slightest things we do for Him, such as a genuflection, a sigh, pronouncing the name of Jesus, an aspiration during our work; nay, a mere good will and act of desire, although it is never carried into execution, will merit heaven. O Christians! I repeat, how good it is to serve such a rich and generous Lord!
God has so ordained that our good works cannot merit anything but grace and heavenly glory. In the second place we can see how easy God has made it for us to increase our eternal glory from the fact that our good works, according to the present disposition of Providence, merit nothing but an increase of sanctifying grace and of glory hereafter; and this we must not forget, my dear brethren. Riches, honors, temporal prosperity, success in business, health, a long life, the conversion of a sinner, help and assistance in temptations and dangers of the soul, good inspirations of the Holy Ghost, constancy in the love of God, and that which is most important of all and on which everything depends, the grace of final perseverance and a happy death: these are the goods that the Lord can and will bestow on us, but they are not goods with which our good works shall be rewarded; we may humbly pray for them but we cannot merit them; they may be received as a free gift, but not claimed as a just recompense of merit. Why so? Are the good works we perform in the state of grace and which are united with the merits of Jesus Christ, not worth so much as to merit those goods? Truly, they are worth it and much more. But God has determined to give them no other reward than the increase of grace here and glory hereafter; this exhausts all their merit, so that we may be able to make our eternal joys always greater and greater.
And this merit we may not give away to any one.
Thirdly, this is the very object God has in view in making the merit of our good works altogether our own property, so that it cannot be transferred to others, living or dead. He thus, as it were, places us in the same condition as little children who are under the care of a guardian, and who are indeed owners of their property, but with such limited rights that they cannot make away with any of it lawfully. It is nearly the same with the merit of our good works. I can, for instance, by my prayers, fasting, alms-deeds, Masses, acts of mortification, etc., obtain some blessing from God for the soul or body of some other living person, but no matter how willing I may be to do so, I cannot give him the merit of these good works; it is out of my power to assign that over to another; it is and remains my own property. And if I say a Mass for the souls in purgatory; if I