“The second subject I want to speak to you about is that of merit. It is a neuralgic word. When one pronounces it before Protestants, they tense up and hear nothing more. It is better, without pronouncing the word, to explain the thing itself to them: it may well seem to them that it expresses what they have always believed.
What does the doctrine of merit consist in? It teaches me that God is so good that He places in me HIS GRACE, WITH WHICH I CAN INCLINE MYSELF TOWARD ETERNAL LIFE, TEND TOWARD IT, RAISE MYSELF TOWARD IT. In the parable of the vine it is said: “I am the vine; you the branches”. He that abideth in ME, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit” (John XV, 1). You see: God places in us the sap of grace and of charity, with which we can perform successive acts of grace and charity that are ever more intense, which will be like fruits; it will be the entrance into the Fatherland. Merit is THE ORDINATION TO A REWARD ACCORDING TO JUSTICE. But can God be obliged in justice toward us? Can there be any proportion between what we give Him — we who receive everything from Him — and the supreme gifts of His grace and of His love? No, certainly not, if He leaves us to ourselves and to our own efforts. But yes, if, on the contrary, He places in us the sap of His grace and of His love, asking us to make that grace and that love bear fruit. From the moment we can produce acts VIVIFIED by the sap of grace, there is, in fact, a proportion between those acts and their fruit, between the stem and the flower, and then between the flower and the fruit. So that OUR MERITS ARE GIFTS OF GOD. Hence the saying of St. Augustine: “When God crowns our merits, He crowns His own gifts”
9. But are they our merits or the merits of Christ? The Protestant tactic here is, as always, to oppose instead of to subordinate. To the merits of Christ ALONE, it opposes the merits of man ALONE. It decides for salvation by the merits of Christ alone; and it imputes to us the theory of salvation by the merits of man alone, that is, the Pelagian thesis condemned by the Church as heretical. What, in short, is the true Catholic doctrine? It can be summed up thus: OUR MERITS ARE OF GOD AND OF CHRIST AS FIRST CAUSE, THEY ARE OURS AS SECOND CAUSE: GOD GIVES US IN CHRIST THE POWER TO SAY “YES” TO HIM.
If I say Yes to Him, this yes, pronounced here below, in time, and shot through with the light of divine grace, directs me toward my final end, that is, the entrance into the Fatherland; it makes me proportioned to that entrance into the Fatherland, it normally “fructifies” that entrance into the Fatherland, it “merits” that entrance into the Fatherland. It is my yes, MY MERIT: IT WILL AT TIMES HAVE TORN MY HEART, IT WILL HAVE DEMANDED THAT I TRIUMPH OVER MY PASSIONS; IT IS TRULY MY OWN. But it is even more God’s than mine, and the first thought that will come to my spirit will be to say: Thank You, my God, for having moved me to say yes: to You be the glory.
To illustrate this Catholic doctrine of God who gives man the power to merit, we must return to Jesus’ comparison: “I am the vine; you the branches. He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit”. Neither Calvin nor Barth managed to explain this text. Calvin will say: See here, the branch cut off from the stock is cast into the fire; it can therefore produce nothing. Pardon me! The branch that is cut off, yes. It will wither; but what if it remains united to the stock, to Jesus? Then it bears fruit. Does the fruit come from the stock or from the branch? It comes from the stock through the branch. When Barth is asked: Is it God or man who produces the good action? Is it God or the rosebush that produces the rose? — he answers: You are reasoning upon an image. But that image is from the Gospel.
One further precision concerning merit. We have already seen it: I cannot merit the first grace, because it is always a gratuitous attention. But if I abide in love, I can with love always merit a greater love and, at the moment of death, eternal life.
10. The grace of here below PROPORTIONS the glory of heaven, FRUCTIFIES the glory of heaven, MERITS the glory of heaven: all these terms are synonymous. Glory is given to grace as a FRUIT, AS A TERM, AS A REWARD.
This notion of reward is found frequently in Scripture. St. Paul writes: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. There is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me in that day: and not only to me, but to them also that love his coming” (2 Tim. IV, 7-8). God, who has heaped graces upon St. Paul, will crown St. Paul. As a Judge, He will give the apostle what belongs to him in justice. The same will happen to all Christians.
You have it in the Gospel: when you suffer all these things, “be glad and rejoice, for your REWARD is very great in heaven” (Matt. V, 12). It is Jesus who tells us this. On the last day, when the Son of man comes in his glory with all the angels, he will say to those on his right hand: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink…” (Matt. XXV, 34-35). In the same chapter, mention is made of the servant who, having received five talents, gained with them another five; and of the one who, having received two, likewise gained two. Both the one and the other are blessed; but the one who had buried his talent was cursed (Matt. XXV, 14-30).
HOW CAN PROTESTANTISM DENY THESE NOTIONS OF MERIT AND OF REWARD, OF A GOD WHO, IN CROWNING OUR MERITS, CROWNS HIS OWN GIFTS, WHEN THEY APPEAR CONSTANTLY IN THE GOSPEL? To combat us, it imputes to us the Pelagian doctrine of the branch which, cut off from the stock, will produce fruit by itself alone. But we condemn TWO ERRORS at once. We are told — and it is no kindness! —: You Catholics are moved by a reward. To which I would answer: YES, BECAUSE WE KNOW THAT THE REWARD OF LOVE IS THE MEETING WITH THE BELOVED. “No other reward but Thyself, O Lord”, said St. Thomas. And St. Paul writes: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him” (I Cor. II, 9). What does it consist in? It is too great! The meeting with the beloved is unspeakable! How can we be told that IT IS BASE TO DESIRE SUCH A REWARD?
Protestants find themselves forced to disfigure this splendid doctrine in order to be able to attack it: “Then we shall see face to face”, says St. Paul (I Cor. XIII, 12); and St. John: “Because we shall see him AS HE IS” (I John III, 2). Not to desire this REWARD, this MEETING, is NOT TO LOVE. Not to desire to see one day the Fatherland, when one has been born in exile, is not to love.”
Nihil Obstat: Dr. Antonio Zaldúa Uriarte
Imprimatur: Bilbao, September 14, 1962. PAUL, Bishop of Bilbao
Source: Talks on Grace, by Charles Journet
