Ad Jesum per Mariam - November: Earning a Plenary Indulgence For Our Deceased Loved Ones

November: Earning a Plenary Indulgence For Our Deceased Loved Ones Today’s Gospel explains why we should pray . . . . . . for our deceased loved ones. Why is that important? Why is praying today for someone who died recently, or decades ago, so important? The Church opens its treasury from November 1st through and including November 8th, as described within this Homily. The power of prayer is explained for our deceased loved ones. What is an indulgence? What is a plenary indulgence? Why is it important? Christians may say . . . I go to confession. I do not need to do this! Wrong! Understand what eternal salvation requires and the gaining entry into heaven means. We know we are sinners. So, what is the differences in confession and what is needed after confession? Why is it important to gain a plenary indulgence for our deceased loved ones? After listening to the Homily, take a look at the pdf file (on the website) that explains the conditions and prayer needed to potentially earn a plenary indulgence during this octave! Listen to this Meditation Media. Have more questions? Look at this post which lists frequently asked questions about this topic on the website.

Duration: 24m
Broadcast on: 31 Oct 2022
Audio Format: other

the Lord be with you, a reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke. At that time, Jesus came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town. Now a man there named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, was seeking to see who Jesus was. But he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said, Zacchaeus, "Come down quickly for today I must stay at your house." And he came down quickly and received him with joy. When they all saw this, they began to grumble, saying, "He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner." But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, "Behold,

half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor. And if I have extorted anything from anyone, I shall repay it four times over." And Jesus said to him, "Today, salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham.

For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost. The gospel of the Lord." When I was a boy, I loved this gospel reading because it spoke about tree climbing. But I'm also going to need some help to explain some things. So I'm going to go back here because when I grew up, I heard that the good Catholics sit in the back and the farther back, the better the Catholic. And I think this young man way in the back might just be the best Catholic here. So would you come forward and help me a little bit? Come with me and you come too.

See, mom didn't expect to get put to work, too. We're going to walk all the way to the front, okay? Unfortunately, I don't have a tree for you to climb right now. Oh, come here, mom. Turn around and face everybody and you come here and you stand right behind your mom. Can you see everybody? No, you can't, huh? As simple as this is, pay attention to this because our gospel story turns on this element. The Lord is coming and Zacchaeus wants to see him, but he can't because my buddy Zacchaeus isn't all that tall. He's a small man in a big world and everything seems so much bigger than he is.

And if you stay down back here, you're not going to be able to see anything, are you? So we should probably do something, right? So take two steps over this way, mom. And you take two steps as well. Uh-oh, we're still blocked. This is what Zacchaeus was running into. Every time he tried to get someplace where he could see Jesus, mom was there standing right in front of him, blocking his vision. Good Catholic that he is. He can't see because there's always someone or something in the way. The only way he's going to get to see you guys, can you run? Go. Good, right there. And I bet mom can't run that fast. I'm not going to ask mom to run.

So know what Zacchaeus does? He runs. He has to move because if he stays where he is, he'll never see. And so he has to run and just like my friend had a run and get out ahead of his mom. Don't make a habit of that so that he would have a chance to rise up. Now, come here buddy. Can you climb onto this bench? Don't fall. You can see a little better now, can't you? Because you're higher. No. Note how simple and yet how important the story is. He runs out ahead to get to a place where he can rise higher. And when he gets to that higher spot, you're now taller than your mom.

That's pretty cool, huh? When he gets to the higher spot, then he has a chance of seeing the Lord. And the beautiful thing though is Saint Luke doesn't say that he got to see Jesus. He says that when he got to that higher place, Jesus saw him.

But note the key. He's small, but he moves. He moves and he knows the crowd is going to move too. He knows sooner or later mom's going to find her way over here. And so he also has to climb. He has to rise. And in rising, it's not just that he gets to see. He finds himself in a place where he is seen, where he meets the gaze of the Lord who is already looking for him, already looking at him. Come with me, sir. That was a lot of work I put you through. And because you're such a good Catholic, you should get a good Catholic's reward, okay? You hand this in at our snack bar and that's an ice cream for you.

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