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PAGE 5—February 13,1975
Reconciliation and Indulgences
Enrichment Week
BY MONIKA K. HELLWIG
In the proclamation of this Holy Year and in
the various sermons and articles about it, very
little emphasis has been given to indulgences.
Many Catholics are surprised at this. We can
remember from previous Holy Years how we
were constantly urged to gain indulgences for
ourselves and for the souls in purgatory and
particularly that we were told what a special
opportunity this was to gain plenary
indulgences. People are wondering: If it was so
important then, why are we hearing so little
about it now?
In this Holy Year we seem to be hearing
constantly about reconciliation and social
justice, about poverty and world hunger.
Actually, this is not as abrupt a change as it
might seem. To make this clear, however, it
may be necessary to reflect on the nature and
history of indulgences.
In the earliest centuries of the Church,
believers came to realize that Baptism carried
with it the grace of a total conversion and
change of life, but that conversion from sins
committed after Baptism was not so easy. When
an adult is baptized he turns his back on his
whole former way of life; it is as though he
passes through death to a new life and the
change is so deep and so total that he leaves all
the residue of past actions in his life behind.
When a baptized person sins, a new Baptism is
not open to him. Of course, we know that
whoever repents is forgiven by God. We know
also that the Church has been at pains to help
people to repent and to encourage the
celebration of repentance. The sacrament of
Penance is basically a celebration of
reconciliation with the Church and with God,
which is intended to make it easier to turn
away from sin and return to the new life in
Christ. We need a sacrament to make it easier
because every sin has consequences and we are
quickly entrammelled in them.
We have spoken in Catholic tradition of “the
temporal punishment due to sin” even after
“the guilt is forgiven,” and we have explained
indulgences in terms of remission of that
temporal punishment. This may sound to
modem ears like a very vindictive
understanding of God. Yet it simply describes
what we all know. If I lose my temper and
smash a window, I may be truly sorry the next
minute but the window must be repaired
nevertheless. If I do something to destroy
another person’s reputation, I may genuinely
repent it but I am still left with the burden of
trying to restore his reputation. If I live a life
that is somewhat less than Christian, I may
undergo a deep conversion, but it will take long
years of persevering effort to reshape my life
style, habits, values and priorities. The lives of
all the Saints testify to that.
In the early centuries the Church claimed the
right, at least in cases of grave and public sins,
to specify the works of penance by which such
reparation or reconstruction should be begun.
The principal works of penance or
reconstruction have always been considered to
be prayer, fasting and almsgiving, but other
kinds of penances such as barefoot pilgrimages,
wearing of penitents’ garb and various quite
strenuous and painful things were sometimes
imposed. At first, these penances were required
before reconciliation with the Church (i.e.
absolution) was celebrated. But it seems that
after the sixth century reconciliation was
moved to the beginning, though strenuous
works of penance were still imposed.
Even in the earliest centuries, martyrs and
persons imprisoned and tortured for the faith,
had been known to intercede for public sinners
that they might be reconciled more easily with
the Church. In the ninth century we hear of
pilgrims to Rome having heavy penances
commuted to much easier ones. Then in the
11th century we know of bishops in France
cancelling all or part of the prescribed penances
by assuring people of the Church’s intercession.
Because this was challenged by theologians in
the 12th century, there emerged in the 13th
century the doctrine of the “treasury of the
Church” out of which indulgences could be
granted to remit the required penances that
were prescribed by the Church in the first
place.
As everyone knows, there were some bad
scandals in the late medieval Church when
indulgences were given for fighting in crusades
and giving money to pet projects of the popes
that had nothing to do with the poor and little
to do with worship. In spite of that, the
Council of Trent reiterated that the basic idea
of indulgences was sound. The Church was
indeed a treasury, which is the redeeming love
of God, released into the world by the human
response of Christ and the Saints. It is in the
light of this that the Church claims that it can
make the task of repairing the consequences of
sin easier for us. It need not take a superhuman
struggle of long fasts, vigils and pilgrimages to
put us into the dispositions to repair the
damage done in the world and in ourselves by
sin.
When, in this Jubilee Year, the Church turns
our attention directly to what must be done to
repair the consequences of evildeeds in the
world, it is precisely because of confidence in
that treasury of graces of conversion that we
have always hoped to claim by indulgences.
BY REV. JOSEPH M. CHAMPLIN
Father Camillus Barth is a 69-year-old, bald,
energetic Passionist missionary preacher. For 40
years he has, like St. Paul, been preaching. He is
at a monastery in West Springfield,
Massachusetts. His regular operating bases are
various rectories throughout the United States.
I met him last Spring, liked the creative,
contemporary approach he favored in
presenting traditional Christian good news
concepts and asked him to spend a week with
us. Parishioners had not experienced a
“mission” in over a decade and our staff felt
this might prove an excellent way of preparing
for the Holy Year. The response exceeded
everyone’s most optimistic expectations.
The Passionists know that careful
preparation on the local level is the key to a
successful parish retreat. To facilitate this, they
send an advance man who supplies host
personnel with posters, data and suggested steps
for proper publicity. In addition, they request
detailed information about the nature of the
community-number of families, age breakdown,
yearly Baptisms, marriages and funerals, Mass
schedule, general spiritual needs, etc.
We termed the retreat a “Personal
Enrichment Week” rather than a mission and in
the homily two weeks beforehand indicated as
its purpose the Holy Year goals of renewal and
reconciliation.
A press release for the local newspapers
began in this way:
“Have the problems and complexities of
modern-day life confused or discouraged you?
Do you find the mystery of life itself baffling?
How do you view yourself, as a somebody or a
nobody?
“Is your faith in God stronger or weaker
than it was a few years ago? Does prayer help
you cope with your personal life? Have you
given up praying?
“Is religion a comfort for you, an obligation,
or something no longer of value? Are you a
sinner anxious for God’s forgiveness, afraid to
ask or not sure you know how? Do you need
help with some personal decisions about
the future?
“If any of these questions strike home, you
might consider participating in the Personal
Enrichment Week, Nov. 3-8 at Holy Family
Church in Fulton.”
We followed up that announcement story
one week later with a photograph of staff
members preparing for the week and a paid
advertisement professionally designed by an
agency operated by a Holy Family parishioner.
During the seed-sowing sermon preceding
Father Camillus’ arrival, we asked our people to
pray for God’s blessing on this week (with a
special plea directed toward the very young
children), to make a sacrifice each day on its
behalf, and to act as spiritual missionaries by
inviting someone who could benefit from the
experience.
Father Barth opened the Personal
Enrichment Week by preaching at all the
Sunday Masses. Obviously aware of the
essential importance of these words, he spoke
at length (20 minutes) and captivated the
congregations with his wit, enthusiasm,
dynamic style and powerful message.
Sunday night, however, was the acid test.
Would they return? Over 500 did, listened
attentively and even applauded at one point.
The next day they came back, and the next,
am.' the next until Friday’s closing. Every
morning we averaged 125 for the 9:15 Mass and
conference; 500-600 participated in the
evening’s 7:30 repeated service.
Volunteer’s served coffee and cookies
downstairs after each session with a family
bible and religious articles available for
purchase.
Father Camillus, assisted by one of us, heard
confessions for lengthy periods after the daily
presentations. A wife spoke to me with grateful
tears at the week’s conclusion, overjoyed that
her husband had found the desire and courage
to approach a priest and receive this sacrament
after an absence of many years. I am sure he
was not the only one so moved.
There were no collections during the series
except on the last day when the Passionist
made a brief, low-key request. Concerned
priests should be reassured to learn that the
amount realized nicely covered not only a
generous stipend for his community and for
him, but also the expenses involved in this
week.
The Church, of course, enriches such retreats
or missions with special indulgences. I am also
convinced the Holy Spirit operates in unique
ways during these periods of prayer, preaching
and reflection. Certainly for the people of Holy
Family, those were days of deep renewal and
peace reconciliation.
“IN THIS HOLY YEAR WE SEEM
to be bearing constantly about
reconciliation and social justice, about
poverty and world hunger.” Chileans,
earlier torn by civil strife, unite with
their bishops in a gesture of
reconciliation during a Holy Year
service at the Shrine of Our Lady of
Maipu. (NC Photo)
Penance and Indulgences
BY WILLIAM E. MAY
When you toss a pebble into a pond, it causes
ripples that gradually spread in concentric
circles until they are lost in the distance. When
you cut your finger, blood flows, and
frequently stitches are required and you must
wear a bandage for several days until the wound
is healed. When you cut your friend to the
quick with a bitter comment, it may take a long
time for the damage to be repaired and for the
friendship to flower once more. And so it is
with the sinful deeds we do; they break the
bonds of friendship between ourselves and God
and our neighbors, and one of the effects that
they bring about in us is an inability to love as
we must if we are to respond truthfully to our
loving God’s invitation to choose life.
What has all this to do with the question of
indulgences? In fact, why bother with
indulgences at all any more? Are they not
antiquated bits of furniture cluttering Catholic
life, props that may have been helpful to the
faithful in a bygone age, redolent of a mentality
for instant salvation and a sure-fire, almost
magic panacea? Surely we must repudiate the
view that indulgences, those remissions whether
in whole or in part of the temporal punishment
due to sins already forgiven, function as pills in
our spiritual life, there to be taken and presto,
we’ve got it made. It is better by far to forget
indulgences completely than to think of them
in this way.
The teaching of the Church on indulgences
and their place in the Christian life can only be
understood properly if it is placed within the
context of the Church’s teaching about love or
charity, sin, and penance. At the heart of the
Continuing Signs of God’s Love for Us
BY STEVE LANDREGAN
Signs are an integral part of being human.
The falling leaves are a sign of autumn, the first
crocus a sign of spring, an embrace is a sign of
friendship, a smile is a sign of joy.
Our humanness demands outward assurance
of invisible realities. When we have hurt another
we seek a sign of their forgiveness. When we
love another we seek ways of signing our love,
and we, in turn, look for signs of another’s love
for us.
God, who created us, understands perfectly
this need we have of signs. We are surrounded
by signs of His presence in nature, in man, in
ourselves.
The ultimate sign God gives us is Christ who
is a sign to us of God’s love for us and of His
desire to reconcile us to Himself but Christ is
more than a sign. He is the personification of
God’s love for us, He is God’s reconciliation of
man with himself.
The Church, as the saving presence of Christ
in the world, is a sign of Christ and of the
reconciliation He brought about for us.
In many ways the Church, the community
called to proclaim Christ, provides us with
continuing signs of Christ’s love and our
redemption. In the Sacraments, which are
Christ’s actions through His community, we are
reconciled, forgiven, strengthened, nourished
and commissioned.
Through the Church community we, so to
speak, exchange signs with God. We confess
that we are sinners and ask to be reconciled
with Him through His community . . . our sign
to God. We are given absolution and readmitted
to full communion with other members of His
body . . . God’s sign to us. It is thus with all the
sacraments we visibly signify our need to
God ... He visibly signifies His response to us.
In this Holy Year the People of God signify
their great need for God’s mercy and love
through pilgrimages, penitential practices and
devotions.
God signifies His response through the gift of
the Holy Year indulgence.
An indulgence is the sign of God’s pardon,
not granted by the Church but mediated by the
Church as God’s saving presence in the world
and as minister of his pardon and remission.
It is a gift given in response to actions on the
part of men that signify their detachment from
“all affection for sin” and their openness to be
fully renewed in Christ by the grace of the Holy
Spirit.
In the case of the Holy Year or Jubilee
indulgence the gift is God’s remission of all
temporal punishment remaining for sins that
have already been forgiven.
Our sign of seeking God’s mercy is the
participation in a community celebration called
by the bishops on the occasion of pilgrimages
to cathedrals and churches designated by them.
Or it can be a pause for reflection and prayer
with a family group, or group of students or
members of a religious association during a visit
to the designated places.
In each case the actions should be
accompanied by recitation of the Our Father,
the Creed and prayers invoking the Blessed
Virgin and by reception of the Sacrament of
Reconciliation (Penance) and the Holy
Eucharist, with a prayer for the intentions of
the Holy Father and the bishops.
The penitential practice involved is the
pilgrimage itself. It is highly symbolic and
recalls that life is a journey or pilgrimage that
should be undertaken in the same spirit of
detachment, sacrifice and charity demanded by
the Holy Year pilgrimage.
Anyone whose physical condition makes a
pilgrimage impossible or unduly difficult may
still share in the gift of the Jubilee indulgence
by joining spiritually with those making the
pilgrimage.
During this Holy Year the ideal pilgrimage is
one to Rome where the pilgrim may participate
in the spiritual exercises in the basilicas and
places hallowed by the blood of martyrs and
the special privileges granted visitors to the See
of the Successor of Peter.
In the United States the same Holy Year
indulgences may be obtained by making a
pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Immaculate
Conception in Washington, D.C., for those
unable to make a pilgrimage to the Eternal
City.
Whatever our situation, we are called upon to
participate in the theme of renewal and
reconciliation by this exchange of gift signs
with God.
Gospels and of the mission of the Church is the
call to repentance, to conversion. With
Jeremiah the Church - we, the people of God -
continually beg God to create in us a clean
heart, a loving heart, a heart ready to say yes to
God and anxious to receive His gift of love and
to communicate it to others. And our hearts are
made clean when we love perfectly. Thus the
Church has always taught that a love that is
perfect in every way, one that is not merely
present in intention and incipiently operative
within us but is already permeating our entire
person, is sufficient to heal totally the wounds
caused by our sins and thus remit or wipe out.
any of the temporal punishments consequent
upon them. But who of us loves perfectly?
Because of our own sins, we have crippled
ourselves and made it hard for us to love as we
ought. Is not our weakness, our impotence, our
inability to do what we know we ought to do, a
sign of our incapacity to love, to carry out in
our deeds what we so desperately want to do in
our hearts?
If we look upon our life in this way, we will
see that an indulgence is simply an important
aid given to the repentant sinner, to help him
achieve perfect love. An indulgence is not a
license to indulge. It is by no means detrimental
to the true spirit of reconciling penance, for it
simply cannot exist without the spirit of
penance, that is, the willingness to acknowledge
one’s sinfulness and humbly ask what our
Father is only to anxious to give: forgiveness
and strength to amend our ways. Indulgences
must not be considered as automatic, juridical
acts divorced from our struggle to achieve
maturity (that is, perfect love) in our moral and
spiritual lives. Rather they must be seen as
linked to that ongoing process, to that work of
our sanctification that is initiated by God’s
saving deeds and mediated to us through the
Church that is His people.
It is important, finally, to stress the ecclesial
or corporate character of indulgence.
Indulgences are possible only because of the
special intercession continually made on our
behalf by the Church, in its liturgy and in the
prayers of its members. It is an act of
intercession that has as its goal the complete
reconciliation of men and women who by their
sins have alienated themselves from the love of
God and, as a result, from one another, and
from themselves. The ultimate source of
indulgences is that loving God himself and his
Son, Jesus, who enables us whose humanity He
shares to participate in His own life and acts.
Know
Your
Faith
(All Articles On This Page Copyrighted
1974 by N.C. News Service)