One of the themes of our pilgrimage of course has been indulgences. But we rarely discuss what indulgences actually are compared to what we often hear from non- Catholic friends and relatives.
Our Gospel reading today gives us a good glimpse into what an indulgence is, but let's first recap sin and reconciliation from yesterday.
Sin, of course, involves the forgiveness for our faults related to those times we act against God's will. Still, there is cost due to the impact of those sins that remain after sacramental Reconciliation is complete.
Remember my story about my brothers and I playing a lot of baseball, and all the broken windows that go along with it.
When a window was broken, we were generally forgiven relatively quickly. Even though we were forgiven, the window still needed to be replaced. The forgiveness of our parents did not somehow replace window.
Either we needed to pay to have the window replaced or we were granted an indulgence by our parents for them to pay for it on our behalf.
Indulgences are like the promissory notes in our reading. In a partial indulgence our promissory note is reduced in half or some other partial amount.
In a plenary indulgence, the promissory note is reduced to nothing.
Indulgences involve detachment from sin.
Detaching ourselves from sin is one of the hardest aspects of the Christian life, and it is often made that much more difficult in times where spiritual oppression or influence may be involved.
Demonic oppression refers to the external influence of demonic forces causing distress or hardship in a person's life. It's distinct from demonic possession, like Mary Magdalene, where a demon inhabits and controls a person's body. Oppression is seen as an external attack, while possession is an internal invasion.
Saint Augustine said, “a demon can influence a person’s cognitive abilities, influencing their sensory powers. The demon creeps stealthily through all the avenues of the senses,’ impacting their perception of the people, places, and things in their lives.” This is what we refer to as demonic oppression.
Demonic oppression can be a limiting factor in our capacity to have faith, our capacity to hope, our capacity to love, our capacity to exercise our freedom, and our capacity to experience joy.
Demonic oppression can also manifest itself in a number of mental, psychological, and even physical ailments.
Our readings later next week will tie really well to Healing and Deliverance. But, we see elements of spiritual warfare in other parts of the Gospel like our reading from yesterday: the Devil taking the Word of God from our hearts, discouraging our faith, and distracting us from the path of salvation.
Evil spirits tempting us and choking us with anxiety, riches, and pleasures. It truly is insidious how we come to be attached to these things presented to us by evil spirits.
The oppression originates when an evil spirit is able to take advantage of a moment of trauma (such as abusive situations), contact with the occult (no matter how innocent it may have seemed at the time), religious cults (particularly Freemasonry organizations, such as the Shriners), oaths, resentments, rebellion (especially against the teachings of the Church), and sexual sin and other habitual sins. These are referred to as entry points.
By properly identifying the entry point related to a problem, we can name the spirit by the entry point and renounce it. Thus cutting off the entry point and the evil spirit’s ability to continue to exercise oppression.
Our exercise is intended to break some of the spiritual bondage that you may experience, which will in turn help you detach from sin and become truly free.
As we go through the exercise allow yourself to feel the power of the cross break the spiritual bondage and unholy ties that you may be experiencing. Feel the choke hold of anxiety, riches and pleasures releasing you.
And, allow yourself to truly feel the healing grace of God restoring your good and generous heart. Through indulgences and deliverance from spiritual bondage, the Lord lifts up the poor.
Thanks be to God!
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