind and asked Him to heal Him.  Jesus took some spittle and rubbed it in his eyes, but it effected only a partial healing.  The man could only see shapes.  It was not until He laid His hands upon the man that the man was able to see clearly (c.f. Mark 8:22-27).  This event has often plagued Biblical commentators who have struggled to interpret it.  At first glance it appears that Jesus was somehow limited in His power to heal, having to do it in stages.  But those who are familiar with the Catholic practice of using Sacramentals will recognize it for what it is, an institution of sorts of the practice.  The man receives the grace of healing after the man has been properly disposed after coming in contact with a consecrated object. It is with this in mind, that we shall discuss the Church’s use of Sacramentals.

Theology of Sacramentals

Any discussion of Sacramentals must begin with making an important distinction between Sacramentals and Sacraments.  As the Catechism puts it, “Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the Sacraments do, but by the Church’s prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it” (CCC 1671).  Sacramentals do not work ex opere operato the way Sacraments do, but instead their efficacy comes from the intercessory power of the Church.  In short they do not bestow sanctifying grace but only aid in disposing the person to receive them.

Because the efficacy rests upon the intercessory power of the Church, unlike Sacraments which were instituted by Christ, Sacramentals are instituted by the Church.  By bestowing a prayer of consecration over the object, it becomes a means by which those who use them become disposed to the infusion of sanctifying grace.  The specific grace of the Sacramental depends upon the prayer itself, a prayer that is said by a Priest but has the entire Church.  The consecrated object is given a power to effect a certain blessing, although it is not infallible as with the Sacraments.  Nevertheless, Sacramentals are a powerful help in the pursuit of sanctity.  This is what makes Sacramentals so powerful.  But they are also made powerful through the intercessory power of the whole Church.  In this way they are different from having someone pray for you.  If, as St. James says, “the prayer of a righteous man is indeed powerful and effective” (James 5:16), then the prayer of the whole Church, the spotless Bride of Christ is much greater.

St. Thomas in his Theology of the Sacraments says that the existence of Sacramentals is fitting because none of the Seven Sacraments “was instituted directly against venial sin. This is taken away by certain sacramentals, for instance, Holy Water and such like” (ST III q.65, art.1, ad.8).  This “supplementary power” placed upon some Sacramentals is a key point to grasp in their use so as to keep us from treating them like good luck charms.  They each contain a certain power that comes from the prayer of consecration by which they were made to be Sacramentals.

Some Examples of Sacramentals

Using St. Thomas’ example, this power to take away venial sins is bestowed upon Holy Water because it was specifically consecrated for that purpose by the prayer of consecration:

Blessed are you, Lord, all-powerful God, who in Christ, the living water of salvation, blessed and transformed us.  Grant that, when we are sprinkled with this water or make use of it, we will be refreshed inwardly by the power of the Holy Spirit and continue to walk in the new life we received at baptism.  We ask this through Christ our Lord.

A blessed crucifix is effective in providing both bodily and spiritual protection, especially “against the cruel darts of the enemy” (1962 Rituale Romanum).  Likewise, sacred images, be they of Our Lord, Our Lady, St. Joseph or any of the saints make available the merits and intercession of those who are depicted when a person pays devout homage to them.  In a very real way they make the person in the image immediately present to the person who seeks to speak with them.

Another important Sacramental, especially relevant to Lent is Palms.  As Dom Prosper Gueranger describes in his book The Liturgical Year, palms are blessed using “prayers that are are eloquent and full of instruction; and, together with the sprinkling with holy water and the incensation, impart a virtue to these branches, which elevates them to the supernatural order, and makes them means for the sanctification of our souls and the protection of our persons and dwellings.”   The palms act to give protection to houses and the people in them when they are kept there.  This is a reason why if palms are being offered, even if you can’t get to Mass, that you should seek them out.

Obviously then the efficacy of Sacramentals depends upon the blessing that has been bestowed upon them by the Priest.  When we ask for an object to be blessed then, we are not just asking to make it somehow holy but to have it set aside for a specific purpose.  We should always ask that the proper blessing be said over the object so that it can be used for the purpose that the Church puts forth.  Similarly, we should listen to the words of blessing so that we can learn exactly what the objects do.

A Necessary Habit?

Mary, Sacramentals, Sacraments,

In an age of exaggerated ecumenism that is further fueled by a scientific witch hunt to burn all religious superstition, the Brown Scapular has lost much of its popularity.  With its innate connection to Marian devotion it remains one of the most powerful Catholic sacramentals even as it slides into disuse.  As a particular expression of Marian devotion, the Brown Scapular may have slid into disuse, but it remains a particularly powerful sacramental of the Church; one that is particularly needed in our time.  To place the Brown Scapular within the context of a healthy spirituality, we must first speak briefly about sacramentals in general.  It is not just the Brown Scapular that carries an air of superstition, but all sacramentals.  These sentiments are not unfounded as their patrons often treat them as such.  For many people, both Catholic and not, there seems to be little difference between sacramentals and something like a dream catcher.  Therefore it is fitting to lay the authentically Catholic foundation in hopes of returning the Brown Scapular to its primacy of place among these gifts of the Church.

The Church and Sacramentals

Each of the Seven Sacraments are an objective source of grace, even if the amount of grace a given individual receives is dependent upon their personal readiness.  Sacramentals, on the other hand, do not bestow grace, but rather aid those who are using them to receive grace.  The Sacraments have been instituted by Christ and the Church is merely the custodian of them while sacramentals are instituted by the Church as part of her binding and loosing authority.  In making the distinction between sacramentals and the Church’s Seven Sacraments, the Catechism summarizes, saying, “Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church’s prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it” (CCC 1671).

If they don’t bestow grace, then why should we use them, especially since, as can often happen, they appear to be tools of superstition?  It is because in establishing (or blessing) a sacramental, the Church acts as an underwriter by attaching the prayer of the entire Church to that of the individual.  The prayer of a righteous man is powerful indeed (James 5:16), but the prayer of a righteous man joined to the prayer of Christ’s Mystical Body carries with it divine assurance to be heard (c.f. Mt 18:19).  This makes each of the sacramentals a powerful aid in the pursuit of holiness, even if they do not bestow it directly.  At that, they always require certain conditions on the part of the patron in order to be effective helps.   This awareness must always be at the forefront of our use of sacramentals to keep from plunging into superstition.

In this regard the Brown Scapular is particularly conspicuous because it carries with it a promise from Our Lady that “Whosoever dies wearing this Scapular shall not suffer eternal fire.”  Properly situated within the Church’s understanding of sacramentals, we can see why this particular sacramental might be especially popular and in a certain sense necessary.  Like all sacramentals, the physical Scapular is a sign pointing towards a deeper reality.   It acts as a sign sealing the covenant instituted by Christ on the Cross of the mutual entrustment of the Blessed Mother and each of the Faithful (c.f. John 19:26).  In that way it is like a wedding ring (another Catholic sacramental) that both signifies and, in a certain sense, seals the covenantal commitment of spouses.

Backed by the commitment of the Church, the Brown Scapular guarantees her constant Maternal protection and the wearer has a growing confidence in her most powerful intercession.  Just as the wedding ring increases the sensitivity of the spouses to the presence of the beloved, especially when they are not seen or felt, the Brown Scapular makes the “wearer more sensitive to the Virgin Mother’s loving presence in their lives” Pope St. John Paul II, Letter to the Carmelites on 750th Anniversary of the Bestowal of the Scapular).  It is worn as a “habit” suggesting that it is meant to represent the habit of committing oneself to the constant protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary both “now and at the hour of our death.”  Thus it also becomes a sign of the grace of final perseverance.

Just as it takes more than simply putting on a wedding ring to be married, so too with the Brown Scapular.  As Pius XII says, “For the Holy Scapular, which may be called the Habit or Garment of Mary, is a Sign and a Pledge of the protection of the Mother of God. But not for this reason, however, may they who wear the Scapular think that they can gain eternal salvation while remaining slothful and negligent of spirit, for the Apostle warns us: ‘In fear and trembling shall you work out your salvation.’” (Pius XII, Letter to the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel).  To guard against becoming “slothful and negligent of spirit” we should seek to bring about the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart by adopting her spirit of fiat as our own.

Why We Need the Brown Scapular Now

Given ratification by the Holy See in 1908, the so-called Sabbatine privilege can be invoked for those who in addition to being vested in and wearing the Brown Scapular like a habit, also practice chastity according to their state in life and daily recite the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin.  Pope Leo XIII also gave permission for priests to commute the third condition and substitute a similar good work like a Daily Rosary to meet the conditions of modern life.  The promise, directly from the lips of Our Lady is that “as a tender Mother, I will descend into purgatory on the Saturday after their death, and will deliver them into the heavenly mansions of life everlasting.”

The point though is that the promise carries with it additional duties.  There is nothing superstitious about it, but both natural and supernatural encouragement to do those things that we know will lead to sanctity.  This is why one can’t help but see the coincidence in the timing of the ratification and Our Lady’s appearance to the visionaries at Fatima less than a decade later.  One of her great concerns that she expressed to the children was the number of souls who were going to hell because of lust—more than any other sin as a matter of fact.  Given the emergence of a hyper-sexualized culture, the problem has only become more acute in the century since.  So vicious has this attack become that it is only with help from above that we can even hope to achieve chastity.  The Brown Scapular becomes a pledge from Our Lady to jump in the foxhole with us and fight.  With close proximity to the heart, the habit will act as a protecting shield for those who wear it.

On Indulgences

Sacramentals, Sin

Saints can be so old-fashioned.  In a retreat leading up to his priestly ordination, the 20th Century saint Maximilian Kolbe plotted out his spiritual strategy that included what seems like 15th Century advice—“[T]ry to gain as many indulgences as possible, and you will become a saint.”  For many of us, Indulgences remain an untapped source of sanctification that Christ offers us through the Church.  What little we do know about them usually centers around their abuse prior to the Reformation.  The danger today however is not their abuse, but their disuse.  While the Church corrected the abuses in the 16th Century, Indulgences have fallen out of use, mainly because of ignorance about these beautiful gifts.

In his 1967 Apostolic Constitution, Indulgentiarum doctrina¸ Blessed Paul VI invited the Church to “ponder and meditate well on how the use of indulgences benefits their lives and indeed all Christian society.”  With the approach of the Year of Mercy, this seems an excellent time to accept the Blessed Pontiff’s invitation.

Certainly one need not understand the theology behind the doctrine of Indulgences to use them.  But without an understanding of why there are useful, they will quickly fall into dis-use.  To begin to understand, it is helpful to begin by clearing up some confusion surrounding justification.  The word justification is one of those loaded theological terms that is used by Catholics and Protestants alike, but not really understood.  Most simply equate it with forgiveness, but that is not the only way that it is used in the New Testament.  St. Paul devotes a significant amount of time in his letter to the Romans clarifying this important term.  While emphasizing that justification is a free gift (Romans 5:17), he also emphasizes that it is “not hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the word who will be justified” (Romans 2:13).

What this means is that the term is used to represent both an action and a process.  As an action it marks the moment when God makes a man righteous and invites (or re-invites if the case may be) him into His family.  As a process it is the ongoing sanctification by God of one who has embraced the demands of the Gospel.  Both of these aspects are necessary because personal sin always has two effects—guilt and punishment.  This punishment can be both eternal and temporal (see 2Cor 2:6).   In other words, justification involves both the removal of the guilt of sin (forgiveness) and also the purging of its effects (satisfaction).  The Decree on Justification from the Council of Trent (1547) summarizes justification as “a translation from the state in which a person is born a son of the first Adam into a state of grace and adoption as sons of God through the second Adam, Jesus Christ…advancing from virtue to virtue,  they are renewed, as the Apostle says, day by day, that is, mortifying the members of their flesh, and presenting them as instruments of justice unto sanctification, they, through the observance of the commandments of God and of the Church, faith cooperating with good works, increase in that justice received through the grace of Christ and are further justified…” (Decree on Justification, Chapters IV, X).

Once we are able to see the two dimensions of justification, we must then address the role of Christ’s redeeming sacrifice in our justification.  In an earlier essay, it was mentioned how necessary it is to see Christ’s sacrifice as “vicarious representation” to have a proper view of God’s “wrath.”  The gist is that Christ died on the Cross as the representative of mankind so that we must participate in order to share in its fruit.  This means that His sacrifice was both necessary and sufficient to remove our guilt and pay the debt of our eternal punishment.  While the sacrifice on Calvary is also necessary for us to pay the temporal punishment for sin, it was not sufficient.  St. Paul says that there is something lacking in the sacrifice of Christ (Col 1:24) and that thing was his (and our) participation.  It is through our participation in the Cross that we are given the currency by which we are able to pay to Divine Justice our temporal debts.

Many think of only of “offering it up” as our participating in the Cross of Christ.  But that is not the only way.  In fact it is probably not even the primary way.  When Christ died on the Cross, His death exceeded the debt of sin.  This created a treasury of merit that was deposited in the Church.  The Church, as the Body of Christ, is now the dispenser of the means of salvation (not its cause).  It is from this treasury that all sources of sanctification flow, including the remission of the temporal punishment for sin.  This is where the doctrine of Indulgences comes in.

Handbook of Indulgences

Blessed Paul VI defined an indulgence as “An indulgence is the remission before God of the temporal punishment due sins already forgiven as far as their guilt is concerned, which the follower of Christ with the proper dispositions and under certain determined conditions acquires through the intervention of the Church which, as minister of the Redemption, authoritatively dispenses and applies the treasury of the satisfaction won by Christ and the saints.”  In other words, an indulgence properly understood is the Church’s application of Christ’s merits toward the debt of punishment we owe God.  St. Thomas says the one who gains an indulgence is not excused from paying the debt of punishment but is given the means to pay it.

There is a tendency within the Church today for many people to be satisfied with reaching Purgatory.  Personally I find this rather sad.  Obviously for one whose love of God is pure, they would not want to spend any time there because it represents a separation from Him.  And, while it is certainly true that those who require Purgatory avoid Hell and will eventually reach Heaven, it trivializes the intensity of the sufferings of Purgatory.  The sufferings of Purgatory are more intense than we can possibly imagine.  It is called the Church Suffering for a reason and that reason is because suffering is all they do.  Much of this suffering can be avoided however by actively seeking indulgences.

Once we accept that Indulgences are an effective part of a healthy spiritual life, we can ask how they are obtained.  First it is worth mentioning that indulgences can only apply to those sins which have been forgiven.  The debt of guilt must first be paid before the debt of punishment can be.

Traditionally, there has been the distinction between plenary and partial indulgences. “An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due sin” (Indulgentiarum doctrina (ID) n. 2).  What did change with Blessed Paul VI’s Apostolic Constitution is that any particularities with respect to days or years attached to a partial indulgence were removed.  It is now simply referred to as a “Partial Indulgence” (n. 4).

To obtain a partial indulgence there are four conditions:

  • be baptized
  • be in state of grace
  • have the intention to obtain the indulgence
  • perform the works or prayers prescribed correctly

For a plenary indulgence all the conditions of a partial indulgence apply (so that if we fail to obtain the plenary we might still obtain the plenary) plus

  • not be excommunicated
  • have no affection for sin, even venial
  • receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation and Communion (in the prescribed period of time)
  • offer prayers for the pope’s intentions (in the prescribed period of time)

While we must have the intention to gain a particular indulgence, this can be done through a habitual intention represented by a sincere expression to gain every indulgence the Lord ever offers us.  It is a good idea to renew that intention frequently so as to be aware of God’s great mercy through the Indulgences the Church offers.  Personally I have added the following to my morning offering:

Lord Jesus Christ, my Redeemer, You suffered upon the Cross for me and in Your great mercy have given to Peter and his successors the power to remove temporal punishment for sin.  In great sorrow for those sins which You have forgiven, I wish to obtain the indulgences You now offer me.

It is worth pointing out that by no longer referring to the amount of time that is removed in Purgatory, the measure of how efficacious an indulged work is in removing punishment will depend on the intensity of the love with which the act is performed and the perfection of the task itself (i.e. how well we do it).  This is why Blessed Paul VI greatly reduced the number of indulgences so that the faithful could focus on doing them well—“the greater the proliferation of indulgences, the less attention is given to them; what is offered in abundance is not greatly appreciated.”

It cannot be encouraged enough to get a copy of the Handbook of Indulgences and see the specific indulged acts.  Worth pointing out are the “Three General Grants” at the beginning of the Handbook.  These represent a class of partial indulgences that are given so that “Christ’s faithful might, as it were, weave their daily life with the Christian spirit and, according to their state, grow in the perfection of charity.”   Specifically, a partial indulgence is granted to any of Christ’s faithful, who:

  • in the performance of his duties and bearing the trials of life, raises his mind to God in humble confidence and adds, even mentally, some pious invocation
  • in a spirit of faith and mercy give of themselves or of their goods to serve their brothers in need
  • in a spirit of penance voluntarily deprive themselves of what is licit and pleasing to them

Now it becomes clear what St. Maximillian Kolbe meant when he said what he did about indulgences.  It wasn’t just the juridical nature of Indulgences that he was interested in.  Instead he was saying that these works were all worthy of doing because they were things that those on the path to sanctity should be doing.  In other words, they act as trustworthy guides of the prayers and works saints do.  Judging by his own personal witness, I would say he was right.