[Question:]{.underline} Does mortal sin destroy merit forever?
[Answer:]{.underline} No merit for good deeds is properly our own, for no act can be supernaturally meritorious except through the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is by Himself perfectly pleasing to His Father in heaven. Our merits are entirely dependent on Jesus’ merits, and in effect their fruit.
Consequently, if one has the misfortune to lose the union with Our Divine Savior that is given to him by sanctifying grace, then becoming spiritually dead, he separate ourselves from Him and consequently loses all the merits of his previous life. All his past good deeds are wasted, and of no more benefit to his soul than if he had never done them.
However, when a man makes a good humble confession and recovers the grace that he had lost, he is once again united with our Divine Savior, source of all merits. It is manifestly obvious that Jesus, who is God, has not in the meantime forgotten all his good deeds, but is very mindful of them. They were never destroyed in themselves, but only unable to have the weight and value of merit on account of the sinner’s separation from Christ. However, with the return to sanctifying grace, this obstacle to merit is removed. Consequently the sinner who does penance recovers all the merit from all the good works of his entire life that were performed in the state of sanctifying grace and for the love of our Divine Lord.
Here we penetrate just a little into the depth and the power of God’s mercy. It truly is a restoration of everything that was lost through sin, and not only the washing away of the fault. Justification of the sinner brings with it as well sanctifying grace, a share in the divine life, the friendship with God, the adoption of sons of God, and returns the soul to the state it was before sin, with the exception of the punishment due to sin. Indeed, frequently the situation of the mortal sinner returned to the state of grace is better than before he committed mortal sin, for having realized his weakness and escaped from his accursed lukewarmness, he now has a greater love of God and degree of sanctifying grace.
Having returned to its former state, the soul recuperates with sanctifying grace the sharing in Jesus’ merits and life, and the fruit of Jesus’ merits, namely its own merits for good deeds accomplished in the state of grace. O admirable and incomprehensible disposition of Divine Providence, yet inseparable from the mystery of the justification of the sinner. This recovery of the merits of past good deeds is called reviviscence. Consequently, mortal sin does not destroy merits forever, but only destroy merits until such time as the sinner, having made a good confession, recuperates the divine friendship.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.