The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 264: Man’s Merit (2025)

Episode Date: September 20, 2025

Knowing that our good actions begin and end in Christ, we recognize that man’s merit is due to God. Fr. Mike explains that charity in Christ is the source of all our merits. In this way, merit is pure grace, and we should look to the saints for examples of how to live this truth out. St. Thérèse of Lisieux puts it best when she prays to God: “In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands.” Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2006-2011. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture, and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is Day 264. We're reading paragraphs 2006 to 2011. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own catechism in a year reading plan by visiting

ascensionpress.com slash CIY. And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for your daily updates and daily notifications. Today's day 264. Only one day until we're 100 days away from completing this. And what do we talk about today yesterday and the day before? Grace. So good. Amazing. As we said at the very end of that episode. Today, merit. What is merit? And this is so important because there can be, there can be a misconception of what merit is. And because we say, wait a second, but grace is the unmerited gift of God. Like the salvation is unmerited. And yet there is such a thing as merit. So what is that? Well, I'm glad you asked because paragraphs 2006, 2011 are going to answer that question.

So let's come before the Lord with humble hearts on this beautiful gift of a day. Talking about merit. in heaven. Thank you. In the name of your son, Jesus, we ask you to please receive our thanks. You have given us the gift of new life. You've given us the gift of mercy. You've given us the gift of having a relationship with you. To be able to be your sons and daughters. You've adopted us. And by the power of your Holy Spirit, you abide in us. And in you, we live and move and have our being. We thank you this day and every day. Please receive our thanks. Without you, we can do nothing. without you, we are nothing. May you be glorified now and forever. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is Day 264. We were reading

paragraphs 2006 to 2011. Merit. In the Roman Missile, we pray, for you are praised in the company of your saints. And in crowning their merits, you crown your own gifts. 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. With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man. Between God and us, there is an measurable inequality, for we have received everything from him, our creator. The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact the 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. Phileal 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. 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. The charity of Christ is the source in us of all our merits before God. Grace, by uniting us to Christ in act of 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. As St. Thereseu said,

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. All right, there it is, paragraphs 2006 to 2011. You know, one of the reasons why I love this section on merit is because of that last quote from St. Trez of Luceu, so you can be sure that we are going to read this again by the end of this episode. She says, I shall appear before you with empty hands. So incredible.

And that's us. We recognize that everything we have, everything we do, even the merit that we have is a gift of God, right? It's because God works in us, because his grace, because he gives us even the opportunity and the ability to say yes to him. he gives us the opportunity and the ability to bear fruit that that fruit is like well yes my free will i chose to say yes to that but that was you lord i mean remember remember the example of the guitar player from a couple days ago right that their parent out of the blue gives them this incredible guitar and lessons from the best guitar player and free repairs and all these kind of things but unless you unwrap it unless you actually engage with the gift it's not going to have any effect in your life

Well, let's wrap that up even more and realize that what if your parents could even instill in you a desire to play? That's even more of God's grace, right? It's not just here's the gift of grace external to you, but also here's this movement in you. I'm actually going to help you want to pray. I'm going to help you or play the guitar. I'm going to actually moving you and give you the power to say yes. And our parents can't do that for us, but God does do that for us. So this is so important. Paragraph 2007 says, with regard to God, there is no strict right to any

merit on the part of man. Right. So there's nothing we can point in and say, that, I did that. That's all me. No, not all me. It goes on to say, between God and us, there is an immeasurable inequality. For we have received everything from him, our creator. I'm sure you've heard the example, of course, of like, you know, the young kid who wants to buy his father a birthday present. And so he doesn't have any money, though. So what's he have to do? He has to ask his dad for $5 to go down to the store to be able to buy him a gift. So even the power to buy the gift came from the father. Even the resources needed to get the gift came from the father in this. And so we've received everything from God or Creator. So there's no strict right to any merit. And yet there's that prayer. It's the very first

thing we said when it came to this paragraph 2006. It's a prayer from the Roman Missile, right? When we pray in the Mass, it's Preface One of the Saints. So whenever we have a saint day, it says this, for you, meaning you God, for you are praised in the company of your saints, and in crowning their merits, you crown your own gifts, right? We look at the saints and say, oh my gosh, this saint did something incredible. That saint did something remarkable. Whenever we're pointing to the great works of the saints, we're pointing to what God did in them, right? In crowning their merits, you're crowning your own gifts. This is so incredible. Paragraph 2008, the merit of man before God in the Christian life. So our merit before God in our Christian life arises from the fact

I like I'll explain it by just reading it again, arises from the fact that God is freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. That's his own initiative. It builds on our freely saying yes to that, or are freely collaborating with the Lord so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God

and then to the faithful. And always, always whenever there's a good work, the merit of good works attributed in the first place to the grace of God. That's because of God and then to us. It goes on to say, our merit or man's merit, moreover, itself is due to God for his actions proceed in Christ from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit. This whole section on merit, he might think like, wait, so basically there is very little

things that we can claim and say mine. Yep, that's kind of, that's kind of in many ways the takeaway here, that even though there is such a thing as merit, there is so little in life that we could point to and just say, yep, I did that. Or yep, merit. Yes, of course, you cooperated with this. You and I cooperate with God's grace all the time. And that's a real thing, right?

Because it's your free response. This is actually you're a responsible agent. You're a free agent. And that means that when there is merit, when there's good work, when there's good fruit, you're cooperating with God. And you're actually doing that. At the same time, it's because God is giving us the ability to do it. In fact, I've said it like maybe two or three times now.

there's very little in life that we can point to and say mine in so many ways the only thing I can point to in life and I can say mine about is my sin it's quite possible that the only thing that I can point to in this entire world and say that's mine is my sin now maybe by extension you can say yeah but God humbles himself so much that he claims us as his but he always also allows us to claim him as ours. So maybe, maybe also we could say, you could look at the Lord and say, you're mine as well. But strictly speaking, the only thing I've done on my own, the only thing I've ever done on my own is sin. Every good work you and I have ever done, we've been collaborators with divine goodness. So incredible, so incredible. And yet, this is

the crazy thing in paragraph 2009, that because you and I have been adopted by God through baptism, and have the sharers in the divine nature, we can actually be so true merit on us as a result of God's retuitous justice. So it's so incredible. Let me just reread paragraph 2009. This is our right by grace, the full right of love,

making us co-hears with Christ and worthy of obtaining the promised inheritance of eternal life. Again, remember, you're a co-er with Christ. He is by nature, the beloved son of God, beloved son of the father. You are by adoption,

a beloved child of God as well. And you are a co-air with Christ and what, in baptism, because of God's free gift, have been made worthy of obtaining the promised inheritance of eternal life. And it's incredible. So the Council of Trent had said this, said the merits of our good works

are gifts of the divine goodness. Again, once again, St. Augustine here, grace has gone before us. Now we are given what is due. our merits are God's gifts. It's just incredible, incredible. Oh, man. So, last two things.

Paragraph 2010. I think paragraph 2010 wants to balance it all out. If you missed it, if you've been sleeping for any of these previous paragraphs, sentence number one and two highlight, here's the whole thing. Sentence number one. 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. Right, we've already said that.

It's free gift. justification, salvation, sanctification, all that, it's all for God's free gift. Move by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the grace is needed for our sanctification for the increase of grace and charity for the taintment of eternal life. And just to keep those things in balance. Remember, grace or free will, both. Grace are merit?

Yes. And yet we need to understand what that means. And I love the fact that, as I said, we're going to end with the quote of St. Thereseo, because St. Therese highlights this so clearly. You know, St. Terez died when she was 24 years old. She went to enter the convent, I believe, at 15 years old. And she got there and she realized much to her sadness. It seems like she wasn't really strong enough to be a religious sister. That she found herself failing, not like necessarily failing in massive ways, but one small example is she would find herself falling asleep in prayer. Why? Because these sisters didn't get a lot of

sleep. They worked hard and they got up in the middle of the night to pray. And here's this teenager, you know, as studies have said, you know, teenagers need more sleep than even newborns. And here's this teenager who's in the convent and she's fallen asleep in prayer. So just one example of kind of like, I'm not strong enough. I'm not like, she wanted to be a heroic saint. I mean, she wanted to be this amazing heroic saint, but she found her poverty, right? She found her littleness. She found her lack. And so this is someone who came face to face, the young woman became face to face with the reality of oh my goodness i need grace not just that initial grace of conversion not just that initial grace of of justification god i need your grace of just even being

patient because i need your grace of even being patient with myself i need your grace to love the people next to me especially those who are hardest to love and at the end of her life she says what after earth's exile i hope to go and enjoy you father 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. Why did St. Therese want to have empty hands, trying to have empty hands so that she could just receive

him. You know, when we have empty hands, those empty hands can be filled. Here's Therese, I want to come before you with empty hands so I can receive you. And that's in so many ways the heart of the Christian life. Tomorrow we're going to talk about Christian holiness. What is Christian holiness? But today, just to be able to say, God, everything, everything is gift, even our merit. in crowning their merits, you crown your own gifts.

Even our merits are gifts from God. So we just praise him. We praise him for everything. This day and every day I am speaking of today. I am praying for you today. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.