Holy Ghost, grant us the merits of all virtues.
“Merits” is a tricky word when we use it in a religious sense. If we don’t understand it correctly, it can sound like we think we earn or deserve our salvation in some way. We do not. God gives us our salvation by His grace alone when we open ourselves up in faith and love.
However, because God loves us so much, He allows us to cooperate in the process of salvation. It is a process, too. Even though He initiates it and saves us by His grace, we have to grow in that grace. This takes work, and through our efforts, God allows us to “merit.” He rewards us as we grow closer to Him in virtue and as we enter deeper and deeper into His sanctifying love. Of course, we can only do this by His grace.
So our merits, as one professor remarks, are a bit like the praise and hugs a father gives to his child when the child offers his father a gift that the father has paid for and helped the child wrap. Because the father loves his child, he rewards the child for his “hard work” even though the father has done most of it. What the father wants most is the child’s love. The same is true for God.
Holy Ghost, make us persevere in justice.
The concept of justice is often misunderstood in today’s world. What it ultimately means, however, is being right with God, and that is its sense in this petition. When we ask the Holy Spirit to help us persevere in justice, we are asking for an outpouring of grace to keep us right with the Blessed Trinity.
Holy Ghost, be Thou our everlasting reward.
This petition might as well be “Holy Ghost, get us to Heaven,” for God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is our ultimate, everlasting reward in Heaven, where we will see Him face-to-face and spend eternity growing in love for Him and for each other.
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