So by the time they went to heaven, they had put these merits in the heavenly bank, so to speak, and, far from being in the red, were in the black. They had achieved not just the bare minimum to get them to heaven but an impressive positive balance—not of money, but of merits. So the collected merits of all the holy people in church history amounted to this tremendous treasury of merit. Who could ever imagine how vast it was? Who could say how much merit had been amassed by Jesus alone? And by Mary? And Peter and Paul and all the hundreds of saints who had ever lived? And who controlled that
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