Official logo for the Holy Year 2025 is seen on display at the International Religious Products and Services Exhibition in Bologna, Italy, February 2024. Photo: CNS/Justin McLellan The acclaimed Irish spiritual writer of the twentieth century, Blessed Columba Marmion, once wrote in a letter to a missionary nun in the tropics: “All that God does for us proceeds from His mercy. God builds an eternal monument to His mercy in Heaven. The stones of this monument are the miserable who draw down mercy by their misery. For mercy is goodness in the face of misery”. The misery which attracts God’s mercy and of which Bl. Columba speaks encompasses all the crosses, toils, and disappointments of life; it even encompasses our chief form of misery – sin. By acknowledging before God, the depth of our misery, we call upon and attract the depth of Divine Mercy: “Deep calls on deep” (Ps. 42:7) sang King David. This introduction provides the proper context for the following discussion on sin and punishment. Remember then, as you continue reading, that “we know that to them that love God, all things worth together unto good” (Rom 8:28) – even our sins, as Saint Augustine aptly remarked.
Remedy
In order to understand the gift of indulgences, we need to first understand the problem that they are a remedy for. Sin causes a two-fold problem in us: the stain of guilt and the debt of punishment. Although the debt of punishment for serious or mortal sin is an eternal debt, all sin of whatever kind or degree of seriousness also incurs a non-eternal (temporal) debt of punishment. The following example from Sacred Scripture illustrates this. Infamously, King David committed the sins of adultery and murder – sins for which he incurred both the stain of guilt and also an eternal debt of punishment. However, after he sincerely repented, God in His mercy proclaimed through the Prophet Nathan: “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die” (2 Sam. 12:13). This verse indicates that David was forgiven of both the stain of guilt and the eternal debt of punishment. However, there was still a temporal debt of punishment remaining: “Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall die” (2 Sam 12:14).
The moment we hear the words of absolution from the priest, all stain of the guilt of our sins and any debt of eternal punishment due to them is utterly and completely forgiven”
Even if we have not heard these kind of terms before, we all have first-hand experience of the truths they represent whenever we receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In that Sacrament we receive both absolution: “…I absolve you of your sins…”; and a penance, for example ‘For your penance please pray one Our Father and one Hail Mary’. The moment we hear the words of absolution from the priest, all stain of the guilt of our sins and any debt of eternal punishment due to them is utterly and completely forgiven. However, we still receive a penance. This assigned penance is aimed at addressing and diminishing any debt of temporal punishment which remains for our sins now forgiven. However, even after we complete our assigned penance, it is likely that we still have some debt of temporal punishment which we owe to God. Quite naturally, this raises the following question: “If God has forgiven us of the stain of guilt and the debt of eternal punishment due to our sins through Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, why does He not also forgive us of the debt of temporal punishment?” Pope Saint Paul VI offers the following reply:
Justice
It is a divinely revealed truth that sins bring punishments inflicted by God’s sanctity and justice. These must be expiated either on this Earth through the sorrows, miseries and calamities of this life and above all through death, or else in the life beyond through fire and torments or ‘purifying’ punishments [purgatory]. …These punishments are imposed by the just and merciful judgment of God for the purification of souls, the defence of the sanctity of the moral order and the restoration of the glory of God to its full majesty (Indulgentiarum Doctrina, §2, emphasis added).
For an earthly analogy, a mother may still inflict some form of punishment upon her child who committed some fault against her even after she has forgiven it. She may do this in order to correct or purify her child’s idea that their action was acceptable, to defend the sanctity of the moral order damaged by the fault and restore the dignity of her motherly authority (which is always at the service of her child’s good). Thus, like an earthly parent, “the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights” (Prov. 3:12).
Where do indulgences come into all of this? Similar to other remedies for the debt of temporal punishment such as prayers, masses, almsgiving, and works of penance (cf. CCC §1032), indulgences derive all of their good effects from Christ’s redemption and effect within us the redemption that Christ merited for us.
If you gain a plenary indulgence on behalf of a soul in purgatory, they will immediately enter into the glory of Heaven”
An indulgence is the remission or removal by God of the debt of temporal punishment for sins whose guilt has already been forgiven. There are two kinds of indulgences. A partial indulgence remits or removes only part of the debt of temporal punishment. A plenary indulgence, however, remits or removes all of the debt of temporal punishment. In both cases this is only for sins whose guilt has already been forgiven. This means that if you gain a plenary indulgence on behalf of a soul in purgatory, they will immediately enter into the glory of Heaven.
In order to gain an indulgence, certain conditions must be met, and certain prescribed works must be completed. Before listing these, note that indulgences cannot be gained on behalf of other living persons on Earth. They can only be applied either to oneself or to the holy souls in purgatory. To gain a plenary indulgence, which can be gained only once per day, the faithful must:
Confessed
- Have sacramentally confessed their sins twenty days before or after the prescribed work to be performed.
- Have received the Holy Eucharist twenty days before or after the prescribed work to be performed.
- Have prayed for the intentions of the Holy Father twenty days before or after the prescribed work to be performed. One ‘Our Father’ and ‘Hail Mary’ are suggested.
- Have performed a prescribed work with at least the general intention of acquiring the indulgence (cf. Code of Canon Law 996 §2). This work must have been performed – at least at the time of its completion – while in the state of grace.
- Have the interior disposition of complete detachment from sin, even venial sin. Note that whilst this condition does not mean one never sins, it is undoubtedly a high bar. Do not let that discourage you however, if you do not meet that bar you still gain a partial indulgence which is of immense benefit.
Examples of prescribed works for plenary indulgences include: a visit to the Blessed Sacrament for at least half an hour; the reading of Sacred Scripture for at least half an hour; the recitation of five-decades of the Rosary in a Church or public Oratory. Further options may be found in the following document available online: Enchiridion of Indulgences.
{{A separate reception of Holy Communion and a separate prayer for the Holy Father’s intentions are required for each individual plenary indulgence”
It is important to note that whilst one sacramental confession suffices for the gaining of several plenary indulgences (that is, any gained both twenty days before or after the confession), this is not the case for the second and third points. In other words, a separate reception of Holy Communion and a separate prayer for the Holy Father’s intentions are required for each individual plenary indulgence. All these specifications may be found in The Gift of the Indulgence promulgated by the Apostolic Penitentiary on January 29, 2000.
Keep an eye out during the celebrations of the Jubilee Year 2025 for additional special options for prescribed works!