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Mel,
Catholics do not believe you have
to earn your way into
Heaven. I invite you to come up with
a statement from the Church that
suggests this, and we'd be happy
to ensure you understand it in context
of Catholic teaching.
A good example of why we believe
that salvation is a pure grace and
gift from God is that we believe
that the newly-baptized infant who
dies, goes straight to Heaven (we
do not believe this of the unbaptized
infant).
See my illustration here:
This topic is rather complicated
because people have different ideas
of what it means to earn your
way into Heaven.
The short answer
is that we, as Catholics, believe
that salvation is a process; it begins
with God's initiative. We cooperate
with His grace, and so long as we
continue to do so until death (or
repent, if we do not) (Romans 11:22, Colossians 1:23, Hebrews 3:6, Hebrews
6:11, and Revelation 2:7), we will
be saved. Nevertheless, every step
requires and depends on God's grace,
so it isn't earned in the way you
have in mind. It is faith working
through love (Galatians 5:6).
We also believe we must bear fruit
to be saved (Matthew 3:10, Matthew 7:19), but everything depends
on God; as our Catechism, our
guide to what we believe, quotes
St. Augustine:
"for in crowning [the saints']
merits, you are crowning your
own gifts."
CCC 2006
Another good answer we gave in a
similar posting can be read here:
Eric
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