That the Passion of Christ Caused Our Salvation in the Mode of Merit

Taken from Medulla S. Thomae Aquinatis which arranges various short texts from St. Thomas Aquinas' corpus based on the liturgical year. I will be posting the day's meditation each day and will be bringing it into print once I'm through it.

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Tuesday after the Second Sunday of Lent

That the Passion of Christ Caused Our Salvation in the Mode of Merit

Grace was bestowed upon Christ, not only as an individual, but inasmuch as He is the Head of the Church, so that it might overflow into His members; and therefore Christ’s works are referred to Himself and to His members in the same way as the works of any other man in a state of grace are referred to himself. But it is evident that whosoever suffers for justice’s sake, provided that he be in a state of grace, merits his salvation thereby, according to Matt. 5:10: Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’s sake. Consequently Christ by His Passion merited salvation, not only for Himself, but likewise for all His members.

From the beginning of His conception Christ merited our eternal salvation; but on our side there were some obstacles, whereby we were hindered from securing the effect of His preceding merits: consequently, in order