Franciscan Jubilee Year: Jan. 10, 2026 - Jan. 10, 2027
Receive a Plenary Indulgence granted from the officially recognized Franciscan Church here in Halifax.
What is an Indulgence?
The Church has always exhorted the faithful to offer prayers, good works and sufferings as intercession for sinners and suffrage for the deceased. Gradually, there has been a growing awareness that the power to bind and loose, received from the Lord, includes the faculty to free penitents from the residue left by sins already forgiven, applying to them the merits of Christ and the saints, so as to obtain the grace of fervent charity. Pastors grant this benefit to those who have the proper interior dispositions and perform certain required conditions. This intervention of the penitential journey is the granting of indulgence.
Required Conditions:
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Visit a Franciscan church (St. Catherine of Siena Church in Halifax) and recite the "Our Father" to reaffirm one's dignity as children of God received in Baptism, and recite the "Creed" in which one renews one's profession of faith.
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Participate in Holy Mass and Eucharistic Communion (particularly on October 3 or October 4 Masses that commemorate the Transitus and Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi)
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Sacramental Confession to be in God's Grace (in the 8 days preceding or following the Mass)
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Pray at least one "Our Father" and one "Hail Mary" (or other prayers of your choice) according to the Pope's intentions to reaffirm your belonging to the Church, whose foundation and visible centre of unity is the Roman Pontiff
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Disposition of mind that excludes any affection for sin, even venial.
The conditions in 2, 3 and 4 can also be fulfilled on the days preceding or following the day on which the church is visited; however, it is appropriate that Holy Communion and prayer for the Pope's intentions be received on the same day as the visit.
A plenary indulgence can be gained only once, for oneself or for the souls in Purgatory, by all the faithful.
