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The Secret of the Rosary

have the wonderful crown which is waiting for you in heaven: "Be thou faithful until death: and I
will give thee the crown of life.''10

Forty-Ninth Rose

Indulgences

THIS IS THE right time to say a little about indulgences which have been granted to Rosary
Confraternity members so that you may gain as many as possible.
Briefly, an indulgence is a remission or relaxation of temporal punishment due to actual sins, by
the application of the superabundant satisfactions of Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Virgin Mary and
of the saints which are contained in the Treasury of the Church.
A Plenary Indulgence is a remission of the whole punishment due to sin; a partial indulgence of,
for instance, one hundred or one thousand years can be explained as the remission of as much
punishment as could have been expiated during one hundred or one thousand years, if one had been
given a corresponding number of the penances prescribed by the Church's ancient Canons.
Now these Canons seven and sometimes ten or fif­
teen years' penance for one single mortal sin so that a person who was guilty of twenty mortal sins
would probably have had to perform a seven year penance at least twenty times, and so on.
Rosary Confraternity members 'who want to gain the indulgences must:

1. be truly repentant and must go to confession and Holy
Communion, as the Bull of Indulgences teaches;
2. they must be entirely free from affection for venial sin,
because if affection for sin is left the guilt is left too, and since the guilt is there, the
punishment cannot be lifted;
3. they must say the prayers and carry out the good works
designated by the Bull if, in accordance with what the
Popes have said, one can gain a partial indulgence (for
instance, of one hundred years) without gaining a Ple-

10 Apoc. 2:10.

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