III. Three General Types of Indulgence Grants

Preliminary Comments

1. These three general types of indulgenced grants have for their purpose to encourage the Christian faithful to structure into the texture of their everyday activities a Christian spirit [1] and to gear their lives toward the perfection of charity. [2]

2. The first and second types of grant are more or less the same as many characteristic ones of the past. But the third type of grant is much more in harmony with our own times. For there is more advantage today to encourage the faithful to carry out penitential practices on their own initiative in addition to the actual law of abstinence from meat and the law of fasting - both of which are today rather mitigated. [3]

3. These three types of grant are really rather broad, and each one of them concerns many works of the same generic type. Nevertheless, not all such works are endowed with indulgences but only those which are carried out in a special manner and spirit.

For the sake of example, let us consider the first type of grant which is described as follows: "A partial indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who, while performing their duties and enduring the difficulties of life, raise their minds in humble trust to God and make, at least mentally, some pious invocation."

In this first type of grant an indulgence is attached only to those acts in which the Christian faithful raise up their minds to God as described above while they perform their duties and put up with the difficulties of life.

Owing to human weakness, however, such specoal acts are not very frequent. But when a person is so conscientious and devout that he/she performs acts of this type several times during the day, then in addition to a fuller increase of grace he/she rightly obtains a fuller remission of punishment and can in charity render abundant assistance to the souls in purgatory.

These same comments can be made in substance concerning the other two general types of grants.

4. It is obvious that the three types of grant are in special harmony with the gospels and with the teaching of the Church as amply set forth in the Second Vatican Council. For this reason and for the benefit of the faithful citations taken from the scriptures and from the documents of this Council are given below for each of these general types.