Greetings everyone and happy Halloween! I come to you today to talk about how you can receive plenary or partial indulgences for the remission of sins this first 8 days of November.
November 1st is All Saints Day, or in older English, All Hallows Day. That is why today, the vigil evening before All Hallows Day, is Hallows Eve, or now Halloween. All Saints day, tomorrow, is a Holy Day of obligation, as we pray in celebration for all those who have gone before us and have entered into heaven, the Church Triumphant, to receive their heavenly reward and are rightly called saints, coming from the Latin Sancti, meaning Holy Ones. We celebrate those capital S Saints who the Church has identified as knowing they are in heaven and those lower case s saints whom we do not know.
November 2nd, All Souls Day, is not a day of obligation, but still important to celebrate. It is then that we pray for all those poor souls in purgatory, the Church Penitent, who are being purified by the love of God that they may be free of their attachments to sin and may be made perfect, as nothing imperfect is in heaven. We pray for our dead, that God will make their time in Purgatory short that they may enter into His Kingdom. The saints in heaven have no need to pray for themselves, so they pray for us and for those in purgatory. We too pray each other, and those in purgatory, and we can also pray for ourselves. But those in purgatory cannot pray for themselves, nor for the others in purgatory. As they are dead, they no longer have the ability to merit graces, so they pray for us. We, the Church Militant, must take up the spiritual weapons God has given us to bring about His Kingdom and to usher souls into heaven, as we can still merit God’s graces as we live in this time on earth.
So God’s mercy and grace flow from the foot of the cross and out pour upon earth. For those who wish to partake of this special mercy, it is readily available. We call these mercies indulgences. Now while you shouldn’t pay for indulgences, you can still drink of this fount of God’s mercy and grace offered for you, if you’d like.
During the Octave of All Saints, on any and each day from November 1st to November 8th, you can devoutly visit a cemetery and pray, if only mentally, for the departed souls in purgatory, and you will grant a soul in purgatory an indulgence, a remittance of sins. You can do that once per day. On Saturday, Nov 2nd, devoutly visiting a church and recite an Our Father and the Creed will also grant an indulgence for a soul in purgatory. In all instances, you also need to pray for the Pope’s intentions with an Our Father and a Hail Mary, you need to go to confession, you need to be free from attachment to all sin, even venial, and you need to receive the Eucharist for each and every indulgence within 20 days of the indulgence. You can go to confession once for several indulgences, but you should pray for the pope’s intentions and receive communion for each indulgence.
If you fulfill all of these, you gain a plenary indulgence, a complete remission of all sin for one soul. If you are still attached to any sin, even the little ones, you gain a partial indulgence, a partial remission of sin for one soul. The souls in purgatory need our prayers. Let’s give them all the help we can.