According to the two (2) indulgence types we may gain a single (1) Plenary Indulgence per day and multiple Partial indulgences per day. But what reasons are there for us to want to attempt to gain multiple indulgences (plenary and partial)? For this question please consider the following reasons:
1. The works of an indulgence are edifying, even if no indulgence was attached at all.
Presented in the Apostolic Constitution Indulgentiarum doctrina (OF POPE PAUL VI) of 1968, these (relevant) segments read as follows:
(8…) The aim pursued by ecclesiastical authority in granting indulgences is not only that of helping the faithful to expiate the punishment due sin but also that of urging them to perform works of piety, penitence and charity—particularly those which lead to growth in faith and which favor the common good.
Just above this quote in the Apostolic Constitution it also says this: “indulgences, which spread gradually, became a very evident fact in the history of the Church when the Roman Pontiffs decreed that certain works useful to the common good of the Church”
All of this is to say that, even aside from having grants of indulgences attached to them, the works that Indulgences outline are pious, penitent, charitable, useful to the common good and they lead to the growth of the faithful. If you attempted to gain indulgences but never acquired a single one you would still benefit simply because the works that indulgences promote are works that are already good for the individual and the community of the Church.
2. Partial indulgences remove some temporal punishment each time, but a single partial indulgence does not remove all of it.
Prior to 1967 the Catholic church used to have numerical amounts attached to partial indulgences stating how much time (in days, week, and years) that indulgence could take off of a persons penitential time.
Today, after the changes made in 1967, the Church has done away with the numerical system and has instituted a value system more along the lines of ‘what you put in is what you get out.’ That is, if you are more devout in obtaining an indulgence, it is likely that you have gained more from that indulgence and the experience of obtaining it than one who gains that same indulgence more casually.
Regardless of the value system though, whether it’s devotion-based or numbers-based, the truth is that we don’t know how much temporal punishment we have that needs to be removed. Unless you have a unique experience where a messenger of God tells you what your temporal punishment accumulation looks like, we who are on earth can only speculate. All we do know is that we do accumulate sin and punishment throughout our lives and we can safely assume that we almost always have some sin or temporal punishment on our souls at any given moment.
So, if we were to assume that we are always in need of reducing our ever present temporal punishment (which is likely a correct assumption to have for the majority of the time we spend on earth) then we are always in need of penance and to reduce that temporal punishment. If I may be so bold to say; even if we are able to obtain a plenary indulgence which takes away all of temporal punishment, it is likely that we are still accumulating sin shortly after (by what we do and what we fail to do). Therefore, even shortly after we gain a plenary indulgence, I have no doubt that we may still benefit from partial indulgences.
3. We may not always receive the Plenary indulgences we are striving for.
According to Norm 20 (N20) it states:
N20) §4. If the full disposition is lacking, or if the work and the three prescribed conditions are not fulfilled, saving the provisions given in Norm 24 and in Norm 25 regarding those who are “impeded,” the indulgence will only be partial.
You may have noticed this, but whenever I make a post highlighting a Plenary indulgence I am sure to mention what it may look like if that Indulgence goes unfulfilled and is reduced to a partial indulgence. Some indulgences explicitly mention how the indulgence may become partial, if they are left incomplete or if they are preformed outside of special occasions. However, these ‘reductions’ are mentioned not just because someone may want to choose to do a partial indulgence, but probably because many may fail to gain a Plenary indulgence even though they thought they preformed the indulgence correctly.
Take myself for example: for Grant 30 regarding Scripture Reading, I overlooked the portion of the requirements where it stated “a text approved by a competent authority.” And so, for at least a year, I had been using a Bible that is not necessarily approved for the Catholic faithful. Looking back I can plainly see now that, even when I thought I was gaining Plenary indulgences through scripture reading with this Bible, in truth I was not. I was only gaining partial indulgences since it was not an appropriate text that fulfilled the Grant requirements.
This same thing could be applied to my younger years, before the concept of "detatchment from sin" was introduced to me. Although I completed the physical works and requirements for Plenary indulgences, I failed to appropriately surrender/become detached from sin, which likely caused a failure in gaining a Plenary indulgence at all
All of this is to say that perhaps a very good reason to try and gain more then one indulgence in a day (even more then one Plenary indulgence, even though the Church only grants one per day) is because there’s a chance that you are not getting all of the indulgences you are trying for. If I had attempted to gain two Plenary indulgences on the same day that I was reading this alternative Bible, it is likely that even though I unknowingly fail to gain a Plenary indulgence through Scripture reading, I may have still gain the indulgence by other means.
4) We can always offer our indulgences to be applied to the departed souls in purgatory (by way of suffrage).
A (relevant) portion of the “Apostolic Constitution Indulgentiarum doctrina” further says this:
(8…) And if the faithful offer indulgences in suffrage for the dead, they cultivate charity in an excellent way and while raising their minds to heaven, they bring a wiser order into the things of this world.
If the thought of gaining more indulgences to apply to yourself doesn’t necessarily appeal to you, perhaps the gaining of indulgences for the benefit of others (as a gift) will appeal to you. In my observations, most everyone I know loves to share and give gifts in some form or another. Many even love giving gifts more then they do receiving gifts. If this sounds like you, I can happily say that indulgences are a very financially-cheap gift to give that makes a world of difference to the souls whom we are gaining them for. In fact, when comparing the benefit of indulgences to the amount of labor that goes into them (not a lot of labor at all as long as one’s heart and soul is properly disposed) the value of the trade off is astronomical! There certainly is infinitely more value to a gained indulgenced then there is discomfort in gaining an indulgence. At least, this is how some see it.
This thought also leads into our last reason...
5) Purgatory is not a ‘fun’ place to be, so lessening or dissolving the time someone has to spent there is beneficial.
Purgatory is the transitional phase that we may find we need to spend time in, to atone for whatever temporal punishment is left over from our life, so that we may be made perfect for heaven. There are saints who, through the grace of God, have had visions of purgatory and it is described as a place of tremendous suffering (though also a place of much hope and anticipation since the phase of purgatory only lasts for a time.) From these visions of purgatory, it is reported that souls will often say that they would have preferred to spend years upon years doing their penance on earth rather than spend one day in purgatory. It has also been reported that they experience much relief when we who are still on earth pray and offer indulgences for them.
This is both an argument to offer indulgences for the departed and to attempt to gain indulgences for your own self. Purgatory, though it is a tremendous gift from God to us so that we may come to completion and enter heaven, it is not a fun place that anyone wants to be in for any longer then they have to be. Every soul would rather be in heaven sooner rather than later. So, if you are looking for a reason as to why you might want to gain more indulgences, remember that indulgences are really, REALLY helpful to accelerate or even avoid an otherwise less-than-pleasant experience. Whether you retain an indulgences for yourself or you help a fellow soul by offering what you’ve gained up for Christ to distribute to a fellow Sibling in Christ, all gained indulgences are beneficial every single time!
Can you think of any other reasons why it might be good to gain multiple Indulgence? Let me know in the comments (or on my Facebook page "Catholic Indulgence Information"). I hope this has been helpful. Indulgences can be a confusing topic so please feel free to leave your thoughts and questions. I hope to address all I can so that we can come to know this hidden gem of the Catholic Faith.
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