Heroic Act of Charity (also improperly called Heroic Vow)

HEROIC ACT OF CHARITY (also improperly called Heroic Vow). - The Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, in the Raccolta di Orazioni e Pie Opere, published in 1898, defines it as: «a spontaneous offering that the faithful, in suffrage of the Souls in Purgatory, makes to His Divine Majesty of all his satisfactory works in life, and of all the suffrages he may have after death» (n. 302; cf. Decr. S. Congr. indulg., 19 Dec. 1885).

To understand its nature, one must distinguish the threefold value of every action performed in a state of grace: meritorious, satisfactory, impetratory. The first constitutes personal merit, inalienable (increase of grace on earth and of glory in heaven); the second is given by the sacrifices inherent in the supernaturally good act, and has the efficacy of expiating, in proportion, the temporal punishment due to sin; the third consists in the power of intercession or moral force of obtaining grace from God, for oneself and for others. The heroic act concerns only the satisfactory value, insofar as we deprive ourselves of it in order to offer it to Divine Justice in favor of the souls in purgatory. There always remains to us, along with the freedom to intercede for anyone, the merit of good works; indeed the heroic act itself is a source of great merits, because it is an act of heroic charity.

Although it is perpetual by nature, the heroic act can be revoked at any moment without any sin (S. Congr. Ind., 20 Feb. 1907: Acta Sanctae Sedis, 40 [1907], p. 370 ff.); and in this it is essentially distinguished from a vow. But whoever makes the heroic act must not fear remaining a long time in purgatory, because he can justly trust in divine mercy (cf. Mt. 25, 40; Lk. 6, 38; 1 Pt. 4, 8). Moreover, the least increase of merit is a greater good than liberation from the greatest punishment of purgatory: the latter is temporal, the former eternal, with an increase of glory.

The origins of the heroic act go back to St. Gertrude, who by virtue of her example was, as it were, its initiator, but it seems that Fr. Ferdinand de Monroy (d. at Lima in 1646) was the first to make the heroic act properly so called. In the following century Fr. Gaspare

Oliden of Alcalá, a Theatine, became its apostle, advising that the act itself be deposited in the hands of Mary Most Holy. St. Alphonsus, with the brief formula of offering inserted in the Massime Eterne, rendered himself particularly deserving of the pious practice, canonically approved by Benedict XIII on 23 Aug. 1728. Numerous documents of the Holy See have continually increased its spiritual benefits with indulgences and privileges, among which, for priests, that of the privileged Altar, and, for all the faithful, the plenary Indulgence in making Holy Communion (S. Congr. Ind., 20 Sept. 1852 and 20 Nov. 1854; cf. Preces et Pia Opera, ed. by the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary in 1938, n. 547). The decree, moreover, of the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, dated 19 Dec. 1885 (signed by Card. Franzelin), contains various declarations concerning the nature and practice of the heroic act (Acta Sanctae Sedis, 18 [1886], pp. 337-39).

The heroic act does not require a special formula: the intention is enough; good formulas, however, are proposed by the various manuals of piety (for example, by the Philothea of Riva). Spiritual directors, following the directives of the Holy See (S. Congr. indulg., 19 Dec. 1885), advise depositing the offering of our suffrages in the hands of the Madonna, so that the universal Mediatrix may dispose of them in favor of the souls she wishes to free sooner from purgatory; and they exhort us to renew this act of offering often in order to stir ourselves to greater fervor. Founded indeed on the dogma of the Communion of saints, the heroic act favors piety and moral perfection, thus constituting an excellent means of avoiding purgatory itself.

Iacino Cecchetti