In the treasury, too, are the prayers and good works of all the saints, all those who have followed in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by his grace have made their lives holy and carried out the mission the Father entrusted to them.
[3]The treasures that any individual Christian can lay up in heaven are nothing in comparison to those that Jesus himself has laid up, and it is for a portion of his merits that 4th-century Ephrem the Syrian appealed so as to wipe out his own indebtedness.
"[6] There are various interpretations of what Paul meant by "in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church".
[7] John Chrysostom says, "The wisdom, the will, the justice of Jesus Christ, requireth and ordaineth that his body and members should be companions of his sufferings, as they expect to be companions of his glory; that so suffering with him, and after his example, they may apply to their own wants and to the necessities of others the merits and satisfaction of Jesus Christ, which application is what is wanting, and what we are permitted to supply by the sacraments and sacrifice of the new law.
[11] The Church authorities, especially from the 3rd century on, allowed the intercession of confessors to shorten the time of penance to be undergone by those who sought forgiveness.
[12] A priest or deacon could reconcile lapsi in danger of death on the basis of a martyr's letter of indulgence,[13] but in general the intervention of the higher church authority, the bishop, was required.
"[13] The 314 Council of Ancyra witnessed in its canons 2, 5 and 16 to the power of the bishops to grant indulgence, by reducing the period of penance to be performed, to lapsi who showed they were sincerely repentant.
[17] As grounds for this remission of temporal (not eternal) punishment due to sin, theologians looked to God's mercy and the prayers of the Church.