Day 264: Man's Merit

Filial adoption, in making us partakers by grace in the divine nature, can bestow true merit on us as a result of God's gratuitous justice. This is our right by grace, the full right of love, making us "co-heirs" with Christ and worthy of obtaining "the promised inheritance of eternal life." The merits of our good works are gifts of the divine goodness. "Grace has gone before us; now we are given what is due.... Our merits are God's gifts." CCC 2009

In today's reading, the Catechism discusses merit in terms of our eternal salvation. This is perhaps one of the most misunderstood aspects of Catholic teaching, especially for some Protestants. We are not Pelagians trying to earn our way into heaven through our own efforts. Any "merit of good works" must be "attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful". All merit by man "itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit" (CCC 2008). God initiates, man cooperates.  Without grace, everything else is in vain. The "initial grace of forgiveness and justification" is due to God alone, not man, but "moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life" (CCC 2010).

The Catechism Compendium provides a summary of what merit is:

In general, merit refers to the right to recompense for a good deed. With regard to God, we of ourselves are not able to merit anything, having received everything freely from him. However, God gives us the possibility of acquiring merit through union with the love of Christ, who is the source of our merits before God. The merits for good works, therefore, must be attributed in the first place to the grace of God and then to the free will of man. (#426)

The Catechism Companion Vol III has some good commentary on this:

Everything we have, everything we do, even the merit that we have, is a gift of God, for God works in us. God gives us grace and the opportunity and the ability to say yes to him and bear fruit... There is little in life that we could point to and just say we did it. Yet we can and do cooperate with God's grace all the time, in a free response. The only thing that we can point to in life and can say is truly ours is our sin. For every good work we have ever done, we have been collaborators with divine goodness. We have been adopted by God through Baptism and share in the divine nature. (p. 44) 

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, 15 April 1895

As St. Thérèse of Lisieux expressed, at the end we will approach God with "empty hands," for even "the merits of our good works are gifts of the divine goodness" (CCC 2009, 2011). (p. 45)