What I posted is what the Catholic church teaches about indulgences, that's all. The re-thinking thing is that indulgences are actually a form of forgiveness - watch...
The MAIN forgiveness issue, the whether you're good with God stuff, that's all IHS. The details, the purgatory -- remember: everyone in purgatory is saved. Though they are suffering, it's a happy place; it's the suburbs of heaven! -- that's the indulgences stuff.
Now you hit it! "Purgatory is the place to purge your soul from the punishments due to the sins you committed while living on earth" - right? Wrong! Somehow, it boils down to a teaching that one can help a "soul" shorten time in Purgatory, right? That's where indulgences come in.
So indulgences do not get you forgiveness. They get you remission of the temporal penalty of sin. IHS and only IHS gets you in the front door.
Sorry, you're absolutely wrong in your statement above. Let's cut to the core - a "soul" in Purgatory can't help one's self (soul?) to get out except by fulfilling the time it takes to be punished for the sins once done. The sin is forgiven, but the punishment remains. However, a living person can earn indulgences which, when applied to a dead "soul" in Purgatory, can forgive "blank days and/or years" of punishment. You disagree with that? Probably not...so you should re-think it! I've talked to too many Catholics and priests who say the same thing you said above...they need to be taught what they are supposed to believe and teach.
Thusly, your little exercise you asked me to "work" with is way out of the ballpark. The one earning the indulgences cannot apply them to the temporal punishment deserved - they are for the dead "souls" only. I leave it to you to figure out what I mean in rejecting your little exercise and not addressing it. :-)
Indulgences are not a teaching that came from Jesus or the Apostles. They are a late addition to the Good News of our salvation through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus the Christ of God. Either our sins are completely forgiven and forgotten by Jesus' sacrifice or they are not. There is no such a place as "Purgatory". It is a made-up place (for whatever reason you want to apply to it).
Enough for tonight - time for a hot chocolate and then bedtime. Tomorrow's approaching pretty fast...
“”Indulgences are not a teaching that came from Jesus or the Apostles.””
You either don’t understand this or you reject it based on a modernist interpretation of Scripture because there is a long history on this with the early Church and ties to historical Judaism as well.
I suggest reading to very good sources on indulgences and reparation-INDULGENTIARUM DOCTRINA by Pope Paul VI and How Redemption operated by the late FR William Most
Excerpts from INDULGENTIARUM DOCTRINA
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-vi_apc_19670101_indulgentiarum-doctrina_en.html
Christians throughout history have always regarded sin not only as a transgression of divine law but also—though not always in a direct and evident way—as contempt for or disregard of the friendship between God and man, (6) just as they have regarded it as a real and unfathomable offense against God and indeed an ungrateful rejection of the love of God shown us through Jesus Christ, who called his disciples friends and not servants. (7)
3. It is therefore necessary for the full remission and—as it is called—reparation of sins not only that friendship with God be reestablished by a sincere conversion of the mind and amends made for the offense against his wisdom and goodness, but also that all the personal as well as social values and those of the universal order itself, which have been diminished or destroyed by sin, be fully reintegrated whether through voluntary reparation which will involve punishment or through acceptance of the punishments established by the just and most holy wisdom of God, from which there will shine forth throughout the world the sanctity and the splendor of his glory. The very existence and the gravity of the punishment enable us to understand the foolishness and malice of sin and its harmful consequences.
That punishment or the vestiges of sin may remain to be expiated or cleansed and that they in fact frequently do even after the remission of guilt(8) is clearly demonstrated by the doctrine on purgatory. In purgatory, in fact, the souls of those “who died in the charity of God and truly repentant, but before satisfying with worthy fruits of penance for sins committed and for omissions (9) are cleansed after death with purgatorial punishments. This is also clearly evidenced in the liturgical prayers with which the Christian community admitted to Holy Communion has addressed God since most ancient times: “that we, who are justly subjected to afflictions because of our sins, may be mercifully set free from them for the glory of thy name.(10
And From The late FR Most’s How Redemption operated...
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/most/getwork.cfm?worknum=160
So Paul VI continues:”For every sin brings with it a disturbance of the universal order, which God arranged in unspeakable wisdom and infinite love.” In other words, God being Holiness itself, loves everything that is right. This was a striking idea when it first broke on the world. For the gods of Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome were not just immoral but amoral - they acted as if there were no morality at all. But Psalm 11:7 told the world: “God is sadiq [morally righteous] and He loves the things that are morally right.” Hence the notion that sin is a debt which the Holiness of God wants paid.
Against this background Paul VI continued (p. 7): “Therefore it is necessary for the full remission and reparation of sins... not only that by a sincere conversion of mind friendship with God be restored, and that the offenses against His wisdom and goodness be expiated, but also that all the goods, both personal and social, which pertain to the universal order itself, which were diminished or destroyed by sin, be fully restored, either through voluntary reparation... or through enduring penalties established by the just and most holy Wisdom of God.”
Since the chief topic of this constitution was that of indulgences, which depend on the “treasury of the Church” Paul VI put the redemption into that background. He said the “treasury of the Church is the infinite and inexhaustible price which the expiations and merits of Christ the Lord has before God....”
Simeon ben Eleazar, a Rabbi writing about 170 A.D. (Tosefta, Kiddushin 1. 14), and claiming to base himself on Rabbi Meir from earlier in the same century, gives us a striking comparison which helps to illustrate the text of Paul VI: “He [meaning “anyone”] has committed a transgression. Woe to him. He has tipped the scale to the side of debt for himself and for the world.”
The image is a two-pan scales. The sinner takes from one pan what he has no right to have. The scale is out of balance. The Holiness of God wants it righted. How do that? If he stole some property, he begins to rebalance by giving it back. If he stole a pleasure, he begins to rebalance by giving up some pleasure of similar weight.
But we kept saying “begins”. For the imbalance from even one mortal sin is infinite, an Infinite Person is offended. So if the Father wanted a full rebalance - He did not have to - the only way to achieve it would be to send a divine Person to become man. That Person could produce an infinite value. Paul VI put the redemption into this framework.
All sinners of all times took an immense weight from the two-pan scales. But Jesus gave up far more than they had stolen, in His terrible passion.
So this is the price of redemption, the rebalancing of the objective order, which the Holiness of God willed. Rom 5:8 said,”God proved His love.” Yes, if someone desires the well-being of another, and starts out to procure it, but then runs into an obstacle - if a small obstacle will stop him, the love is small. If it takes a great obstacle, the love is great. But if that love could overcome even the immense obstacle of the terrible death of Jesus, that love is immense, beyond measure. It was not only the physical pain, but the rejection by those whom He loved that hurt Him. The pain of rejection can be measured by two things: 1) how severe is the form of the rejection; 2) how great is the love for the one who is rejecting. If someone jostles me in a crowd, that is a small thing. But if he wanted to kill me, that is far worse, and if he means to do it in the most hideous way possible - then the rejection is at the peak . And what is His love?: Inasmuch as He is a Divine Person, the love is infinite; in as much as we consider the love of His human will, able to overcome such a measureless obstacle - the love is beyond measure.
I think you are mistaken.
The error is that you confuse "the temporal penalty of sin" with the punishment.
"Purgatory is the place to purge your soul from the punishments due to the sins you committed while living on earth" - right?
Wrong. Purgatory is the "place" where one pays the temporal penalty of sin.
- a "soul" in Purgatory can't help one's self (soul?) to get out except by fulfilling the time it takes to be punished for the sins once done. The sin is forgiven, but the punishment remains.
The sin is forgiven but the temporal penalty remains.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
§ 1471
...
What is an indulgence?"An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, ..."
§ 1472 ..., it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the"eternal punishment" of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in a state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the "temporal punishment" of sin." ... These two punishments must not be conceived as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin.