[2024]Sanctifying grace makes us "pleasing to God."
[2025]We can have merit in God's sight only because of God's free plan to associate man with the work of His grace. Merit is to be ascribed in the first place to the grace of God, and secondly to man's collaboration. Man's merit is due to God."
I used to be a Catholic but decided I didn’t have the legal mind to navigate through all of their rules, regulations, traditions, encyclicals, etc. God never intended for salvation to be so difficult, and certainly not something that has to be “achieved”.
The wonder of redemption is that we have been reborn into the Family of God. When we were yet separated, our works were as nothing... just as I take no personal pride in the accomplishments of the neighbor kids. Now, God does delight in our works and the New Testament speaks in many places of God rewarding His children according to their deeds. In essence, Christ merited for man the ability to merit from God.