-inscription on the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran in Rome: Indulgentia plenaria perpetua quotidiana toties quoties pro vivis et defunctis (“Perpetual everyday plenary indulgence on every occasion for the living and the dead”), please click on the image for greater detail.
“Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.” -Mt 5:26
“You probably don’t have the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum—the Manual of Indulgences—sitting on your bookshelf. But you should.
The Enchiridion is the official declaration of the indulgences available to the faithful, and it’s beautiful to read. It’s short, the decrees themselves are only about 60 pages long and come with another 60 pages of appendices. But in those short pages you find an account of the treasury of the Church’s riches. Reading it is like pouring over the manifest bill of a hidden treasure, and finding the map where “X” marks the spot.
But first, a brief note on indulgences. When we sin, we harm or destroy our friendship with God, a friendship restored in the Sacrament of Confession. But at the same time, sin damages the good ordering and justice of creation. It damages the good ordering within ourselves, distorting the relationship between our reason and our emotions. It damages the good ordering of our family and society, distorting the relationships between people. And it damages the good ordering of creation as a whole, distorting our relationship to the natural world beneath and the angelic world above. Out of sin comes chaos. So it’s necessary that personal, social, and cosmic order be reestablished to heal the wounds of sin.
We accomplish the reintegration of order, the expiation of the chaos of sin, by submitting ourselves to order and justice in voluntary reparation. This is called the temporal punishment due to sin. In the light of God’s forgiveness, it is a medicinal and purificating punishment, restoring order and justice within ourselves, within family and society, and within creation itself. Temporal punishments are paid either in this world through a patient bearing of the sorrows, miseries, and calamities of life (and above all through a holy death), or else in the life to come through the purifying punishments of purgatory.
And that is where indulgences come in. For there is among men a supernatural solidarity where the holiness of one benefits all the rest. “If one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Cor 12:26). This is the foundation of the treasury of the Church, a treasury consisting of the infinite and inexhaustible holiness of Christ our Lord, who offered himself to free all mankind from sin and its chaos. The Blessed Virgin Mary and all of the saints have followed in the footsteps of Christ and, by his grace, have sanctified their lives and united themselves to his holiness, multiplying his holiness in their own lives. The Church, in Christ her head and in her glorified members, possesses an unfathomable wealth of grace and holiness. She opens her treasury and offers that wealth to us through indulgences, given on the occasion of some work of charity or prayer.
There are almost certainly indulgences for things that you’ve already made a regular part of your life. There is an indulgence for reciting the Angelus, and another for the Guardian Angel prayer. There is a plenary indulgence for reciting the Rosary together in a church or family, and a plenary indulgence for adoring the Blessed Sacrament for half an hour. There is a plenary indulgence for attending the first Mass of a newly ordained priest. There is an indulgence for those who listen “with attention and devotion” to preaching, which I offer as a consolation if the homily is subpar. And there’s even an indulgence for making the Sign of the Cross!
The Church is very generous with her great treasury of holiness, and there are occasions for indulgences everywhere. But to receive an indulgence, you must want it. To quote the Enchiridion, “to gain an indulgence, one must have at least the general intention of doing so.” A general intention is a choice you make to habitually gain an indulgence, even if in the moment it isn’t at the forefront of your mind. You can kneel before the tabernacle and make a promise that every time you make the Sign of the Cross for the rest of your life you intend to avail yourself of that indulgence, and your life will be enriched.
But in order to gain these indulgences, you have to know about them. You’re almost certainly walking by treasures lying on the ground beside your path, waiting to be picked up if you could just see them. So go to Amazon and buy the Enchiridion, and perhaps make reading it a part of your Lenten practice this year. You never know what treasures you will find.”
Love & His mercy,
Matthew
Summa Catechetica, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam." – St Anselm, "“Si comprehendus, non est Deus.” -St Augustine, "Let your religion be less of a theory, and more of a love affair." -G.K. Chesterton, “When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us.” -St Jerome, "As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires." -St. Alphonsus Liguori, "And above all, be on your guard not to want to get anything done by force, because God has given free will to everyone and wants to force no one, but only proposes, invites and counsels." –St. Angela Merici, “Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him . . . God here speaks to souls through words uttered by pious people, by sermons or good books, and in many other such ways.” —St. Teresa of Avila, "I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men and women who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, and who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity… I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism, and where lie the main inconsistences and absurdities of the Protestant theory.” (St. John Henry Newman, “Duties of Catholics Towards the Protestant View,” Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England), "We cannot always have access to a spiritual Father for counsel in our actions and in our doubts, but reading will abundantly supply his place by giving us directions to escape the illusions of the devil and of our own self-love, and at the same time to submit to the divine will.” —St. Alphonsus Ligouri, "The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder . . . What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection." –St. Padre Pio, "Screens may grab our attention, but books change our lives!" – Word on Fire, "Reading has made many saints!" -St Josemaría Escrivá, "Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you." —St. Jerome, from his Letter 22 to Eustochium, "Encounter, not confrontation; attraction, not promotion; dialogue, not debate." -cf Pope Francis, "God here speaks to souls through…good books“ – St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, "You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress.” -St Athanasius, "To convert someone, go and take them by the hand and guide them." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP. 1 saint ruins ALL the cynicism in Hell & on Earth. “When we pray we talk to God; when we read God talks to us…All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection.” -St Isidore of Seville, “Also in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions that they might do me no harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He would have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He should see fit. And this I believe is heard.” -GM Hopkins, SJ, "Only God knows the good that can come about by reading one good Catholic book." — St. John Bosco, "Why don't you try explaining it to them?" – cf St Peter Canisius, SJ, Doctor of the Church, Doctor of the Catechism, "Already I was coming to appreciate that often apologetics consists of offering theological eye glasses of varying prescriptions to an inquirer. Only one prescription will give him clear sight; all the others will give him at best indistinct sight. What you want him to see—some particular truth of the Faith—will remain fuzzy to him until you come across theological eye glasses that precisely compensate for his particular defect of vision." -Karl Keating, "The more perfectly we know God, the more perfectly we love Him." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP, ST, I-II,67,6 ad 3, “But always when I was without a book, my soul would at once become disturbed, and my thoughts wandered." —St. Teresa of Avila, "Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me." –St. Augustine, "Without good books and spiritual reading, it will be morally impossible to save our souls." —St. Alphonsus Liguori "Never read books you aren't sure about. . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?" -St. John Bosco " To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer." —St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. "Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading." –St. Isidore of Seville “The aid of spiritual books is for you a necessity.… You, who are in the midst of battle, must protect yourself with the buckler of holy thoughts drawn from good books.” -St. John Chrysostom
