Indulgences are heavenly treasure!

An indulgence is a little piece of heavenly treasure.  Where does it come from?  It comes from Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our salvation and from the saints, who lived extraordinary lives of heroic virtue. 

Think of every good act done each day and imagine that those acts produce an invisible piece of treasure which rises up to a heavenly treasure chest.  The treasure in this chest can be referred to as indulgences.  Indulgences can be both plenary and partial.  What do they do?  Indulgences remove part or all of the temporal punishment due to our sins.  When we sin, we can be forgiven by God, if we are truly sorry, but the stain of that sin remains and needs to be blotted out.

Think of a freshly painted wall, which represents your soul.  You hammer a nail into the wall, which represents your sin.  You seek forgiveness from God for your sin and the nail is removed from the wall, which represents God forgiving you.  However, there is still a hole in the wall.  The hole represents the stain of your sin, which remains on your soul.  To enter heaven, we must have all stain from sin removed from our souls.  This process happens during Purgatory or here on Earth through indulgences.

A plenary indulgence removes all stain from sin and a partial indulgence removes part of the stain.  These are gifts from heaven to assist us in the cleansing of our souls, while we are still here on Earth,  or while we are in Purgatory.  We receive indulgences, both plenary and partial, if we desire to receive them and perform various acts of charity and love, which pleases God and makes us more saintly.  Those various acts are documented in the book, THE HANDBOOK OF INDULGENCES -- NORMS AND GRANTS.  Obtaining this book will give you insight into the beautiful ways we can purify our souls as we make our way to our heavenly reward.
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Knowing that God always gives us ways to get to Him, let us thank Him for the gift of indulgences.  
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