1

Indulgence

Theme: Indulgence

By Antonio Martinho Fernandes

Source: Gospel According to Spiritism, X: Items, 19-21.

1. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy (Matthew, 5: 7).
2. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you:
But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses
(Matthew, 6: 14 & 15).

INDULGENCE

19. As no one is perfect; does it follow that no one has the right to reprehend their neighbour?
This is certainly not the right conclusion to arrive at, seeing that each one of you must work for the
progress of everyone, and above all, especially for those who have been placed in your care.

But for this very reason it should be done in moderation in order to obtain a useful end and not, as is so
often the case, for the mere pleasure of reviling. In this event the reprehension would be wickedness, whereas
in the previous instant it is a duty demanded by charity, which must be accomplished with all possible care. For

1
‘Indulgence’, study given at the Spiritist Centre, Joana d’Arc on 03/ 03/ 2009.

1
the rest, the censure that is made of others should also be directed at oneself, so trying to find out if you too are
not deserving of the same reprimand. - SAINT LOUIS (Paris, 1860).

20. Is it reprehensible to make note of the imperfections of others when this cannot result in any benefit
for them, seeing that it will not be disclosed to them?

Everything depends on the intention. For sure it is not forbidden to see evil where it exists. It would also
be really inconvenient to see only good in all places. This illusion would prejudice progress. The mistake would
be in making the observation result in the detriment of your neighbour, so discrediting him before general
opinion without need. It would be equally reprehensible to do this simply in order to give vent to a sentiment of
spite and the satisfaction of catching others at fault. However, the complete opposite occurs when, on extending
a veil over an evil so that the public do not see it, the person who noted the defect in his neighbour does this for
his own personal gain. That is to say, in order that he or she may discipline themselves to avoid what has been
reproved in another. Incidentally this observation is of benefit to the moralist. How else can human defects be
painted if the models are not first studied? - SAINT LOUIS (Paris, 1860).

21. Are there cases when it is right to disclose the evil in others?
This is a very delicate question. In order to be able to reach a conclusion it is necessary to appeal to the
true understanding of charity. If a person's imperfections only cause prejudice to themselves then there can be
nothing useful in disclosing these facts. If however it might cause harm to others, then it is preferable to attend
to the interests of the majority. According to the circumstances, it may become a duty to expose hypocrisy and
lies because it is better that one person fall rather than many become his or her victims. In this case it is
necessary to weigh the total sum of the advantages and disadvantages. - SAINT LOUIS (Paris, 1860).

CONSIDERATIONS:
They are three questions that were made to S. Luís:
First: - If nobody is entitled of reprehending the neighbor.
Second: - If it will be reprehensible to observe the imperfections of the other ones.
Third: - If there are cases which might be useful to discover the badly in someone else.
Let us see that this study has a sequence of the Gospel of the Lord:' Blessed are the merciful' -
The indulgence.

The word' Indulgence' is pertinent to the morals of coexistence of some with other, it is not a word
commonly used regularly, for that reason I will see in the Spiritist Dictionary of L. Palhano Jr., edited by CELD in
1997 (Publisher, Spiritist Center Léon Denis).

"INDULGENCE = Clemency; Mercy; Tolerance; benevolence; Pardon; sweet and fraternal Feeling that
every man should nourish to their siblings in humanity, forgiving the offenses and still bring light to the offender,
so that he may overcome his spiritual childishness."

The three questions are part of living in practice of goodness; they are details of our life in day to day, of
how to act some with the others, because we all are more or less imperfect, 2

However, different in moral and sentimental degrees, wanting to follow Jesus' morals, but as not everyone
follows it, there is the questioning conflict how to act, provoking questions as the ones that were made to S.
Luís, which were answered appropriately and successive by S. Luís.

Let us notice that the answers always include love, the center of indulgence is love, consequently who
lives in love includes, or completes himself in Indulgence, because love is compliant, love does not harm
anybody, 3 love can live with any one, since a person who loves, we can say that he is indulgent.

When a person is virtuous, indulgent with certain love fragrance, rarely is not a respected person and
appreciated by all who knows him/her.

2
The Spirits’ Book, Q. 133a
3
Romans, 13: 10.

2
 However, due to this World to be of 'Tests and atonements', with Spirits still in the inferior escalade, 4
many suffer consequences, which they do not deserve in the hands of their brothers inferior to them; though
God knows and will compensate the indulgence, which they may have to those who insult them, and, knowing
about that Jesus said or has educated us about it:

"Pray for those who mistreat you; Pray for your enemies; 5 whosesoever shall smite thee on thy right
cheek, turn to him the other also. 6 Make peace with your enemies.7 Which can be translated as?
“To Be Merciful. Tolerant or Indulgent"

To be a Christian is not to arrive and to get the best of the World, on the contrary, to be Christian is to give
our best to the World, contributing to goodness, not to lose hope, but to live in faith and with faith, with courage
to live the maximum of good moral and coexistence with everybody and, if one happens to fall or collapse may
he have courage, strength of mind and good faith to get up 8 stand up and continue forwards enjoying life
learning, and being imbued in the offers and destinies which God gives to all of us.

Nothing is lost, those who fail, those who fall they take lesson of that, and being noticed and observed by
others, those others learn and evaluate, and they consider that it could be them and they will take advantage of
that, and it will be as their own experience, their own progress.

Their own progress because we all are in evolution apprenticeship and progress for the simple reason,
that we are evolutionary; 9 evolution is a spring that pushes us forward, it is an invisible Law which wants for us
goodness, whose Author is God!

There is some who has studied the law of Evolution, however it is so complex and several, which it is not
for simple people like us, since we knowing, that there is such Law, it is already enough for us and, that Law
indicates to us who we are, and in which spiritual degree we are, any virtue is not gained from night to daylight,
and indulgence certainly only with very much effort can one conquer it.

It may there be who says: Oh, I do not get a hold to be indulgent, I am more for the law: 10 tooth for tooth;
well then, our spiritual state is still with that tendency, however we are already coming to having the notion in
knowledge that we are 'Eternal Spirits' and the seed of the Gospel planted by Jesus, already is being felt and
our use of reason is already been found much more developed, and, we already have a vast experience that
only goodness prevails, because the source of goodness is God, 11 evil is temporary and it only brings suffering;
hence: forgiving does us well, donating does us well, to help the neighbor does us well; goodness always brings
in return goodness.

Our feelings become purified, to our favor with the attitude of: “not to do to the neighbor what we do not
want for ourselves",12 it is, therefore, a feeling which makes us to develop our progress; our evolution little by
little that might be in several reincarnations and apprenticeships in the erraticity, 13 if so be necessary and/or
obligatory for us to reach the spiritual apexes, once we know, that Jesus was full of virtues and indulgence was
very much visible in him.

hence, we will be one day like He is, but it may take some time, however the important is to begin our
effort immediately, our walk for goodness; he who was wicked, but that left of being so, has already started his

4
The Spirits’ Book, Q. 100 to 131.
5
Matthew, 5: 44.
6
Matthew, 5: 39.
7
Mark, 9: 50.
8
Mark, 2: 9.
9
The Spirits’ Book, Q. 115.
10
Matthew, 5: 38. - Exodus, 21: 24.
11
I John, 4: 8.
12
Matthew, 7: 12.
13
The Spirits’ Book, Q. 230.

3
walk, he who accepts that we are all brothers, has already began to love his neighbour, and indulgence is born
and he grows little by little in the practicing of goodness.

Jesus came to the World with attributes, that were confused with the ones of God, however we know not
as excuse to our inferior state, that Jesus is a Spirit of long lived, therefore he himself tells us: ‘before Abraham
existed he already existed", 14 and, Spiritism tells us that Jesus is a Pure Spirit and that He was the Spirit most
developed that ever came down to the Earth. 15

Nevertheless we are not going to say: OH! It being so in a long period, I will leave for tomorrow what I
could do today, nothing of that, that is where the mistake is, on the contrary, the future with good faith and hope
and harsh working that might be brings happiness, though the future in bad faith and of laziness, may bring
suffering and a delay in the encounter of happiness, and, happiness is one of the purposes of Progress. 16

*****
Let us appreciate Allan Kardec book ‘Genesis’ chapter, XI: items, 24 to 26.

“24. - The necessity for the incarnate spirit to provide for the nourishment of the body, for its security and
well-being, the constraint of applying its faculties in research, in exercising and developing them, renders its
union with matter useful for its advancement, that is why incarnation is a necessity. Besides, by the intelligent
work it accomplishes to its profit over matter, it aids in the transformation and material progress of the globe it
inhabits, thus, by progressing itself, it concurs with the work of the Creator, of whom it is the agent.

25. - But the incarnation of the spirit is neither Constant nor perpetual; it is only transitory. In leaving a
body it does not take another instantaneously. During a greater or less considerable lapse of time, it lives the
spiritual life, which is its normal life, in such a way that the sum of the time passed in the different incarnations is
small, compared to that it passes in the free spiritual state.

In the interval between incarnations the spirit progresses in the sense, that he puts to profit for his
advancement the knowledge and experience acquired during material life. He examines that which he has done
during his terrestrial sojourn, passes in review that which he has learned, recognizes his faults, arranges his
plans, forms resolutions with which he expects to guide himself in a new existence by striving to do better. Thus
each existence is a step in advance in the way of progress, a sort of school of application.

26. - Incarnation is not then normally a punishment for the spirit, hás some have thought it, but na
inherent condition and a means of progress (“Heaven and Hell” by Allan Kardec, chap., III, from item n° 8 on).

By measure, as the spirit progresses morally, he dematerializes himself; that is to say, that preserving
himself from the influence of matter, he purifies himself, his life becomes spiritualized, his faculties and
perceptions are extended, his happiness is by reason of accomplished progress. But, as he acts by virtue of his
free will, he can, by negligence or bad desire, hold up his advancement. He prolongs, therefore, the duration of
his material incarnations, which become then for him a punishment, since by his own fault he remains in the
inferior ranks, obliged to recommence the same task. It depends then upon the spirit to abridge by its work of
self-purification the duration of the period of his incarnations.

*****

Jesus trusted the Laws of Progress and he asserted: “Greater works than these shall he do;" 17

Yes, in Jesus' faith or belief he could see us with much progress in the future and, encouraged us
revealing us that very reality, that Law instituted by God, not as a sincere gypsy that asks for our hand, to read
our future, however with authority in the knowledge of the Laws of God, and not of divination, not undoing
14
John, 8: 58.
15
Livro dos Espíritos, 625.
16
Livro dos Espíritos, 177.
17
João, 14: 12.

4
divination law if that law coexists; though we know that the Law of Prophecy exists, in the talent (or gift) of
people to whom their spirits are unfolded to the future, however that is not the case of our study today. 18

To our case it is possible for us in the spiritual apprenticeship, in which we were today, the use of
indulgence, for the reason that Jesus points out as: “Blessed are the merciful".

Most of the spirits nowadays, are already maturely spirits, and ready to accept the Gospel and to follow
The Master in the evangelical responsibilities, once that to accept the Gospel it is to accept the Lord, to follow
the Gospel is to follow the Lord 19 and, in the conviviality in prayer with God and Jesus he is with us, 20 and we
are with Him; a prayer can be verbal, it can be by thought, or for likeness and union with God relatively, be the
person conscious or unconscious of that.

God provides them all their needs, even without their doing petitions or requirements, since God knows
about our needs, even before we ask for them or not. 21

Jesus lived in perennial prayer, in other words, a continuous syntonies or connection with God, for that
reason he could explain to us: “I and the Father are one." 22

There is already many spirits incarnated or disincarnated, who are relatively in that conviviality, because
so is the will of our God Father. 23

Let us move forward, therefore in love, and we will live together with God, and the virtues pertinent to
love, little by little they will be ours, futurity one day we notice that we have tolerance, another day that we have
compassion another day that we have mercy, and, in another day we discover, that we are indulgent and happy
in the love contribution to the neighbor; and being so we fulfill the Laws of God which are abbreviated as": to
love God above all things and the neighbor as ourselves" 24

*****

To conclude as support to the study let us see the questions: 629 to 632 of the Spirits’ Book::

Good and Evil

629. What definition can be given of the moral law?

"The moral law is the rule for acting aright, that is to say, for distinguishing practically between good and evil. It
is founded on the observance of the law of God. Man acts rightly when he takes the good of all as his aim and
rule of action; for he then obeys the law of God."

630. How can we distinguish between good and evil?

"Good is whatever is in conformity with the law of God; and evil is whatever deviates from it. Thus, to do right,
is to conform to the law of God; to do wrong, is to infringe that law."

631. Has man of himself the means of distinguishing what is good from what is evil?
"Yes, when he believes in God, and desires to do what is right. God has given him intelligence in order that he
may distinguish between them."
*****

18
Livro dos Espíritos, XV: 184.
19
Matthew, 9: 9.
20
Matthew, 28: 20.
21
Matthew, 6: 32.
22
John, 10: 30.
23
Mateus, XII: 50.
24
Marcos, 12: 33.

5
 Well, let us close the study then, with this thought in mind, that to proceed in goodness to the neighbor is
in agreement with the law of God. 25

Well, may God be with us as formerly, today and always.

To be Christian is not to arrive,26

And to get the best of the World,
On the contrary,
To be Christian is to give our best to the World,
Contributing to goodness,
Not to lose hope, but to live in faith and with faith,
With courage to live the maximum of good moral,
And coexistence with everybody and,

I João, 4: 19 a 21.
25

Extract from the study ‘Indulgence’, given at the ‘centro espirita’, Joana d’Arc, on 03/ 03/
26

2009.

6
 If happens one to fall or collapse, may he have
courage,
Strength of mind and good faith to get up, 27
Stand up
And continue forwards enjoying life,
Learning,
And being imbued in the offers,
And destinies,
Which God gives to someone?

27
Mark, 2: 9.