Between lessons on the Sacrament of Penance and the Holy Eucharist, the Baltimore Catechism No. 2 inserts a discussion of indulgences, one of the most misunderstood of all Catholic practices.
An indulgence is a remission of the temporal punishment due to sin, not of the sin itself. Temporal punishment means that which we endure, either in this life or in Purgatory, for having committed sin. When our sins are forgiven, the punishment remains until satisfaction has been made. An indulgence is the wiping away of that punishment, not through our own merits, but through the merits of Christ and the good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints.
Some people find this concept hard to grasp. If the sin has been forgiven, why would the punishment remain? It might help to think of what happens when a child disobeys his mother and is, say, grounded for a week. Realizing his error, he apologizes to his mother, who forgives him but tells him that he must still complete his punishment.
But if the child does so willingly, and even takes the opportunity of his grounding to help out around the house, going above and beyond his normal chores, at the end of five days his mother might tell him that he is no longer grounded. She does not have to do so—the child deserved his punishment for his act of disobedience, and his current obedience and helpfulness doesn't change that fact. But she can decide to take his actions since his apology into account and cut short his punishment.
In a nutshell, that's how indulgences work. Christ's sacrifice on the Cross offers forgiveness for our sins to all who believe in him. The eternal punishment—damnation—for those sins has been removed, but the temporal punishment remains. If we, free from mortal sin (that is, in a state of grace), perform the actions that the Church prescribes for an indulgence (usually a prayer or prayers and, for plenary indulgences, Confession and Communion), the Church applies to us the merits of Christ and the "superabundant satisfactions" of the saints (that is, the good works that they did above and beyond what was necessary to satisfy for their own temporal punishment).
In recent decades, many priests have quit discussing indulgences, and many of the faithful have come to believe that indulgences are a relic of the "pre-Vatican II Church." Nothing could be further from the truth. Through such simple actions as praying the rosary, reciting a Prayer Before a Crucifix, and wearing a scapular (among many, many others), we can receive many indulgences each day. We can apply them to our own temporal punishment, or we can apply them to the souls in Purgatory (as in this Indulgence for a Visit to a Cemetery), that they may more quickly enter into the fullness of Heaven.
The failure of priests to instruct the faithful in the practice of indulgences, and the failure of the faithful to take advantage of them, means, in practical terms, that we endure a great deal of suffering, both in this life and, more importantly, in the next, that we don't need to endure. The way back begins with this week's lesson.
Lesson Twenty-First from the Confirmation Catechism has 7 questions. Note that the lesson begins with Question 231, continuing with the numbering from Lesson Twentieth.
The parallel lesson this week in the First Communion Catechism is Lesson Seventeenth. It includes 5 questions drawn from Lesson Twenty-First of the Confirmation Catechism.
Check out this week's lesson, and if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments or ask them in the Catholicism Forum!
Previous Lessons in Sunday School:- Welcome to Sunday School!
- On God and His Perfections
- On the Unity and Trinity of God
- On Creation
- On Our First Parents and the Fall
- On Sin and Its Kinds
- On the Incarnation and Redemption
- On Our Lord's Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension
- On the Holy Ghost and His Descent Upon the Apostles
- On the Effects of the Redemption
- On the Church
- On the Attributes and Marks of the Church
- On the Sacraments in General
- On Baptism
- On Confirmation
- On the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Ghost
- On the Sacrament of Penance
- On Contrition
- On Confession
- On the Manner of Making a Good Confession