To gain an indulgence you must also have the intention of gaining it.  There are many prayers that we sometimes say to which indulgences are attached, and we do not know it.  How can we gain them?  By making a general intention every morning while saying our prayers to gain all the indulgences we can during the day, whether we know them or not.  For example, there is a partial indulgence granted us every time we devoutly make the Sign of the Cross or devoutly use an article of devotion, such as a crucifix or scapular, properly blessed by any priest.  Many may not know of these indulgences; but if they have the general intention mentioned above, they will gain the indulgence every time they perform the work.  In the same way, by having this intention all those who are in the habit of going to confession every two weeks are able to gain a plenary indulgence when they fulfill the other prescribed conditions for gaining a plenary indulgence, even when they do not know that they are gaining the indulgence.

Since partial indulgences were formerly designated by specific amounts of time, you sometimes see printed after a little prayer:  An indulgence of forty days, or, an indulgence of one hundred days, or of a year, etc.  What does that mean?  Does it mean that a person who said that prayer would get out of Purgatory forty days sooner than he would have if he had not said it?  No.  I told you how the early Christians were obliged to do public penance for their sins; to stand at the door of the church and beg the prayers of those entering.  Sometimes their penance lasted for forty days, sometimes for one hundred days, and sometimes for a longer period.  By an indulgence of forty days the Church granted the remission of as much of the temporal punishment as the early Christians would have received for doing forty days’ public penance.  Just how much of the temporal punishment God blotted out for forty days’ public penance we do not know; but whatever it was, God blotted out just the same for one who gained an indulgence of forty days by saying a little prayer to which the indulgence was attached.  But why, you may wonder, did the early Christians do such penances?  Because in those days their faith was stronger than ours, and they understood better than we do the malice of sin and the punishment it deserves.  Later the Christians grew more careless about their religion and the service of God.  The Church, therefore, wishing to save its children, made it easier for them to do penance.  If it had continued to impose the public penances, many would not have performed them, and thus would have lost their souls.

Lesson 22 ON THE HOLY EUCHARIST

238 Q. What is the Holy Eucharist?  A. The Holy Eucharist is the Sacrament which contains the body and blood, soul and divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ under the appearances of bread and wine.

When we say “contains,” we mean the Sacrament which is the body and blood, etc.  The Holy Eucharist is the same living body of Our Lord which He had upon earth; but it is in a new form, under the appearances of bread and wine.  Therefore Our Lord in the tabernacle can see and hear us.