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Dear Friends, Lent is a time to draw closer to God through prayer, self-denial, and acts of penance for ourselves and for others. It is also a time of lavish grace and mercy which the Church wishes us to use for our own benefit and for the souls in Purgatory. These prayers and acts are so important that the Church has attached to them special indulgences so that they will be widely used. The Catechism teaches that "an indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church, which as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints. An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin. The faithful can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead." Simply put, a plenary indulgence eliminates time in purgatory for you or for a deceased loved one. How about using this Lenten season to give a deceased soul an unbelievable gift of love and mercy? I'll be talking about indulgences at our Sunday Masses and each week I'll suggest a different way of gaining them for yourselves and your deceased loved ones. Here is my favorite for the First Week of Lent: PRAYER BEFORE THE CRUCIFIX Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus, while before your face, I humbly kneel, and, with burning soul, pray and beseech you to fix deep in my heart lively sentiments of faith, hope, and charity, true contrition for my sins, and a firm purpose of amendment, while I contemplate, with great love and tender pity, your five wounds, pondering over them within me, calling to mind the words which David, your prophet, said of you, my good Jesus: "They have pierced my hands and my feet; they have numbered all my bones." (Ps. 21. 17-18). A plenary indulgence is granted on each Friday of Lent and Passiontide to the faithful, who after Communion, piously recite the above prayer before an image of Christ crucified.     Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6