Treasure trove

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The Church's treasure of grace , treasure of grace for short , or (immaterial) church treasure , Latin Thesaurus meritorum , Thesaurus ecclesiae (from ancient Greek θησαυρός thesaurós 'treasure', 'treasure house' and ἐκκλησία ekklēsía 'church'), describes the totality of the Catholic theology and proclamation of teaching spiritual goods that were donated through the redeeming saving act of God in the Passover mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and in the community of saintsaccessible to the whole Church. The intangible church treasure also includes the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all saints .

The treasure of grace belongs to the spiritualia , that is, the immaterial and immortal things that can neither be sold, acquired nor passed on by exchange. In older writings the church treasure is also referred to as the Thesaurus meritorum (treasure of merit) or treasure of the satisfaction of Christ .

Essence of the treasure of grace

The Catechism of the Catholic Church ultimately sees "Christ the Redeemer himself, insofar as the satisfaction and merits of his redemptive work are enduring and valid in him" as the treasure of the Church and refers to the apostolic constitution Indulgentiarum doctrina of Pope Paul VI. , in which the latter stated that the sin of one person also harms the others, but that "the holiness of one also benefits the rest". This commonality can already be seen in the example of Adam's sin, which passed on to all human beings due to descent. The "more sublime and perfect principle, foundation and archetype of this supernatural relationship" is Christ himself.

The salvific effect of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ and the merits of the saints appears in the life of the church as a “holy community”. The church sanctification service does not first have to move God to reconciliation, but can draw from the grace of Jesus Christ that has already been made available . Because the church invokes this “treasure”, the official church intercession gets a greater certainty of hearing than the private prayer of the individual. The Church thus participates in the subjective penance of the individual sinner, but cannot replace this individual act of penance.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, among the living and already dead believers there is “a permanent bond of love and an abundant exchange of all goods”, “whether they are already in their heavenly homeland or atoning in the place of purification or still on earthly wanderings”. In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of the one benefits the other, more so than the sin of the one can harm the other. "In this way, recourse to the communion of saints enables the repentant sinner to be purified from the punishments of sin earlier and more effectively."

In addition to receiving the sacrament of penance and obtaining indulgences , also for the deceased, the treasure of grace represents “another path” that the believer can also take “in the community of grace of the church”. This is explained with reference to the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians ( 1 Cor 12.26  EU ) derived from the fact that the members of the church form a mystical body that has many members.

history

Ephrem the Syrian , one of the early Doctors of the Church , praised the victory of Christ and the excess of his merits over his own [Ephräms] guilt in a fasting hymn in the 4th century and ends with the words: “O lake of grace, give me a little of it, so that I can erase my mortgage with it ”.

Some scholastics , especially St. Thomas Aquinas , described with Meritum superabundans or Meritum superrogatorium (“excessive / excessive earnings”) moral achievements that go beyond what the Church demands and justify excess earnings. Besides Christ, whose merit far exceeded what is necessary for the redemption of mankind, they also referred to the saints, who faithfully followed not only what was commanded by God, but also what the Church advised on earth. This excess of merit is not attributable to the individual, but rather benefits the communio multitudinis , the community of the many, i.e. the whole church. In addition to receiving the sacraments and sacramentals , this takes place, among other things, in indulgence , through which the Church gives the believers, under certain conditions, from the treasure of grace entrusted to it from the pleasures of Christ and the saints.

Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed a holy year for the pilgrimage to Rome for the first time in 1300 , during which the faithful had the opportunity to win a complete indulgence, and set the time until the return of such a jubilee year at 100 years. With the bull Unigenitus Dei filius , with which he shortened the recurrence of a holy year to 50 years, Pope Clement VI unfolded . 1343 the doctrine of the treasure of the merits of Christ, which is united with the merits of the saints.

“He [Christ] has made this treasure available through Saint Peter, the bearer of the keys to heaven […] and through his successor, his representatives on earth, for salutary distribution to the believers on special and meaningful occasions, sometimes completely, sometimes partially Remission of the temporal penalties for sin, in order to give it in general or in special cases, as it seems good before God, really repentant people who have confessed. "

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church No. 1475ff.
  2. ↑ Catholic Adult Catechism, first volume, p. 374
  3. ↑ KKK, No. 1473
  4. ↑ Indulgentiarum doctrina , No. 4
  5. ^ Gerhard Ludwig Müller: Indulgence. III. Theological interpretation . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 1 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1993, Sp. 54-55 .
  6. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1475f.
  7. ↑ Pope Paul VI. : Apostolic Constitution Indulgentiarum doctrina on the reorganization of indulgences of January 1, 1967, No. 5
  8. ↑ Catholic adult catechism , first volume, p. 373ff.
  9. ↑ Ephrem the Syrians, Hymnen de Ieiunio
  10. ^ Gary A. Anderson, Redeem Your Sins by the Giving of Alms: Sin, Debt, and the "Treasury of Merit" in Early Jewish and Christian Tradition , p. 41