Édouard Hugon, Merit in the Spiritual Life

Written By Dr. Matthew Minerd

The present translation is a semi-popularized series of articles by Fr. Édouard Hugon on the relationship between the theology of merit and the moral, ascetical, and spiritual life of Christians. Ever since undertaking research on Suárez’s account of the infused moral virtues, I have come to think that the relationship between merit and the moral life has been far too little discussed among Catholic authors. Like many others, I have often regarded the topic as too closely tied to a certain juridical conception of the moral life, one that risks a kind of extrinsicism. And, of course, a certain nominalist account of grace and merit does tend in this direction.

However, once one recognizes that grace is the corollary of the uncreated formality of the divine life—that is, a life that only God Himself can cause to grow within us—it becomes quite fitting that the growth of grace should depend uniquely upon His bestowal. Hence, although the growth of the infused virtues requires a kind of “physical” impression upon the faculty caused by our supernatural actions (a position held by the Thomists against other Scholastics), the actual bestowal of this growth remains uniquely the action of God, arguably involving a new presence and invisible “sending” of the Holy Spirit.1 One can sense here the importance of this doctrine for the solidarity of the moral and mystical life, for a sound soteriology (for our true capacity to merit “hangs” upon Christ’s superabundant merit, just as our true supernaturalization through grace “hangs” upon the brimming fullness of Christ’s capital grace2), for the continued deepening of ecclesial life, and for much else besides.

For a more detailed treatment of the theology of merit, several works should be noted in particular:

Merit in the Spiritual Life

The spiritual life is nothing other than the life of merit, for if the very life of the soul is grace, the act exercised by this life is none other than the deed that is meritorious. To walk on the path of perfection is to advance in merits. Thus, there progress or decline takes place insofar as merit grows or comes to a halt. Thus, when the righteous man examines his conscience, this should be his focus. To take stock of the spiritual life is to determine the extent that the sum of our merits exceeds that of our demerits.

Therefore, it is important that we set forth the Catholic teaching concerning this subject and recall the theological principles and foundations of true spirituality. Our study will examine these essential points concerning: its concept, conditions, principle, extent, and its reward. Along the way we will also strive to show their practical applications.

I. The Concept of Merit

The concept of merit derives from the very notion of grace, for merit is its blossom, flower, fruit, and crown.

Sacred Scripture speaks of grace as a second birth, one that is immaculate and incorruptible, giving us the title and character of being children of God: “They are born of God” (Jn. 1:13). And Saint Peter: “You have been born anew from an incorruptible seed” (1 Pt. 1:23). “We are called children of God, and truly are we such” (1 Jn. 3:1). After our baptism, our father and mother, gazing upon us with love in our cradle, filled with sweet delight, can say: “Let us rejoice, a child is born to us!” The heavenly family, the Trinity worthy of all adoration, bending over this same cradle with even greater tenderness, has also spoken of us, saying: “A God is born to us, a man is born of God,” ex Deo nati sunt.

Now what does birth give us? The proper effect of generation is to communicate a physical being similar to the principle that begets us. In other words: to be born is to receive from a living being something that passes from our progenitor into us and remains always within us as the mirror and image of this progenitor. In short, what we receive is a new nature that unfolds in the light of a new life. To be born of man? This means that we receive a human nature and reproduce the likeness of our parents. To be born of God? We must participate in the divine nature and reflect the divine face. This is precisely what Scripture teaches us. After saying that grace is our second creation, a second birth—nova creatura, renati—it calls it a communion in God’s being, a participation in His nature: divinae consortes naturae (2 Pt. 1:4).3

If grace bestows a divine nature upon us, we also must perform deeds belonging to the same order as this nature. According to the beautiful expression of one of the Church Fathers, the Christian is “a god in bud”: he must bear divine fruits, that is, operations marked by the very dignity of God Himself. Hence, the works of the righteous man—precisely as divine—bear a threefold supernatural value, marked out by three properties: they are meritorious, being accepted by God as worthy of reward; they are satisfactory, being accepted by God as a reparation for the offense done to His Infinite Majesty; and the prayer of the righteous has [its particular] impetratory value, obtaining from God the goods necessary or useful for salvation.4

Merit is, as it were, the root and foundation of the other two values, and one might even say that satisfaction and impetration are, in a certain sense, kinds of merit, for the holy deed is worthy—that is, it merits—that God accept it as reparation, and prayer made in the state of grace and in the name of Christ is worthy that God should hear it.

However, taken in the strict sense, these notions must be carefully distinguished. Merit, properly so called, signifies a right to reward, which is the increase of grace in this world, and glory, as well as its increase, in the next. Satisfaction pertains to reparation for offense. And impetration implies the efficacy of prayer with regard to the goods of salvation, and though the soul in a state of mortal sin can no longer merit, it nonetheless can still pray.

Merit is personal, in the sense that the righteous man cannot merit de condigno for others, unless he has been constituted as the moral head of humanity. Satisfaction can be applied to others. And impetration extends further than merit, for final perseverance lies outside the sphere of merit, whereas it falls in some manner under the domain of impetration, for Christ has promised it to persevering prayer made in His name.

Satisfaction takes on several aspects: insofar as the just deed appeases the anger of God, it is propitiatory; insofar as it inclines God to blot out the sinner’s fault, it is expiatory; insofar as it pays the debt due to divine justice, it is properly satisfactory. Propitiation acts prior to the remission of sin, by rendering propitious God who is angered by the fault; expiation aims at the very remission of sin, which takes place through sanctifying grace; satisfaction comes after justification and concerns the discharge of punishment, once guilt has been effaced.5

It is above all the first value that we are considering here. There is merit properly so called, condign merit (de condigno), when deed is truly worthy of its reward, when there is between the two a kind of equality or proportion, such that the reward is due by reason of justice. There is congruous merit (de congruo) in cases where strict justice does not obtain, though a foundation does remain in relation to certain moral claims that the Merciful Rewarder never fails to satisfy: it is the right of friendship to a reward, jus amicabile ad praemium.6

Against Protestant claims, the Church has defined the existence of merit properly so called in the righteous. “Once men have been justified,” says the Council of Trent, “the words of the Apostle must be set before them, promising to meritorious works the crown of righteousness. Just as the head influences the members and the vine the branches, Christ communicates to the righteous the power which always precedes their good works, accompanies them, and follows them, and without which these acts could not be pleasing to God nor meritorious… If anyone maintains that the works of the righteous do not truly merit an increase of grace, eternal life, and—if he dies in grace—the attainment of glory, and also an increase of glory, let him be anathema.”7

At the same time, the Council implicitly indicates the conditions of merit, its scope, and its extent.

II. The Conditions for Merit

We must consider the conditions for merit from three perspectives: that of the deed in question; that of the person who acts; and from the perspective of the Supreme Remunerator Himself.

As for the meritorious deed, it must be free, good, and supernatural. As the perfection of our activity, merit can crown only a truly human act—that is, an act that proceeds at once from our two master faculties, the intellect and the will. Such an act is within our power and under our full dominion, not imposed upon us by external constraint or by a fatal impulse of our nature.8 Hence, purely natural, unreflective, or indeliberate acts fall outside the sphere of merit. Thus, we have an immediate consequence for the spiritual life: those who desire perfection must be continually on their guard, so as to diminish indeliberate acts and thereby to increase the treasury of their merits.

As we also said, the deed must be good and supernatural, for it is quite clear that we can effectively move closer to our supreme end, glory, only if this movement belongs of the same order as that end and, so to speak, at the same degree [of reality].

As for the person who is acting, what is essential is the wayfaring state, for as we just noted, merit is a movement, and movement ceases once its terminus is reached. Our Lord clearly states this truth when He says: “I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming, when no one can work” (Jn. 9:4). The “day” signifies the present life, and the night, death. Such is the common interpretation of the Fathers, from Origen to Saint Augustine. A number of Protestant theologians in the nineteenth century distorted this point of traditional teaching by claiming that not everything is irrevocably fixed after death, that, during the interval between the first and the second coming, salvation continues in the underworld for those portions of humanity that were not in a position to decide for or against Christ during earthly life.9

There can be no hesitation on this point. Upon leaving the body, the soul appears before the tribunal of God to undergo an irreversible judgment. And, if it is in a state of mortal sin, it descends immediately into hell, mox post mortem, where it undergoes a punishment that will have no end.10 Although it lacks juridical force, one of the schemata of the First Vatican Council faithfully expresses the certain and infallible belief of the Church on this point: “After death, which is the end of our life, the soul immediately appears before the tribunal of God to render an account of what it has done in the body, whether good or evil. And after this mortal life no place remains for repentance and return to penance.”11

Now, at least theoretically speaking, one could say: accidental merit might increase in the hereafter, for even if our essential beatitude is immutable, nonetheless, souls are capable of experiencing new accidental joys that complete their happiness.12 Nonetheless, the common teaching in theology is that even accidental merit ceases at death, and that the accidental glories added successively are due to the merits of the present life; that is to say, the just person has merited here below that new joys be conferred upon him in heaven, according as his state or condition requires.

This teaching is explained by the very nature of the union of the soul and body: in the state of union, for as long as it lasts, man must acquire his perfection. Hence Saint Paul attributes merit and demerit only to those deeds that man performs while still in his body: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what he has earned while in the body, according to his works, whether good or evil” (2 Cor. 5:10).13

Another, equally indispensable condition is the state of grace and charity. Our Lord declares that we can bear supernatural fruit only on condition that we remain united to Him, just as the branch is fruitful only if it draws its sap from the nourishing trunk of the vine (cf. Jn. 15:4). Now, sanctifying grace is what makes us dwell and live in Christ. Saint Paul proclaimed the necessity and excellence of charity—and of the grace which is inseparably connected to it—in a famous passage, often called one of the most eloquent and sublime pages of all human tongues, and which may be summed up thus: Without charity I am nothing, nothing profits me; but with it, I can do all things (cf. 1 Cor. 13).

From the infallible Magisterium, it suffices that we merely recall several declarations. The Second Council of Orange defined: “A reward is owed to good works if they take place, but the grace that is not owed precedes them so that they might be performed.”14 The Council Fathers at Trent added the further explication: the grace that precedes the meritorious work is the grace of justification or sanctifying grace; this is why the Council attributes merit only to the works of the righteous man.15

The theological reason for this is sufficiently evident. Since the reward in question is the very inheritance of God, the man who is capable of meriting is the one who has the right to inherit God—that is, he who is His child. For it is the son who is heir by right: Si filii, et haeredes (Rom. 8:17). Only sanctifying grace can infuse into us this ineffable filiation, make us “gods,” and enable us to bear that particle of the most sublime nobility: we are “of God”—genus sumus Dei (Acts 17:28). Therefore, it is the first and indispensable principle for all merit: a life that has not been fructified by it is lost for heaven.

On the side of the Supreme Remunerator, there must be a promise of reward, for our deeds could not constitute a title, in justice, to the inheritance of God unless He Himself had ordered them to this end and promised to crown them. Hence, Sacred Scripture expressly notes the divine promise: “Blessed is the man who endures the trial… He will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him” (Jas. 1:12).

We can say that this promise is included in the very fact of our supernatural elevation, and that God’s intention to confer grace upon us with a view to the final end is equivalent to a promise: just as he who gives the seed of a plant intends the flowers and fruits that crown it, so too, God, in infusing grace—the seed of glory—sets eternal life before us. Let us conclude with the Council of Trent: “To those who work well unto the end and hope in God, eternal life is to be proposed both as a grace mercifully promised to the children of God through Our Lord, and as a recompense which, in virtue of the divine promise, will be faithfully rendered to their good works and merits.”16 In crowning our merits, God surely crowns His own gifts. However, since He has bound Himself to us by His promises, our merits give us a right to the crown, and it is justly conferred upon us by the Just Judge. Saint Paul called it “the crown of justice which the just Judge will give me” (2 Tim. 4:8).

Important applications for the spiritual life follow from these few theological notions. Souls concerned with their sanctification should frequently recall that, by grace, they have become partakers of the divine nature, which places them on the level of God and consequently renders their deeds divine and inestimable in value. Imagine before your sight the scales of the eternal justice. Suppose that, on one side, there is prayer of a just man, the sigh of an innocent, or a tear shed by a poor mother. Then, on the other side, we can place all the marvels of human genius and energy [considered solely in its natural being].17 A prayer… A sigh… A tear… Any one of these weighs more than all the goods of nature taken together. However, by contrast, how vigilant we must be if we are to remain at this supernatural level, to ward off all dissipation, to continually reduce the number of our indeliberate acts, to lose not a second of the time given to us in this present life (the sole period of merit), and to orient all our deeds toward eternity and toward the glory of God.

We still must expound another, beautiful teaching of St. Thomas: all of the righteous man’s deeds that are not venial sins remain meritorious. Likewise, we must explain the nature of imperfection in the spiritual life.

What we have said already suffices to make us appreciate quite profoundly the words of the Angelic Doctor: the least merit, or “the good of a single grace, is worth more than all the good of the whole of nature” (ST I-II, q. 113, a. 9, ad 2). As Cajetan comments upon this text: “Oh golden words! Day and night, we ought to meditate upon them! A single grace is worth more than the whole universe! Ceaselessly consider, therefore, the immense loss suffered by those who do not know how to appreciate such a treasure.”

The Principle of Merit

Grace is the primary and radical principle from which merit proceeds, as our soul is the source of our acts, and as the tree’s nourishing trunk causes its flowers and fruits. However, just as the tree bears fruit through its branches, and as the soul acts through its faculties, so too grace produces saving and meritorious deeds through the mediation of infused habits, namely: the theological virtues (which have God [in His supernatural mystery] as their objects, plunging their roots down into the divine life); the moral virtues (with their innumerable ramifications); and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (which dispose us to receive docilely the touch of the divine Paraclete, like seeds of heroism within us, like a plant having heroism as its flower or a lyre having heroism as its tune).

Now, it is through the virtue of charity that grace is the principle of merit, such that the acts of the other virtues become meritorious insofar as they are informed by charity. Certainly, charity will not be the only virtue to be crowned, nor is it the only virtue that honors God.18 The impulse and motive of the other virtues are praiseworthy. All of them can rise toward God. But charity is what directs them, informs them, and renders them pleasing to the Supreme Rewarder. Just as the will is the ruling power that commands all the others, so too is charity the queen who imposes her orders on all the virtues.19 It is also the living organ by which grace brings merit to our various acts, just as the heart pumps blood through all the parts of our body.

What is it that Scripture points to in the works that God blesses? The answer is clear: the motive of charity; it is because they are done out of love, in the name of Jesus, for the glory of God. In my name, because you belong to Christ… do all things for the glory of God (cf. Mark 9:40; 1 Cor. 11; Col. 3:17). And Saint Paul declares that even the most exquisite acts of the most convinced faith—moving mountains, delivering oneself to be burned at the stake…—have no value for eternal life unless they are inspired by charity (1 Cor. 13:1–3).

Indeed, for our works to be meritorious, they must be worthy of God and ordered to our last end. And charity is what orients them toward this destiny. As the sovereign virtue, it governs all the virtues. As the virtue having as its object the universal end, it must command the particular ends of all the others and direct all habits, with their acts, toward the one, supreme end. Just as no means is employed except by the desire for the last end, so no deed rises effectively to God except through charity.20

But in what does this dominion by charity consist, without which our works would be sterile? On this point, certain theologians depart from Saint Thomas. According to some, a habitual influence suffices, arising from the very existence of charity in the soul.21 According to others, habitual influence suffices for the acts of the supernatural virtues, although virtual influence is required for the acts of the acquired virtues.22 However, according to Saint Thomas and his school, actual influence is not required, though in all cases at least a virtual influence is necessary.23

We do not wish to take up the details of these scholastic disputes here. We will content ourselves with setting forth the Angelic Doctor’s teaching.

Habitual influence is insufficient, for as the holy Doctor observes, nobody acts as long as his powers remain merely in a habitual state.24 On the other hand, it is not necessary that an actual intention intervene in each action in order to orient it to the last end. Nonetheless, there needs to be a virtual25 influence, that is an efficacious impulse that continues even after the explicit command has ceased. Now all this presupposes a prior act of thought and will that has ordered all subsequent acts and continues within them, like the initial impulse in the movement it has set in motion: “But it is necessary that there have been beforehand thought concerning the end, which is charity, which orders the subsequent actions to the end.”26

The very notion of merit requires that deeds be supernatural and ordered to the ultimate end. Now, the acts of acquired virtues are not essentially supernatural, except to the degree that the intention of charity has directed and fructified them. Now although the acts of the infused virtues are intrinsically supernatural, nonetheless they are effectively ordered to the ultimate end and the glory of God only insofar as they are informed by the virtue whose object is the ultimate end—namely, that divine charity whose unique office is to move the other virtues and to direct their acts, just as, in the natural order, the will sets all the other faculties in motion and applies them to their respective acts. This direction, orientation, and impulse necessarily imply an act whose energy is maintained throughout the entire series of movements that derive from it. And this is precisely what we call the virtual influence of charity.

In Practice, All the Acts Performed by a Righteous Man (Except for Venial Sins) are Meritorious

St. Thomas affirms quite categorically that the man in the state of grace cannot perform a morally indifferent act. If an act is good, it is meritorious; if it is not, it is demeritorious. [Mortal] sinners and unbelievers can certainly perform acts that retain their natural goodness (e.g., honoring one’s parents, paying debts, and respecting the faith of oaths and treaties),27 but lacking the life bestowed by grace, they are not meritorious. By contrast, in the righteous, a naturally good act also assumes, through the influence of charity, the character of merit (habentibus caritatem omnis actus est meritorius vel demeritorius).28

In another text, we explained the Angelic Doctor’s teaching about these matters.29 The state of righteousness, indeed, calls forth charity, and charity is active. It cannot fail to stir and arouse our energies and to incline them toward God. From the outset, it directs our intention toward the ultimate end and, through this initial movement, it communicates its influence to all the virtues, just as the will commands all the powers. This impulse continues even after the explicit act of command has ceased. It remains within the virtues and within the acts themselves, and in this way, all our deeds are enlivened by charity and become meritorious. Stimulated by its native forces to pass into act, charity renews its impulse often enough that our intention remains sufficiently directed toward God, such that all our good acts are borne aloft by this general élan and carried toward eternity. Thus, all the deeds performed by the righteous man are swept along by this sanctifying current. By virtue of the impression they thereby receive, these deeds remain ever-oriented toward the end of charity and referred to God, even when we are not explicitly thinking of Him. To eat and drink according to the measure of temperance; to engage in morally fitting recreation… Human realities, yes, but no longer are the subject to vacuity that befalls all that is insignificant. For the righteous, they rise above the sphere of mere triviality. Impelled by the élan of charity, all things are great, all of them noble, for these actions are measured by eternity, which is what is at stake in them.

Let us summarize this beautiful and consoling doctrine in a single argument: Every good act is ordered to the end of some virtue. Every virtue converges toward the end of charity, for charity is the queen that commands all the virtues, just as the will commands all the powers. Therefore, all good acts are referred to the end of charity, undergo its influence, and become meritorious. Whatever actions evade this universal dominion of charity are necessarily outside the last end, disordered, and tainted with demerit.

In a word, this is the import of the Thomistic teaching on the meritorious nature of all the acts of the righteous man: in the righteous, every act that is rational and deliberate must either fall within the sphere of the last end (thereby being enlivened by charity and meritorious) or fall outside that sphere (and by that very fact be disordered and a venial sin)—habentibus caritatem omnis actus est meritorius vel demeritorius.

The Role of Imperfection in the Spiritual Life

An objection spontaneously jumps to our mind at this point: if all the acts of those in a state of grace are either meritorious or venial sins, then no room remains for imperfection!

Many theories have been constructed on this subject of imperfection, which we shall avoid discussing.30 Here is how our Thomistic principles allow us to conceive of imperfection. First of all, we can use the term “imperfections” to refer to indeliberate acts that are neither bad nor meritorious and whose number we could reduce if we remained more on our guard. How many acts evade us each day, acts that precede our reflection, deliberation, and indeed our freedom! But precisely because they are not human (in the full sense), they are not worthy of sanction, whether punishment or reward, and they do not count in the overall history of our life… Yet they halt or interrupt the fabric of perfection; they prevent our life from being entirely filled; they place empty voids into our days…

Our Lord’s soul never knew an indeliberate act, any more than it was subject to ignorance.31 Likewise, many theologians regard it as certain that the Blessed Virgin never experienced an indeliberate action, at least during her waking hours. Why, then, do our acts escape the control of the intellect and the dominion of the will? Because of ignorance, concupiscence, and the passions. Nothing of this sort was found in Mary. Her infused knowledge safeguarded her against all imprudence, and her Immaculate Conception, together with the privilege of absolute integrity, ensured that she was immune from concupiscence and from the storming turbulence of the senses.32 Although the saints do not succeed in eliminating all of these sorts of indeliberate acts, they nonetheless advance in perfection to the degree that they diminish them.

Thus, we have what we could call imperfections: neither culpable nor meritorious, yet of such a character that holiness strives to render them increasingly rare, even as it laments being unable to eliminate them entirely.

Now, the topic of merit is concerned with truly human acts. For those who are in a state of grace, these acts allow no middle ground: they are either meritorious or venial sins.

Thus, the term “imperfection” can also be used for acts that are good, upright, and even praiseworthy in themselves, though remaining somewhat missing their full crown of perfection, for they could have been better than they in fact were. Examples of such acts are numerous and familiar: one partakes in a permitted satisfaction (e.g., taking refreshment outside of mealtime, smoking or dipping snuff purely for pleasure and without necessity); allowing useful conversations to longer than necessary; looking and listening to things when it would be fitting to mortify curiosity, and so on. All this, remaining within the circle of what is morally lawful, also remains within the circle of what is meritorious. Nonetheless, how much more rapid would progress have been, and how much more intense the merit, had one chosen the other alternative! The latter does not oblige—except perhaps in certain particular circumstances where refusal would amount to resistance to grace and ingratitude toward God. One’s exercise of freedom remains good, yet one does not ascend toward the heights of the supernatural ideal. We could say that such acts are somewhat “uncrowned”—and, hence, are imperfections that the saints refuse to allow themselves (without, however, having made a vow to perfection or the most perfect), yet which are not deprived of all reward.

In this way, Thomism guards itself against every exaggeration: while it makes the “sursum corda” resound as often as possible in the ears of the just, it discourages no one. It tells those of good will that what is not a venial sin, even while remaining imperfect, is still worthy of eternity: Habentibus caritatem omnis actus est meritorius vel demeritorius.

The Importance of this Teaching of St. Thomas for the Spiritual Life

Thus, it is clear that true spirituality must rest upon sound theology. The Angelic Doctor’s teaching on this matter does not intend to foster quietism or spiritual indolence. At the thought that one of his acts not directed to the last end is disordered and tainted with demerit, the just man will strive to turn to God over and over, to order toward Him his whole day, from the morning on, by a kind of covenant by which he intends to do all things for the divine glory, and finally, through each of his actions, sufferings, or joys to procure for the Lord all the praise that the angels and saints render Him in blessed eternity. And since the degree of love is the degree of merit, he will frequently renew acts of charity together with the gentle covenant that has already imparted a supernatural impulse and momentum to his works and to the duties of his state in life. And he will likewise remain very attentive to reducing the number of his undeliberate or imperfect acts and to giving his life the complete measure of merit which is, in the full sense, the life of intense fruitfulness.

On the other hand, how consoling it is to be able to say to oneself that the day is not wasted, that a life is fulfilled insofar as it remains sheltered from venial sin! Then, all acts are filled with eternity, and the words of St. Paul attain their full force: “Our light affliction in the present moment produces for us, beyond all measure, an eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17). See how the Apostle makes recourse to antitheses and superlatives to give us some idea of meritorious value: what is momentary here below produces the eternal; what is light is worth an immense weight; what is tribulation in the present life produces glory for the life to come; and all this without limit, so sublimely that our words and concepts fail to express it.

However, let us try to understand this teaching better yet by considering the three principal heads that multiply our titles to reward.

First of all, there is charity. Because charity is the principle of merit, the reward due to acts by reason of charity surpasses incomparably the reward that comes to them by reason of their object.33 Therefore, in heaven, the just man who has a greater charity is placed higher, regardless of the number of years spent here below.

Secondly, there is the excellence of works. Just as there is a hierarchy in the virtues, so too there is an order among our actions, and when charity is equal on both sides, preeminence belongs without dispute to the work whose object is nobler, just as virginity surpasses conjugal continence and the active contemplative life surpasses the merely active life. St. Thomas34 provides other, more suggestive examples: just as the architect is better paid than the mere laborer, although the latter works harder, so in the supernatural order those who devote themselves to works that are higher, nobler, more excellent—such as bishops and teachers—provided that their charity is not otherwise inferior, have a right to a better reward. This is why the works of the Blessed Virgin were more meritorious than the torments of the martyrs, not only because of her greater, heroic charity, but also because of the loftier object and the more perfect end to which they were related. Her mere consent given to Gabriel’s message, “Be it done to me, in accordance with your word,” had more value, says St. Bernardino of Siena,35 than the most wonderful acts of the angels and the saints.

Thirdly, there is the difficulty or quantity of works. Obviously, if a work has cost more effort or required greater endurance, it ought to be paid more abundantly. Nevertheless, this perspective is only secondary and concerns only per accidens reward, for per se reward is always drawn from the side of charity. Let us suppose in heaven two just men who have the same degree of charity, but one of whom labored longer, suffered more intense torments, or was martyred: their essential reward—i.e., beatific vision and love—will be equal, but martyrdom will have in addition an aureole of greater per accidens joys and glories.

This manifests for us a very clear conclusion for our spiritual life: we must always and continuously grow in charity, seek out excellent works, face the struggles of duty, and overcome difficulties, so as to have a fuller eternity and to give more glory to God.36

The Extent of Merit

St. Thomas37 lays down this principle: merit extends as far as the supernatural motion by which God directs us toward our end. Now, the touch of the heavenly mover is granted to us not only for the ultimate terminus but, indeed, for the whole course, the whole duration, and the whole progress of the movement toward it: the terminus is glory; the course and the progress are the increase of grace. In other words, merit gives a right: to glory and to the increase of glory in our eternal homeland; and to grace and to the increase of grace even here below.

Thus, the Council of Trent defined that the merit of the just man extends to all this: “the increase of grace, eternal life, the attainment of that blessedness if one dies in divine friendship, and the increase of glory.”38 By declaring that merit grows through each of the acts repeated under the influence of grace (bonis operibus quae per Dei gratiam fiunt), the Council indicates both that grace is required and that merit increases as often as we do good. Therefore, let us reflect on this important fact: each of our good actions gives us a right to a new degree of glory for eternity and, already here below, to a new degree of grace for our soul. How wondrous is the fecundity of the spiritual life! Yet, on the other hand, Catholic doctrine also preaches vigilance to us: if we should come to fall, our just deeds will be forgotten (Ez. 18:24), and we cannot not merit that God restore us after our fall, since the divine motion—which is indispensable for merit—is interrupted and fatally brought to a halt by the very act of sin.39 In each of our prayers, we must ask God to hold us by the hand, to never permit us to be separated from Him through mortal offense, and, if this extreme misfortune should befall us, that He raise us up again at once by His mercy.

Consequently, too, final perseverance does not fall under merit properly so called.40 To persevere is to unite the state of grace with death. Therefore, only He who is the sovereign master of death and of grace, our God, Creator and Redeemer, can secure this definitive success. By our works, we cannot obtain the union of our death with the precise moment of still enjoying divine friendship. All of this exceeds the reach of our efforts.

Since perseverance is the proper effect of predestination, it is evident that, like predestination itself, it escapes the sphere of merit. But, on the other hand, it does fall in some way under the order of impetration, for Our Lord has promised it to all those who ask it in His name with the required dispositions, through humble and constant supplications, “supplicibus precibus emerci,” as St. Augustine says.41

The great promise made by the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary arguably falls, therefore, to this mode of impetration. The practice of receiving Communion on the first nine Fridays of the month does not give a right to final perseverance along the lines of the right to what falls under merit properly so called. Rather, Our Lord, through the exceeding mercy of His Heart and out of pure love, promises this immense favor to those who worthily fulfill the prescribed conditions. The efficacy comes from the divine promise. We are no longer in the realm of merit and justice, but in that of impetration and goodness.42

Whatever one may think of these explanations, it is supremely fitting to meditate on the beautiful words of St. Bernard: “Perseverance is the daughter of the sovereign King, the end of the virtues and their crown, the sum of all goods, the virtue without which none will see God.”43 “Without it, neither will the combatant obtain the victory, nor will the victor possess the palm. It is the sister of patience, the daughter of constancy, the friend of peace, the knot of friendships, the bond of concord, the rampart of holiness.”44 “To it is eternity given, and it alone gives man to eternity.”45

The other graces are the effect of ordinary Providence and are distributed to the multitude; this one proceeds from an altogether special providence and is reserved to the beloved, the chosen, the elect. Let us beseech the Sacred Heart when we possess Him at the moment of Communion: may He never permit us to be separated from Him, numquam me a te separari permittas!

The Payment of Merit

Obviously,46 glory will be paid only in heaven. The increase of grace could be conferred here below, if our dispositions were sufficiently perfect and if our acts surpassed [its] habitus in intensity. Thus, we can readily admit that, for the Blessed Virgin, the initial impulse was communicated with a force that multiplied it with each act. The prodigious sum at the beginning doubled in the second act, and so on indefinitely, without limit or interruption.

But is this the case for the ordinary souls of the righteous? St. Thomas says quite clearly: “Grace does not increased immediately but, rather, at its own proper time, namely, when a man has been sufficiently disposed for the increase of grace (Nec gratia statim augetur, sed suo tempore, cum scilicet aliquis fuerit dispositus ad gratiae augmentum).”47

By contrast, Suárez and his disciples hold that all the degrees of grace that we merit, even by our weakest acts, are conferred to the soul without delay.

This is not the place to provide a thorough discussion of a topic that involves a very interesting metaphysical question. Nonetheless, devout souls will profit from knowing St. Thomas’s position, so that they might choose the safer path for their conduct and give their life more fervor and their piety a greater impulse.

The Thomistic principle governing the whole question is this: a quality, a perfection, can be introduced into a subject only when the subject has been raised to its level, sufficiently disposed, and worthily prepared. If, in the physical order, to increase the heat of water by a single degree requires new activity, so too, in the spiritual order, the raising of supernatural life to a loftier level requires an energy surpassing the previous level in intensity. Otherwise grace, though owed to our good works, will not be conferred immediately. What holds it back and keeps it, as it were, in a state of suspense is the imperfection of the act or its lack of intensity. To be sure, sacramental grace is immediately poured into the soul through the efficacy of the sacred rite itself, ex opere operato.48 However, the increase that comes by way of merit requires an act that is more vigorous than the pre-existing habitus.

When the obstacle falls away, for example when the soul, leaving the body, performs an act of perfect charity, such a deferred payment is settled in an instant: the grace which, until then, had been suspended and held back as by a barrier now pours forth into the soul in rushing streams.

The conclusion that emerges very clearly—and it is, in fact, be admitted by all the schools—is that tepidity is one of the formidable foes of merit, and that one of our best titles to an increase of grace is fervor and generosity. This is the true way of imitating the Blessed Virgin, in whom the whole perfection of merit is realized: continuity of acts, the dignity of the acting person, and the excellence of works, elevated still further by the influence of the gifts and the divine touch of the Holy Spirit. Thanks to Mary, humanity has had among its ranks a creature who practiced to its letter the Apostle’s counsel: “Let all that you do be for the glory of God.”

This modest study has had as its aim merely to show our readers that merit is the true crown of free will, the apex of human and angelic activity, the true spiritual life, the intensely fruitful life, since it is the life which is full of immortality and eternity.

  1. On this topic, there is a dispute concerning the interpretation of Thomas himself. I side here with John of St. Thomas (and perhaps others, of whom I know not at this time), who hold that a divine mission takes place when there is any growth in grace. See John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus, In ST I, q. 43, disp. 17, a. 2, no. 17 (Vivès, p. 459). For a summary of the stakes here, see Ambroise Gardeil, “L’expérience mystique pure dans le cadre des ‘missions divines’ (II) Les missions des divines personnes,” Vie spirituelle supplement (July–August, 1932): [1]–[21] (here, [16]–[21]).↩︎

  2. These themes are of capital import and are masterfully treated by Journet in the text cited below.↩︎

  3. See Édouard Hugon, Hors de l’Église point de salut, 2nd ed, p. 128.↩︎

  4. On impetration, see Ambroise Gardeil, The True Christian Life: Thomistic Reflections on Divinization, Prudence, Religion, and Prayer, trans. Matthew K. Minerd (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2021), 246–251:

    This word, “impetratory,” seems barbarous, and nonetheless it has the most human of meanings. This mode of prayer’s action is something so special, so reserved, so proper to prayer—and at the same time something so new and so incredible among the means of salvation—that a new, unique name had to be forged for it, one whose incommunicable meaning would call to mind prayer itself. Impetrare—the word means to pray. It is as though we said, “the ‘prayer value’ of prayer.”

    Prayer’s impetratory efficacy does not have as its foundation our state of righteousness or our love of God. Rather, it builds its entire foundation upon the grace of God for which we pray—in other words, upon the gratuitous gift of His mercy. Prayer itself is a gift, and obtaining what we ask for is another.

    Everything thus takes place between God and God. Through the gift of the object for which we pray, He merely crowns the gift of good prayer which He Himself also gives. At our prayer’s point of departure, as well as at its culmination, divine mercy is the unique energy source of prayer’s impetratory efficacy.

    However, how can we speak here of efficacy, given that everything in our prayer’s success comes from God’s utterly free and benevolent largesse?

    We can say this because God invites us all, without distinction, to pray, and He promises us absolute success for our prayers. “Could we engage in prayer,” says St. Augustine, “if He did not wish to give it to us?” And St. John Chrysostom, going further, says, “Never does God, who urges us so tenderly never to cease praying, refuse to bestow His benefits upon prayer.” God’s own promise is the solid assurance of prayer’s impetratory efficacy.

    Therefore, this efficacy implies no condition concerning one’s state of grace, as is the case for merit properly so-called. Sinners’ prayers can be just as effective as—and indeed even more so than—the prayer of the righteous. The words of the Gospel, “We know that God does not hear sinners,” (Jn. 9:31) are those of a disciple who has not yet been perfectly illuminated; hence they only hold true if they are understood as referring to sinners who pray for God to come to their aid in their sins (cf. ST II-II, q. 83, a. 16, ad 1).

    Indeed, it is clear that the sinner who is impelled to pray through his sinful desire is not granted this prayer’s request but instead draws down divine punishment upon himself. “Sometimes,” says St. Augustine, “God will concede through anger what it would have been benevolent for Him to refuse.” Let us not put proper names forward here, but everyone will recall certain prayers first crowned with success, offered to a certain “Ancient God.”

    However, when the prayer of the sinner proceeds from a good desire, God heeds it. The sinner does not have grace; he only has his nature. Yet God, his Creator, does not cease loving this nature. In the sinners whom He hates precisely as sinners, He recognizes the human nature made in His image. And when the sinner utters a prayer arising from these good depths of his nature, God grants it—not out of justice (for the sinner has no right here) but rather out of pure mercy. For He has promised it, and through this infallible promise the sinner finds himself on the same footing as the just man—not from the perspective of merit, but nonetheless from the perspective of prayer’s own proper impetratory power. No difference exists between them in this matter, says St. John Chrysostom: “Whoever prays receives, the righteous man or the sinner.”

    The only conditions placed on this success are those formulated earlier for the prayer of the righteous: to ask for oneself those things necessary for salvation, with piety and perseverance. If he asks for others, the prayer of the sinner encounters the same obstacles as the prayer of the righteous man and consequently is exposed to the same vicissitudes. It is not, for all this, useless, although it may be less favored, because it cannot “plead” in its favor the law of communication which exists among the merits of the saints.

    Let it not be said in opposition that the sinner can have only the appearance of piety, given that he is fundamentally fixed in evil and therefore cannot pray piously. Certainly, he does not possess the virtue of piety, which emanates from charity. Nonetheless, he can still have a pious intention whose object is good and praiseworthy. For example, he can pray for his salvation or his conversion, just as a will devoted to injustice can sometimes have just intentions. And this suffices for obtaining an answer to one’s prayers, for if merit requires charity, prayer presupposes only actual grace—the proper grace that it constitutes, namely, the grace of good prayer.

    Moreover, let it not be objected that, given that good prayer is conformed to the Our Father, the sinner who does not will to pardon his neighbor is excluded from prayer, which on his lips can only be a lie. Obviously, he would lie and would be frustrated in the reward of his prayer if, at the very moment when he prays, he were actively filled with hatred. Yet this would not be an utter lie, for in being associated with the official prayer of the Church (though without any strict right), he would speak in the name of the latter, and on that account his prayer would be truthful.

    However, not all sinners are evil to this extent. Someone was able to say: “The sinner is what is best in man.” And this is profoundly true of the sinner touched by grace—the sinner who repents and who, in his depths, is ready to pardon the offenses done to him, even though he may not yet be removed from his sinful state. The words of Sirach were written for him: “Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray” (Sir. 28:2, RSV).

    Therefore, the impetratory power of prayer is a marvelous invention of the God of mercy for enabling all, with no strings attached, to emerge from every situation of soul—even from utter shipwreck—and thereby raise themselves toward God. From the perspective of how we are to lead the supernatural life, this is the punctum saliens, the initial outpouring, the first sign of life in the seed destined to grow. Floating on the sea of this world, it is a raft ever ready to rescue the shipwrecked.

    As I have said, this kind of efficacy is something sui generis, unique and incredible. It is tempting to say that it is something miraculous. And nonetheless, it is not a miracle. It is a law which is part of the ordinary course of the order of grace.

    As we have seen in the first volume [sic], mercy is the most fundamental attribute of Him who is Pure Act. He who speaks of Pure Act speaks of absolute perfection, completely in actual exercise of itself. He also speaks of the repulsion of misery, which is the highest degree of the absence of the good. What is a miserable being if not one that is supremely imperfect—a being completely in need, completely deficient in all things? Therefore, just as the sun, by its natural law, never ceases driving back the shadows exposed to its irradiation, so too does He who is Pure Act drive back all miseries: the misery of inorganic matter without form, without beauty, without life, as well as the misery of miseries, the misery of sin. But there is this difference: Pure Act, the perfection of all perfections—including voluntary perfection—freely and voluntarily, and therefore cordially, carries out this law of effusion and of succor. This is why it is called mercy in Him. Yet there is also a similarity: human misery must consent to expose itself to this sun, to allow it to have its vivifying efficacy. And this too is a freely willed deed—this time of our will—which allows the foundation of our master faculty, our reason, to unveil itself before God through prayer. Yet “where sin has abounded, mercy superabounds.” And it happens that, in contrast to the physical star, which cannot illuminate those recesses closed off to it, this purely merciful act bursts open the seals which our rebellious wills have placed upon our spirits and, through its efficacious preveniences, makes the very life that frees it surge forth from the heart of the hardened sinner: “Lord, what do you want me to do?”

    What is marvelous is that this admirable law of mercy, the most profound attribute of Pure Act, attains its culminating expression in the Gospel, which is not a metaphysical exposition of these matters. Wishing to present Jesus as God, it represents Him as merciful, good, sweet, and tender toward the sinner—all in a way beyond expression . . . above all toward the sinner! Therefore, who but God has known God’s heart so well—nemo nisi spiritus qui est in ipso.

    ↩︎

  5. See Édouard Hugon, Le Mystère de la Rédemption, 2nd ed, p. 262–3.↩︎

  6. Translator’s note: I feel that the summary offered by Garrigou-Lagrange concerning these distinctions is very useful. See Garrigou-Lagrange, Grace, 367–369:

    Merit de condigno is merit based on justice according to the definition of merit: the right to a reward.

    1. Merit de condigno in strict justice carries within it a value absolutely equal to the reward. Such was the merit of Christ alone, inasmuch as its value proceeded from the divine person by reason of which Christ is equal to the Father. Thus any act of charity on the part of Christ while still a wayfarer was of a value absolutely equal to the eternal life of all the elect. It was worth more than all the merits of men and angels taken together. Therein appears the victory of Christ, according to His own words: “I have overcome the world.”

    Hence Thomists commonly teach, contrary to Scotus, that the acts of Christ were of absolutely infinite intrinsic value both for merit and for satisfaction, and that His merit was de condigno in strictest justice, even commutative, at the very pinnacle of right, and even superabounding, cf. ST III, q.46, a.6 ad 6; q. 48, a. 1 and 2; for the charity of Christ dying on the cross was more pleasing to God than all the sins of men taken together were displeasing.

    2. But merit de condigno which is merely condign is not defined in the same way by Thomists and by Scotus; cf. Billuart. Scotus says that the act of charity of a wayfarer is not properly and intrinsically meritorious de condigno for eternal life; but only so extrinsically, by divine ordination and acceptation. In fact, he accordingly holds that God can accept merely natural good works as meritorious for eternal life; in this the Nominalists agree. Herein appears the contingentism and libertism of Scotus, the root of whose theory is that, for him, habitual grace is not substantially supernatural but only extrinsically so, in the same way as the restoration of natural sight to a blind man by supernatural means.

    Thomists maintain that the act of charity of a wayfarer is properly and intrinsically meritorious de condigno for eternal life from the very nature of charity and of grace, the seed of glory, presupposing, however, the divine ordination and promise, without which there would be no strict right to eternal life, but only a relation to it. This is a corollary of the definition of grace essentially supernatural as a physical and formal participation in the divine nature, which is opposed to Scotist and Nominalist theor[ies of grace]. (Cf. Salmanticenses, De gratia, “de merito,” disp. II; John of St. Thomas; Billuart.)

    Merit de congruo is that which is not founded on justice; it is twofold:

    1. Merit de congruo, strictly speaking, is based on friendship or on a friendly right to a reward; it is found in works done out of charity, inasmuch as charity is analogically but properly a certain friendship between God and the just man. Thus a just man can merit the first grace for another man; a Christian mother can likewise merit de congruo even the very conversion of her son, as did St. Monica and as the blessed Virgin Mary merited for us de congruo what Christ merited for us de condigno, so Pius X declares in his encyclical Ad diem illum, February 2, 1904 (Denz., no. 3034). This merit de congruo and presupposes the state of grace. (Cf. below, art. 6 c and ad 1, 2, 3.)

    2. However, merit de congruo, broadly speaking, does not presuppose the state of grace but only a certain disposition for sanctifying grace or prayer, just as prayer may be present in a sinner in the state of mortal sin. It is therefore not based on any friendly right but only on the bounty or mercy of God who rewards it. (Cf. St. Thomas, a. 3, body of the article; IV Sent., dist. 15, q. I, a. 3, qc. 4.) Thus, by good works done outside of charity we merit something de congruo, in a broad sense; cf. Salmanticenses (De gratia, tr. 16, de merito, disp. II, no. 9) and Billuart (see both his treatments De gratia and De merito). We shall presently find the basis of this division in St. Thomas’ next article. [Translator’s note: a clear discussion of impetration is helpful in these matters. See both Hugon’s treatment and the remarks cited from Gardeil in note 4 above.]

    N.B. From the foregoing can be deduced a conclusion which is of the greatest moment and to which insufficient attention is paid by some writers: the term “merit” is not applied univocally but analogically, and that not only as it refers either to human affairs (such as the merit of a soldier) or to divine, but it is even applied analogically with regard to the divine referring both to merit de condigno and to merit de congruo and also to their subdivisions. It is evident from this that analogous concepts share the same name in common but the reason signified by the name is not absolutely the same in both (as in univocal concepts), but different absolutely and the same under a certain aspect (that is, either comparatively or proportionally the same). Manifestly, with respect to dignity, merit is denominated in the first place from the merits of Christ, and with respect to application of the name, it is denominated in the first place from merit in the human order, for instance, the merit of a soldier. Merit thus refers analogically (by an analogy of [proper] proportion[ality]) but nevertheless properly and intrinsically, that is, more than metaphorically, to merit de condigno and also to merit de congruo strictly speaking. But it does not refer properly but metaphorically, or according to an analogy of extrinsic attribution, to merit de congruo broadly speaking; cf. Salmanticenses.

    ↩︎

  7. Trent, Decree on Justification, ch. 16, canon 32.↩︎

  8. Against Cornelius Jansen, the Church declared that merit requires this dual exemption, both from external violence and natural necessity (see Denzinger, no. 1094 [2003]: “[Condemned:] In order to merit or demerit in the state of fallen nature, man does not need to have freedom from necessity; freedom from coercion suffices”).↩︎

  9. See Augustin Grétillat, Exposé de théologie systématique, vol. 4 (Paris: 1900), 949.↩︎

  10. See Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus (Jan. 29, 1336); Council of Florence, Decretum pro Graecis. Cf. Denzinger nos. 531[1002] and 693[1304].↩︎

  11. See Granderath, Acta et Decreta concilii vaticani (Freiburg im Breisgau: 1892), p. 564, col. 2.↩︎

  12. Translator’s note: I retain, however, certain theological reservations regarding the exact manner in which to understand the “fixing” of eternal beatitude, given the eternal distance that separates uncreated-participated beatitude of the blessed and the uncreated-comprehensive beatitude that is God’s sole prerogative. The notion of “participated eternity” seems to express the paradox that requires, as essential constituents, something of the motionlessness of eternity alongside the conditions of creatureliness that, especially in our wayfaring conditions, makes our knowledge and love a kind of “motionless movement” (κίνησις ἀκίνητος, in an expression associated with, for example, Proclus). In addition to the well-known positions associated with Ss. Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus, one can find this sort of insight perhaps implicitly expressed, at least in part, in the following remark made in passing in Charles Louis Gay, La vie et la doctrine de notre signeur Jesus-Christ (Poitiers / Paris: Oudin, 1879), 2–3:

    O holy Father—holy in Yourself, holy in Your Son, holy in Your Holy Spirit! The angels who behold You with rapture sing Your praise with transport. The ages pass—if indeed there are ages for them. At the very least, our ages pass and flow away. Those blessed spirits ever behold the same spectacle. And while, in a single glance, they encompass the whole universe and penetrate it to its depths—so much so that, finding in it no longer either novelty or mystery, they could cease to look upon it without losing anything or unlearning anything—yet, contemplating Your face, O holy Father, and in You Your Son, and in You both Your shared Spirit, they never cease to discover new perfections therein. All that they discover, they admire and praise. And, what that they praise, they truly, in fact, live: eternally hungering for what they devour, and eternally devouring what they hunger for. Yet their hunger never depletes their nourishment, nor does their nourishment ever fully satisfying their hunger, in which they experience no suffering but, rather, an exquisite beatitude.

    ↩︎

  13. See the comments on this text by both St. Thomas and Fr. Cornely.↩︎

  14. Second Synod of Orange, can. 18 (Denzinger, no. 191[388]).↩︎

  15. See Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, ch. 16, can. 32.↩︎

  16. See Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, ch. 16.↩︎

  17. Translator’s note: Qualification added because of the way that these natural deeds can have a meritorious value when they truly are ordered to the ends of charity.↩︎

  18. See Trent, Decree on Justification, chs. 10 and 16 and the 55th and 56th condemned propositions drawn from Quesnel (Denzinger, nos. 1405 [2456] and 1406 [2457].↩︎

  19. See ST I-II, q. 114, a. 4.↩︎

  20. See Hugon, Hors d’Église, 2nd ed., p. 186–7.

    Translator’s note: One should note, however, that the other virtues are not pure means for charity (in which case they would elicit acts of charity itself). They have an infravalent subordination, retaining their own objectivity, while being able to be ordered to charity. This is particularly true of the acquired moral virtues. Important for understanding their relationship to charity is to understand the notion of modal supernaturality quoad finem.↩︎

  21. See Vasquez, disp. 127 and 217.↩︎

  22. See Suarez, De gratia, bk. 12, ch. 8–10; Mazella, De virtibus infusis, no. 134.↩︎

  23. Many other theologians agree with the Angelic Doctor on this point. For example, see Saint Bonaventure, In II Sent., dist. 4; Robert Bellarmine, De justificatione, ch. 15.↩︎

  24. See Saint Thomas In II Sent., dist. 40, q. 1, a. 5, ad 6.↩︎

  25. Translator’s note: See the brief appendix on virtual intention included in Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, De Beatitudine (Turin: Marietti, 1951) 59–62. A translation is available at https://www.athomist.com/articles/virtual-intention-garrigou.↩︎

  26. St. Thomas, In II Sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 1, ad 4.↩︎

  27. We have discussed this teaching at length in our Hors d’Église, 2nd ed., p. 56ff. [Also see https://www.athomist.com/articles/hugon-salvation-of-pagans and https://www.athomist.com/articles/the-effects-of-the-fall-and-natural-law-hugon.]↩︎

  28. See St. Thomas, De malo, q. 2, a. 5, ad 7.↩︎

  29. See Hugon, Marie pleine de grâce (Paris: Lethielleux), 114–6. (In translation, Édouard Hugon, Mary, Full of Grace, trans. John G. Brungardt [Providence, RI: Cluny Media, 2019.])↩︎

  30. Translator’s note: On this topic, at the present time, personally take the position of Garrigou-Lagrange found in “Imperfection,” in The Love of God and the Cross of Jesus, vol. 1, translated by Jeanne Marie (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder, 1948), 318–344. For an opposed critique, with a summary of the relevant history, see James C. Osbourn, The Morality of Imperfections (Westminster, MD: The Carroll Press, 1950).↩︎

  31. See Hugon, Le mystère de l’Incarnation, 265ff; also, see the decree of the Holy Office from July 1, 1918.↩︎

  32. See Hugon, Marie pleine de grâce, 117.↩︎

  33. See St. Thomas, In IV Sent. dist. 49, q. 5, ad 5: “The reward corresponding to merit by reason of charity, however small it may be, is greater than any reward corresponding to an act by reason of its genus.”↩︎

  34. See St. Thomas, Quod. VI, a. 2; In I Cor., ch. 2, lect 2.↩︎

  35. St. Bernardino, Oeuvres, vol. 2, sermon 51, ch. 1.↩︎

  36. Translator’s note: I would put it this way: so that the radiance of divine glory might refract more fully in us. (This is perhaps another way of saying that the “external glory” of God might thereby be greater.)↩︎

  37. See ST I-II, q. 114, a. 8.↩︎

  38. Trent, Decree on Justification, can. 32.↩︎

  39. See ST I-II, q. 114, a. 7.↩︎

  40. See Trent, Decree of Justification, can. 16 and 32 and ch. 16.↩︎

  41. See Augustine, De dono perseverantiae, ch. 5, no. 10 (PL 45, col. 999).↩︎

  42. On this subject, the reader can consult Fr. Bainvel, Devotion to the Sacred Heart (Paris: Beauchesne), and the article in the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique; Fr. Vermeersch, S.J., Practice and Doctrine of Devotion to the Sacred Heart (Tournai: Casterman, 1908); Van der Meersch, De gratia, p. 377.↩︎

  43. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones de diversis, sermon 41 (PL 183, col. 658).↩︎

  44. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Epistola 129 (al. 35a) (PL 182, cols. 283–84).↩︎

  45. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, De consideratione, bk. 5, chap. 14, no. 31 (PL 182, col. 806).↩︎

  46. Translator’s note: This topic has been recently treated in detail by Dr. David Elliot in a forthcoming festschrift in honor of Notre Dame’s Dr. Jean Porter.↩︎

  47. ST I-II, q. 114, a. 8, ad 3. Concerning St. Thomas’s theory concerning this question, see the commentators’ discussion of ST II-II, q. 114, a. 8. In this locus, see Salmanticenses, disp. 6, no. 81; Billuart, De caritate, diss. 2, [§§]1 and 3. For the other opinion, see Suarez, [De gratia], bk. 9, no. 232; Becanus In ST III, tr. 1, ch. 22, q. 3. Translator’s note: Hugon cites other texts in his Latin work cited at the beginning of this translation.↩︎

  48. Translator’s note: This comment perhaps needs to be counterbalanced by a fuller treatment of the res et sacramentum and the role of reviviscence in various sacraments. Yet, even here, one must take care not to reduce the grace received in the sacrament to the degree of one’s merits. Dr. David Elliot and I once discussed this as he found it in John of St. Thomas, Billuart, and Doronzo. I think, also, that it has important implications for justifying the Eastern practice of communion of infants. In any case, rhetorically, this position is well summarized by Journet thus in vol. 3 of The Church of the Word Incarnate, trans. Dominic Spiekermann, ed. Matthew K. Minerd (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2026), 1401:

    And the redemption merited by Christ on the Cross is to be dispensed to each believer, at key moments in his life, by way of the sacraments, not, of course, independent of his dispositions, but rather in dependence on them, even if the sacramental effects far exceed these dispositions and are merely proportionate to them, such that he who approaches with three talents receives six, and he who approaches with four receives eight, and so forth, in accord with the words of the Gospel: “To him who has will more be given, and from him who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away” (Luke 8:18, RSV).

    I will refrain from further commentary on this matter, lest I steal the thunder of Dr. Elliot. Yet, I find it to be a very interesting topic, namely the parsing of relations and distinctions involved in meritorious growth and sacramental growth.↩︎

Dr. Matthew Minerd

A Ruthenian Catholic, husband, and father, I am a professor of philosophy and moral theology at Ss. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA. My academic work has appeared in the journals Nova et Vetera, The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Saint Anselm Journal, Lex Naturalis, Downside Review, The Review of Metaphysics, and Maritain Studies, as well in volumes published by the American Maritain Association through the Catholic University of America Press. I have served as author, translator, and/or editor for volumes published by The Catholic University of America Press, Emmaus Academic, Cluny Media, and Ascension Press.

https://www.matthewminerd.com
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