Corporal & Spiritual Works of Mercy
Corporal= is to relieve our neighbor in wants of in his body
- To feed the hungry;
- To give drink to the thirsty;
- To clothe the naked;
- To harbour the harbourless;
- To visit the sick;
- To ransom the captive;
- To bury the dead.
Spiritual= is to relieve our neighbor in wants of the soul
- To instruct the ignorant;
- To counsel the doubtful;
- To admonish sinners;
- To bear wrongs patiently;
- To forgive offences willingly;
- To comfort the afflicted;
- To pray for the living and the dead.
Paying respects to those at a funeral with children.
Modern worship what we fear. Sanitize, non tactile, non-real.
Cremation as abhorrent and repugnant. Death de-bodied the body, annihilate, next thing will be the soul.
Habeus corpus. Guardian angel reassemble body, find us easily.
Grace builds on nature. Integral respect of body, encasement of the eternal.
Church permits it, Communion in hand, not from goodness, but rather hard of heart.
Condescends to willful children.
>> hell does not exist and soul poofs in the ground.
Body in the ground, lively hope that body and soul restored.
Heaven & Hell reality more concrete with body.
Visit cemetery, people had less mean, less material, scratched up money to get buried, money argument spurious.
Communion on tongue, Moses permitted divorce hardness of heart, in beginning not so.
Christians always buried dead, pagans burned the bodies.
Mass celebrated over the bones.
These Beautiful Bones: An Everyday Theology of the Body by Emily Stimpson
Goodness of matter. Become what we do.
Cavalier approach to treat the body. We have been infected with universalism, all will be saved, effects the act of burning the body.
Did the crematorium get all of your mother? What is the process occurring.
Lay whole body in ground, have assuredly. Burn body, do not the same assurance.
- the three parts of the Church help one another in our deepening relationship with the Father through the Son under the power of the Holy Spirit.
- Corporal Work of Mercy = burying the dead.
- Spiritual work of Mercy= praying for the dead
Practical Applications
- Take children to funerals, have them know death is a reality while they are within the comforts of home and the love of their parents
- Visit cemeteries as a family. Remember deceased love ones. While on pilgrimages to country churches visit the graves of strangers.
- Pray the traditional prayers for the dead. Rosary & Divine Mercy Chaplet.
- Indulgences attached to this work.
- Make friends with souls in purgatory. Pray for them.
- Look for ways to incorporate plenary indulgences for their souls.
- Have Masses said for the departed
Plenary indulgence can liberate souls from purgatory. We make friends of those souls freed by our prayers.
A partial indulgence can be obtained by devoutly visiting a cemetery and praying for the departed, even if the prayer is only mental.
One can gain a plenary indulgence visiting a cemetery each day between November 1 and November 8. These indulgences are applicable only to the Souls in Purgatory.
A plenary indulgence, again applicable only the Souls in Purgatory, is also granted when the faithful piously visit a church or a public oratory on November 2. In visiting the church or oratory, it is required, that one Our Father and the Creed be recited.
To be able to gain an indulgence, one must have the intention to gain them for a holy soul (in other words say this), and perform the works at the time and in the manner prescribed.
To attain a plenary indulgence, four conditions must accompany the prescribed act (e.g. visiting a graveyard):
- the faithful must receive the sacrament of confession, either eight days before or after the pious act is performed,
- receive Holy Communion on that day
- and recite prayers for the intentions of the Holy Father(one Our Father and one Hail Mary is the minimum, but any other additional prayers may be added).
- All attachment to sin, even venial sin, must be absent. In other words you must have a detestation of sin. If one’s disposition is less than perfect or if some of the above conditions are not fulfilled, the indulgence becomes partial.
One must also remember that one can acquire only one plenary indulgence a day.
Indulgence <> bonus<. Extra points on test
LK 11:13
We must be aware and ask for indulgence.
Lord created us without our participation but will not save us without it.
God loves us, saves us in the particular or individual.
People in heaven are individual people, siblings, not faceless spirit. Enter in relationship with cloud of witnesses, family members.
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