Anna in New Mexico, listening on Immaculate Heart Radio, we're talking
about doctrine, we have Karlo Broussard here ready to take your questions, what's
your question for Karlo, Anna? Well I became confused at listening to the show
today; I've always believed, when you go to Confession and the priest forgives
you, he absolves your sins, and your best bet is to go out and not sin again and
to avoid the occasion of sin and that was all well and good. Amen.
Now I'm hearing that all we have to do is really just go out for indulgences
and do good works and be good people, so why do we go to Confession?
Very good question, Anna. So let me clarify: I
apologize, it may be perhaps I misspoke, I don't know, but if for whatever reason
you came to this conclusion, I never said "We don't have to go to Confession" when I
was addressing specifically the question of indulgences. Recall that I quoted the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, which defines indulgences in paragraph...let me
find it here...in paragraph 1471, which is "A remission of temporal punishment due
for sin that has already been forgiven." So that definition, Anna, of "indulgences"
presupposes that one already went to the Sacrament of Reconciliation to have the
guilt of sin removed. But then after the guilt of sin removed--is removed--through
the Sacrament, there still remains, as I mentioned earlier, "vestiges of sin," you
might call it. Here's what the Catechism--here's how the Catechism explains
it in paragraph 1459; it says that "Sin injures us. It weakens us as a sinner,"
okay? And it goes on to say how absolution--
and that's what you receive, Anna, in the Sacrament of Confession, which we ought
to go to because Jesus gave it to us as a gift--
absolution takes away sin, but here's the key Anna: it does not remedy all the
disorders sin has caused. And it goes on to talk about how there is a need for
the sinner to recover his full spiritual health and make amends for the sin. He
must, quote, "'make satisfaction for' or 'expiate' his sins," and it concludes by
saying this, Anna: "This satisfaction," that is to say, the acts of love that we're
going to do to bring about our spiritual health, to make amends for our already
forgiven sins, "is what we call 'penance.'" Is that helpful? No. No, okay, well let me
try it--let me try-- I'm still confused about it because... the indulgences, to me...I'm gonna say
the indulgences are not even something I should consider, because if I
go to Confession and I tried to...I'm resolving my sins, I've been absolved,
and I'm resolving and I'm doing what I can to make myself whole, to keep myself
in a state of grace, and to be thankful that our Lord died, the sins that I
committed that He's now forgiven me of, that that should be forgiven, period,
without going through additional--as long as I maintain my stature of being in
grace. Alright Anna, let me try this again. You just mentioned one thing: you said
you mentioned, I'm already forgiven, why should I need to go through all of these
actions?" It is true, you're already forgiven; the indulgences, these acts of
love that's going to repair the harm that sin has done in your soul, it has
nothing to do with you being forgiven of the guilt of sin. That's taken care of in
the Sacrament of Confession. That guilt of sin is gone. It's
removed. What the indulgence is, it's basically an act of love that the Church
is saying, "If you perform this action with certain conditions, it's going to
contribute to your spiritual health"--the recovery of your spiritual health in
a way that's far greater than if you wouldn't perform these acts of charity
and do something else. So the Church will say, "Anna, you go to the Sacrament of
Confession, the priest is going to give you a penance--" and Anna, lemme ask you this: do you
say your prayer--your penitential prayers-- after you're forgiven and receive
absolution in the Sacrament of Confession? Yes. Okay, well here's the key,
Anna: those prayers, it's a form of indulgence. It's kind of like indulgences;
because, Anna, the Church says, "Pray those prayers, Anna, so that you can recover
your spiritual health that the sin-- that's already been forgiven in Confession--
has caused." And indulgences are simply other acts of charity that the
Church is identifying that you can perform in order to continue to grow in
holiness, repair the harm of the soul, recover your spiritual health, reorder
your will back to God, and Anna, become the saint you're called to be and remain,
as you mentioned earlier, in relationship with Jesus Christ.
That's what indulgences are all about. So hopefully that's helpful for you. You can
check out paragraph 1459-1460 in the Catechism. You know, I guess--cause I think
my own brain is just, always it thinks analogically--when you use that word
"relationship" like that, I think of, like, say I do something that offends my wife.
Right. I apologize to her, she does forgive me,
but there's a certain way in which I still have some work to do. Like, and I don't mean that
in a smart-alecky way, I mean, I need to rebuild that. It's not only a matter
of justice, Cy, as the Catechism points out with reference to indulgences;
but it's also a matter of repairing that brokenness that is there. You didn't
cut it off completely, it's not totally destroyed;
but whatever harm was done in offending your wife, you have to repair that. And it
doesn't come by just saying sorry, there's something more; you might use the
analogy of my son throwing the baseball, breaking the neighbor's window; I'm gonna
make him go and apologize, right? Oh that's--yes, I see what you're-- But you know what, I'm
gonna make T. Boy--as we say in Louisiana--I'm gonna make him rake the
yard, cut the lawn, in order to earn some money to try and help pay
back, perhaps; or even if you cut yourself, right, you clean the wound, it's clean, you
put a band-aid, but you know it sometimes it leaves a scar and it takes time for
that wound to heal, right? Yeah. And that's what happens in the soul. We sin, you know,
the guilt's removed, it's been cleaned up, but yet there's healing that
still needs to take place. And that's what we call sanctification, as I
mentioned earlier in the show, Cy. We have to go through this process of
sanctification, of being made holy continuously, persevering into the end so
that we can enter into the glory of the kingdom. Yeah. And the indulgence--in
the window one--there's a way in which God is saying, with the indulgence, it's a
special grace that I'll help you pay for the window. Amen, just like I might tell my
son: "Son go cut the grass," but you know what I'm not gonna make him pay for it
all, because he doesn't have the capability to do that. So I'm gonna help
him pay for it I'm gonna add some value to his work and cutting the grass in
order to pay for--repair the window. Yeah, yeah.