If we ignore the scoffers and the mockers (2 Peter 3:3) for a moment -; they are a sign we are in the end times – I shall explain….
Firstly, an indulgence does not forgive sins, past or future! It reduces or annuls the “temporal punishment” due to sins already confessed and absolved in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Divine Mercy by Christ’s passion and death forgives us, but Divine Justice requires reparation for sin, at least for grave sin. This is the “temporal punishment” which needs to be undergone either in this life or in the next.
One can receive a PLENARY indulgence once per day by praying five decades of the Rosary continuously, meditating upon Scripture appropriate to each decade. The Rosary must be prayed out loud, in Church, in a family group or in a religious community, and the Mysteries must be publicly announced if the Rosary is public.
Four other conditions must be fulfilled:
Sacramental confession within the previous week.
Eucharistic communion on the day.
Prayers for the Pope’s intentions (usually the Creed, Our Father, three Hail Mary’s and Glory be)
Freedom from all attachments to sin, even venial sin.
This last condition makes obtaining a plenary indulgence actually very difficult.
If any one of the conditions is unfulfilled, then the indulgence is PARTIAL, not plenary.
Similar rules apply to gaining indulgences by prayerfully reading Sacred Scripture for half an hour, or for engaging in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for half an hour, or for praying the Stations of the Cross before a publicly erected set of Stations.
Fr. Francis Marsden
