The revised translation of the Roman Missal regularly uses the word merit in the prayers of the Mass. For example in Eucharistic Prayer II, we pray: “Have mercy on us all, we pray, that…we may merit to be coheirs to eternal life.”
My dictionary defines merit as the reward or punishment due, the quantities of actions that constitute the basis of one’s deserts, or a spiritual credit held to be earned by performance of righteous act and to ensure future benefits.
However, our Catholic faith is more clearly expressed in the Letter to the Ephesians which reads “for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of you, it is a gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8-9a)
There is a principle that goes lex orandi, lex credendi, that is the rule of prayer is the rule of believing. I find a number of the prayers to be misleading at best. I wish the translators had shown as much care for content as they did for Latin syntax.
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