WHAT IS MERIT? ARE OUR GOOD WORKS IN ORDINARY LIFE MERITORIOUS? HOW AND WHY?

WHAT IS MERIT? ARE OUR GOOD WORKS IN ORDINARY LIFE MERITORIOUS? HOW AND WHY?

By offering to God the noble tasks of our ordinary life, we can gain merit for ourselves and for others. But what is merit? How and why could we merit?

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: What is merit?

426. What is merit?

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.

427. What are the goods that we can merit?

Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification and for the attainment of eternal life. Even temporal goods, suitable for us, can be merited in accordance with the plan of God. No one, however, can merit the initial grace which is at the origin of conversion and justification.

Below you have an excerpt of a meditation taken from In Conversation with God.

Electi mei non laborabunt frustra. Merit is the right to a reward because of the works we do, and literally all our works can be meritorious, enabling us to turn our whole life into a time of merit.

• Theology teaches us (cf R. Ganigou-Lagrange, op cit, 366) that merit, in the proper sense (de condigno), is that by which a recompense is owed in justice, or at least by virtue of a promise. Thus, in the natural order, the worker merits his salary.
• There is also another kind of merit which is called congruous (de congruo), by which recompense is owed, not in strict justice, or as a consequence of a promise, but for reasons of friendship or esteem, or simply of liberality. Thus, in the natural order, the soldier who has distinguished himself by bravery in battle perhaps merits (de congruo) a decoration. Courage is required of him as a soldier; but if he could have yielded and did not, or if he could have limited himself to fulfilling his basic duty, but made, instead, an extraordinary effort, his Commander would be moved in honour to reward such action in a measure beyond what is normally stipulated.

In the supernatural order, our acts merit, by the Will of God, a recompense which far exceeds all the honour and glory which the world can offer. By fulfilling his duties in his ordinary life the Christian in the state of grace gains more grace in his soul and merits eternal life. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (cf Luke 6:20-26).

• The works we do each day are meritorious if we do them well and with an upright intention, if we offer them to God at the beginning of the day and in the Holy Mass, when we with a right intention start some task as well as when we finish it.
• Our works will be especially meritorious if we unite them to the merits of Christ and to those of our Lady. In this way we gain possession of those graces of infinite value which our Lord won for us, principally on the Cross, and which our Lady also won for us, co redeeming with her Son in an exceptional manner. God our Father then sees our works invested with a new and infinite character, for we have become sharers in the merits of Christ.

Conscious of this supernatural reality, should we not ask ourselves whether we are trying to offer everything to our Lord – the ordinary things of each day, and the exceptional or difficult ones, such as sickness, persecution or slander? It is especially in these most difficult times that we should remember the words of yesterday’s Gospel (Pet 3:17): Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven. These then are the occasions for loving our Lord more deeply and for uniting ourselves to him more closely.

• There is yet another thing that can help us carry out our tasks more perfectly. This is the realization that through them we can congruously merit – relying on our friendship with our Lord – the conversion of a son, a brother or a friend, so long as we ourselves are in the state of grace and seek perfectly to carry out our work for God’s glory alone.
• This was the way of the saints.

Let us, therefore, take full advantage of every opportunity to help others along the path to heaven. And let us act in this way with even greater fervour and tenacity in the case of those whom God has placed near to us and of those who are seen to be in greatest need of spiritual hel