By JOE SIXPACK
Jimmy was a twelve-year-old boy, ordinarily good and obedient to his parents. But one afternoon his mother told him he couldn’t go swimming. Jimmy went swimming anyway, and his mother found out. When Jimmy returned, his mother told him how disappointed she was over his disobedience. Jimmy told her he was sorry, and that he wouldn’t do it again.
His mother said, “Well, Jimmy, I forgive your disobedience, but I still have to punish you. You can’t ride your bike for a week.”
Jimmy thought of a way to cut down his punishment. After dinner, he offered to dry the dishes for his mother. This was very unusual, if you knew Jimmy. His mother saw right through the plan, but she was good about it and when he finished told him, “Jimmy, you’ve been a good boy by drying the dishes for me, so I’ll take off some of your punishment. I’ll reduce your punishment from a week to four days.”
God is a very merciful God. In fact, He’s perfectly merciful, because He is…well, perfect. But because He is perfect, He must also be perfectly just. A fallacy of non-Catholic Christianity that has crept into Catholic thinking is that when God forgives sin, He also forgets. In other words, it’s wrongly believed that when God forgives sin He also pardons the temporal punishment due to those sins. But this isn’t true. That would make God neurotic, imperfect.
There still has to be a price paid for the offense, and this is a sense of justice God has given even to us, as imperfect as we are. After all, that is the whole premise behind our criminal justice system. If a criminal went before the judge and said he was sorry, it wouldn’t be right if the judge simply said, “That’s okay. The People forgive you. Go on home.”
The same is true of God. He most certainly forgives when we unburden ourselves of our sins and ask forgiveness in the confessional, but He still demands justice. Mortal sins forgiven in the confessional release us from eternal punishment in Hell, but both mortal and venial sins that are forgiven still have the price of temporal punishment to be paid. There are only two places where that temporal punishment can take place: here on Earth in this life or in Purgatory. Most of us don’t pay the full price of our sins in this life, so we end up paying for it in Purgatory.
Purgatory is like Hell, but with two differences. The first difference is that we only remain in Purgatory until the debt is paid and we are purified until we are perfect. The other difference is that our punishment is most intense when we arrive, but it lessens as we get closer to perfection. Therefore, it makes sense to do all we can to make reparation for our sins so as to escape the temporal punishment of Purgatory as best we can. This is best done by the gaining of an indulgence.
Indulgences remit all or part of our temporal punishment by doing good works prescribed by the Church. There is a partial indulgence, which remits a portion of the temporal punishment due to forgiven sin. There is also a plenary indulgence, which remits all the temporal punishment due to forgiven sin. To gain a plenary indulgence, the penitent not only performs the prescribed work, but also fulfills the usual conditions of going to Confession and receiving Communion within eight days prior to or after the indulgenced act.
What Jimmy did was tantamount to a partial indulgence. He did a good work for his mother, and she in turn took away part of the punishment he deserved for his disobedience. There is no doubt that Jimmy could have had all his punishment abolished if he’d done something much bigger, something truly extraordinary, which would have been like a plenary indulgence.
Being in a state of grace, praying, and performing good works to gain indulgences will remit the punishment due to forgiven sin, but there is more we can do, as is seen in the following story.
A French servant girl waited on her old and sickly mistress for many years. The rich lady once told her that she’d left large amounts of money and property to her family members in her will, including even her most distant relatives. The servant girl, who was both poor and faithful to her mistress, expected some such gift herself, but learned from her mistress that she wasn’t even in the old lady’s will.
Shortly before her mistress died, she gave the girl a crucifix made of painted plaster. She said, “Ann, this is the gift I leave you as a sign of my love and appreciation for all you’ve done for me over the years.”
Ann thanked her mistress, but she was terribly disappointed. “Only a crucifix,” she thought.
Ann hung the cross over her bed and prayed before it each night before retiring. But as she prayed, she couldn’t help but feel some bitterness and resentment about so meager a gift. One night she thought, “I’ve been faithful to my mistress all these years, yet all I get from her is a cross. She gives great amounts of money and property to all these other people who haven’t even been to visit her or cared about her in the least. Oh God, is that just? Don’t I deserve more for all my work and patience and the care of this woman?”
Her bitterness led Ann into a fit of anger. She jerked the crucifix from the wall and smashed it onto the floor in a thousand pieces as she shouted, “I don’t want your gift, Madame Beauvilliers! There is your cross in pieces at my feet!” But as Ann looked at the pieces on the floor, her eyes widened. There on the floor among all the broken pieces of the crucifix were many beautiful diamonds!
“Good God!” she cried, burying her face in her hands. “Good God, have mercy on me. Forgive me for having been so ungrateful, rude, and bitter.”
Ann ran from her room to apologize to her mistress. She knocked at the door of the bedroom, but there was no answer. She went into the room and approached the bed, only to find her aged mistress dead.
In this story, Ann felt bitter and angry because she felt unjustly treated by her mistress. It was only when she discovered the diamonds that she realized her mistress had indeed treated her well. We are all like Ann far more often than we like to think.
None of us like to experience difficulties in life. We become upset, impatient, or angry over the crosses God allows to come our way, especially when they seem unjust. That merely shows how foolish and ungrateful we can be! When God sends us a cross to bear, He is really sending us a handful of diamonds. Those crosses are gifts to help us get to Heaven. If, instead of being impatient or angry about a cross, we were to patiently bear it and offer it back to God as a gift in reparation for our sins and the sins of the world, we would not only accomplish the remission of some of our temporal punishment, but we’d also grow in holiness in the sight of God and man.
So don’t waste any of your suffering. Thank God for it, and offer it back to Him in reparation for the offenses made against Him by the world and yourself. The Church tells us you will benefit for it in this life and in the next.
If you have a question or comment you can reach out to me through the “Ask Joe” page of JoeSixpackAnswers.com, or you can email me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.
Hey, how would you like to see things like this article every week in your parish bulletin as an insert? You or your pastor can learn more about how to do that by emailing me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.
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