Let me try to explain this to folks who may have only heard about indulgences in the context of Luther and the Reformation.
When you break someone's window, there are two things you need to do. 1) Apologize and seek forgiveness. 2) Fix the window.
The fact that you are forgiven does not change the fact that the window is still broken. In fact, if you just sit there and fold your hands and refuse to pay for the window--or at least make it up to the person somehow--I am forced to conclude that you may not have been very sorry in the first place. If you weren't sorry, then maybe you weren't really forgiven after all.
What an indulgence does is allow a person to make amends for the sin that is already forgiven. I commit a sin. The window is broken. The first thing I do is immediately seek God's forgiveness personally and sacramentally. He gives it because He always does.
Meanwhile *the window is still broken*. Now maybe I don't know how to fix the window. But I offer to God some little but sincere action to show that I am, indeed, truly sorry. That action can be a charitable work, a prayer, spiritual reading, a giving of alms (here's where money sometimes comes in), or participation in some holy action (like a pilgrimage, procession, etc.).
Indulgences acknowledge that Christ paid not only the debt for our sins, but also all the punishment we are due them. His atonement is an absolutely inexhaustible treasury that the faithful can draw upon whenever they need it.
How does that withdrawal work? Well, let's suppose that you are a kid and don't have any money to fix the window. I am your dad. I say "Don't worry, I know you are sorry, and I will pay all the $200 to fix the window". I let you completely off the hook.
BUT then you, of your own volition, go and empty the entire $13.26 that you were saving in your piggy bank and bring it to me. "Here dad, I know it isn't close, but I just wanted to thank you, and to make up for what I did in my own little way."
That, folks, is a little act of great love. And that is the doctrine of indulgences in a nutshell.
Suffering doesn't *pay* for sins. The wages of sin is DEATH. Only Jesus, who committed no sin, was able to pay the penalty and could defeat death because it had no hold on Him.
When you break someone's window, there are two things you need to do. 1) Apologize and seek forgiveness. 2) Fix the window.
Actually, you don't NEED to fix the window. If the owner chooses to forgive you and say that it's already taken care of, then it's not your responsibility any more.
Being granted FORGIVENESS means that it is FORGIVEN. If you have to pay for it yet, it's not been forgiven.
“When you break someone’s window, there are two things you need to do. 1) Apologize and seek forgiveness. 2) Fix the window.”
Problem is I can’t fix the nor will I ever be able to do so.
“The fact that you are forgiven does not change the fact that the window is still broken. In fact, if you just sit there and fold your hands and refuse to pay for the window—or at least make it up to the person somehow—I am forced to conclude that you may not have been very sorry in the first place. If you weren’t sorry, then maybe you weren’t really forgiven after all.”
The fact that I am forgiven though unable to fix or pay for the broken window means Christ paid for it’s repair in full.
“Indulgences acknowledge that Christ paid not only the debt for our sins, but also all the punishment we are due them”
Then we have no debt and the payment due is removed.
So, kinda like “karma”? Or, there’s a “disturbance in the force” that must be balanced?