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A plenary indulgence is a grace granted by the Catholic Church through the merits of Jesus Christ, Mary and all the saints to remove the temporal punishment due to sin.
On the first Sunday of Lent, Pope Francis warned of three “widespread and dangerous temptations” that the devil uses to separate us from God and divide us from each other.
“This,” the pope said, “is the favorable time to be converted, to stop looking at ourselves and to start looking into ourselves.”
“Lent is a time of grace to the extent that we listen to him as he speaks to us,” Pope Francis said.
Like the two years’ prior, Pope Francis and the Roman Curia will again do the Vatican’s annual Lenten retreat on an individual basis.