341 GOD HAS FREELY CHOSEN TO ASSOCIATE MAN WITH THE WORK OF HIS GRACE

YOUCAT Lesson 341

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

341  Can someone earn heaven by good works?

No.  No man can gain heaven merely by his own efforts.  The fact that we are saved is God’s grace, pure and simple, which nevertheless demands the free cooperation of the individual.  [2006-2011, 2025-2027]

“Our good works ought to show the love produced by God’s action in us.”  Rhinelander has an active food pantry that has been helping the needy for the past several years.  In 2014 it distributed 500,000 pounds of food.  Here the Rhinelander Womens Club is giving a donation to the Pantry. …341

Although it is grace and faith through which we are saved, nevertheless, our good works ought to show the love produced by God’s action in us.

“Merits are gifts of God.”  St. Augustine (354-430)

[2006-2011, 2025-2027]

III. MERIT

You are glorified in the assembly of your Holy Ones, for in crowning their merits you are crowning your own gifts.( Roman Missal, Prefatio I de sanctis; Qui in Sanctorum concilio celebraris, et eorum coronando merita tua dona coronas, citing the "Doctor of grace," St. Augustine, En. In Ps. 102,7:PL 37,1321-1322.)⁵⁹ –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

2006 The term "merit" refers in general to the recompense owed by a community or a society for the action of one of its members, experienced either as beneficial or harmful, deserving reward or punishment. Merit is relative to the virtue of justice, in conformity with the principle of equality which governs it. –CCC

2007 With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man. Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality, for we have received everything from him, our Creator. –CCC

2008 The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. The fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man's free acting through his collaboration, so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful. Man's merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit. –CCC

2009 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."( Council of Trent (1547): Denzinger-Schonmetzer 1546.)⁶⁰ The merits of our good works are gifts of the divine goodness.( Compare Council of Trent (1547): DS 1548.)⁶¹ "Grace has gone before us; now we are given what is due. . . . Our merits are God's gifts."( St. Augustine, Sermo 298,4-5:PL 38,1367.)⁶² –CCC

2010 Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion. 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. Even temporal goods like health and friendship can be merited in accordance with God's wisdom. These graces and goods are the object of Christian prayer. Prayer attends to the grace we need for meritorious actions. –CCC

2011 The charity of Christ is the source in us of all our merits before God. Grace, by uniting us to Christ in active love, ensures the supernatural quality of our acts and consequently their merit before God and before men. The saints have always had a lively awareness that their merits were pure grace. –CCC

After earth's exile, I hope to go and enjoy you in the fatherland, but I do not want to lay up merits for heaven. I want to work for your love alone. . . . In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is blemished in your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own justice and to receive from your love the eternal possession of yourself.( St. Thérèse of Lisieux, "Act of Offering" in Story of a Soul, tr. John Clarke (Washington DC: ICS, 1981), 277.)⁶³ –CCC

IN BRIEF

2025 We can have merit in God's sight only because of God's free plan to associate man with the work of his grace. Merit is to be ascribed in the first place to the grace of God, and secondly to man's collaboration. Man's merit is due to God. –CCC

2026 The grace of the Holy Spirit can confer true merit on us, by virtue of our adoptive filiation, and in accordance with God's gratuitous justice. Charity is the principal source of merit in us before God. –CCC

2027 No one can merit the initial grace which is at the origin of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life, as well as necessary temporal goods. –CCC