'STAND FAST IN THE FAITH'

New Zealand Tablet, 24 June 1915, Page 15

'STAND FAST IN THE FAITH'

... : ♦ ■; ( (A Weekly Instruction specially written for the k * , N.Z. Tablet by Ghimel;') INDULGENCES. : ' (Continued.) : Underlying the” Church’s granting of Indulgences there is this idea: sin deserVes punishment, and - the sinner, happy in the forgiveness of his offence, ought to .be prepared to pay the -penalty. This penalty has to : be paid-either by actual suffering in purgatory when ; this life is over, or by the performance during life on earth of some deeds (which have an atoning or satisfactory value. God’s justice—which demands that due reparation shall be made for all offences — must not go unvindicated, even when the sinner is restored to favor. And of the two ways of satisfying the claims of that justice, surely that must be preferable in God’s eyes which we take upon ourselves here, for that' is freely undertaken, and therefore, other things being equal, of more value. On this principle the Church’s doctrine of Indulgences is built.

» There is yet another principle justifying the docs’trine of Indulgences. If A commits a sin, it is clear I that the guilt of the sin can be taken away only by A’s I own sorrow of heart. But it is equally clear that the lease is different with the punishment attached to 1 sin. It is no uncommon thing for one man to bear another’s punishment, and we honor as a hero the man who will bear in silence what his friend should be paying. If this way of acting is commendable amongst us, is it not equally becoming in the relations of men with God? It certainly is in one case— that of the Man-God bearing on the Cross our sins and our just punishments. And may not His humble followers in their own small way practise charity in a similar way, offering themselves as victims for the sins of others and for their just punishments : and this in two ways by taking upon themselves definite penances for particular persons, and also, more generally, by having, as St. Thomas puts it, ‘ the intention that all they suffered or did for God might avail not for themselves only, but for the whole Church.’ Our Blessed Lady, for example, was free from the slightest stain of sin and therefore from all debt of punishment. If it is a sign of surpassing love to give one’s life for a friend, what could not this spotless friend of God. offer to God—her days of unremitting goodness and suffering, as well as her saintly death, for the benefit |of us, her brothers and sisters? The Saints of the I Church spent their days in heroic deeds of penance —tho’ f many of them never fell into any wrongdoing and in ’ active charity towards their neighbors ; they more than paid "for any debt of temporal punishment they owed God. What is to be done with the surplus ? Is it to lie idle and unused? What is to prevent it from being r used for the benefit of those penitent souls who, after their restoration to divine favor, have still a heavy debt to pay to the Divine Justice and are too weak to discharge it all in this life? Our Blessed Saviour especially heaped up an infinite store of merits, and as we know . for us, not for Himself. ‘ Upon the altar of the Cross,’ wrote Pope Clement VI. in 1343, ‘ Christ shed of His Blood not merely a drop, though this would have sufficed, by reason of the union with the Word, to rek deem the whole human race, but a copious torrent . . . t thereby laying up an infinite treasure for mankind. This treasure He neither wrapped up in a napkin nor A hid in a field, but entrusted to Blessed Peter, the keyv bearer,’ and his successors, that they might, for just and r reasonable causes, distribute it to the faithful in full f or in partial remission of the temporal punishment due Ito sin.’ St. Thomas Aquinas had already written; | All this treasure is at the disposal of the chief rulers | of the Church, in as much as our Lord gave the keys of f the Church to Peter. When, then, the utility or the f necessity of the Church requires it, the chief ruler of the | Church .can draw from this infinite store of merits, to $ communicate to anyone who through charity is a member

A*r-' ■‘*"■*l ' ■ ‘ i " > of the Church, as much as he deems to be opportune, whether it be such as will suffice for the total remission of . the punishment 'or up . to a certain portion of the whole; in such > wise, namely, that the (Passion of Christ [through Whom alone the merits of others have any efficacy at all] and the other Saints may be imparted to him just as if he himself had suffered what was necessary for the remission of his sin, as happens when one person satisfies for another.’ - -