500 MINUS 95
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
“According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, an
indulgence is “the remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sin
whose guilt has already been forgiven. A properly disposed member of the
Christian faithful can obtain an indulgence under prescribed conditions through
the help of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and
applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the
saints. An indulgence is partial if
it removes part of the temporal punishment due to sin, or plenary if it removes
all punishment.” [Source: GotQuestions.org, & Wikipedia.org]
It’s been 500
years since Martin Luther posted his 95 theses. People read them then. People
don’t read them now. Because of the latter I decided to acquire and read them.
I thoughtfully did so five times this past week. One conclusion I’ve arrived at
is though I’ve always been taught that Luther was absolutely against
indulgences, he was not so as such.
Luther was mainly
against indulgences because they had church members relying on them for
deliverance and thereby neglecting being responsible for themselves before God.
But what of today
for those of us that wouldn’t give one cent for a cart full of indulgence documents
because we know they have no present or eternal value? Ours is a non-indulgent
mindset, right? Maybe.
What of extravagant
reliance on “God (or guardian angels) will take care of me.” producing the same
misguided dependency sans personal lifestyle responsibility? It certainly can.
EBB4
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