We modern Christians might take for granted how easy it is for us to seek pardon for our sins, especially our grave sins committed after baptism. All a man who has committed adultery, or theft, or murder has to do is to go into the privacy of the confessional and confess his sin, receive his penance, and be absolved. To be sure, we must repent and try to repair any injustice ours sins have caused, but this does not require us to “blow our cover” and make our sins known to anyone but the priest to whom we made our confession.
It was not always thus, nor was penance so private an affair. It was a lot harder.
In the ancient church, the bishop baptized the catechumens at Easter, and this baptism of adults was the norm. Babies were baptized only in danger of death. Remember that baptism is the principal sacrament of penance, as it were. As St. Peter told the men of Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized.” It is this sacrament that is the forgiveness of all the sins of our past life.
This fact was so foremost in the minds of Christians that it seemed difficult to see how mortal sin would be forgiven after baptism. Just as the bishop baptized, so too he dealt with those who fell after baptism. The penances were long and public for sins such as adultery, and even lesser sins of impurity required penances of many days.
This meant, of course, that one’s sins were a public matter, at least in general, because the whole community of the local church would notice the fasting, the standing at the church door asking for prayers, the prolonged refraining from Holy Communion, the more generous almsgiving—and these sometimes for some years, not just once or twice. Only after the penance was completed did one receive the absolution of the bishop, and even that was usually at a public rite—for example, on Holy Thursday.
There was one thing, though, that canceled out all penances, and that was if one was hauled before a judge and condemned for being a Christian. To be a confessor, one who suffers for the faith, or, even more, a martyr, took care of one’s penances.
The Christians of North Africa, the Latin-speaking folks who were the descendants of the Carthaginians, had a keen legal sense, and their resourcefulness led to a great and profound development in the theology and the practice of penance.
They began to have recourse to the intercession, or literally, the intervention of those who were in prison awaiting execution for the faith, the confessors who were soon-to-be martyrs. They would write a rescript, a kind of legal decree, for the confessor to sign from prison asking the bishop to cancel the remaining penance for the person who had brought it because of the merits of the confessor who was about to make the supreme sacrifice.
Of course, in an age and in a local church that valued the witness of martyrdom above other graces, how could the bishop refuse such a request? So, he would grant indulgence of the penalty due their sins by the abundant merit of the prospective martyr.
Naturally, though, if the merits of a future martyr suffice for the remission of a penalty for sin, how much more logically could such merits avail by his intercession from heaven after his martyrdom? So the bishops, especially the bishop of Rome, began to grant the remission of penances for the faithful that might not have been completed in time for their own death by the superabundant merits of the saints. This was a slow and gradual development, complementary to the growth of private confession instead of public confession, and the confession of venial faults as well as mortal.
The popes and bishops used this power they had in virtue of the power of the keys given to Peter and the other apostles to “bind and loose in heaven and on earth” by our Savior. They would grant an indulgence for taking up a crusade to defend persecuted Christians, or for helping to build a bridge or a hospital, or for making a pilgrimage. In short, they used it to encourage certain good works that even of themselves help to pay the debt of sin to be undergone in purgatory.
Contrary to what one might hear, this practice existed in both the Eastern and Western churches. So common was it that even now in the Russian Church the faithful are buried holding the text of a prayer the priest says begging the remission of their uncompleted punishments.
The church’s practice today is very, very generous in giving indulgences and the conditions and details for “gaining” them, as we say, are easily available and are described in the Enchiridion or “handbook” of indulgences. But even if we are not fully informed about the many possibilities of prayer, penance, and works of mercy that gain an indulgence, we can just begin by making the daily intention that we want to gain the indulgence offered by holy Church for any of these that we perform throughout our day.
It’s important to keep in mind that we can offer our indulgences for the faithful departed and so hasten their entry into heaven. This is a powerful devotion, very pleasing to God, which is a real sign of a Catholic heart. Not only that, but Aquinas tells us that those who help the departed during their lives are the ones who receive more of the Church’s help after death. That is a motive worthy of the early Christians, and very consoling for us today.