We cannot become saints, we cannot be saved, we cannot even have faith, hope, or charity (in the supernatural sense, the only one that matters) without God's grace. How do we get/increase in grace, mature our interior lives, become better people? There are three ways (thread):

The first means is merit. Merit is when we "earn" grace by good works, obtaining a right to an increase in God's supernatural life on the basis of God's justice & promised rewards. Since our ability to merit comes from Christ, only those already in a state of grace can merit 1/

Say someone asks us for help, giving an opportunity to exercise charity - we could either not do it, which merits nothing; we could simply do it, which merits an increase in the grace of charity; or we could do it with hesitation or grumbling, which merits, but imperfectly 2/

It is thought that when we merit imperfectly, we don't immediately obtain the graces merited. Some believe we receive those graces from the Lord when we next receive communion, others not until we pass from this life to the next 3/

When we perform a good work as we ought to, however, God immediately grants His grace, thus allowing us to go from height to height in virtue by working selflessly again and again with more and more supernatural charity to sustain us 4/