Some approaches to virtue and virtuous living give the impression that virtuous actions can be stored away like deposits in a bank account or investments in a portfolio. After amassing a substantial balance, one might imagine being able to relax a little—taking a break from living virtuously—because previous good deeds can be “withdrawn” to cancel out subsequent sin. It is precisely this attitude that leads someone to complain that the Lord’s way is not fair when a person who turns away from virtue and commits iniquity is punished and suffers.
Others, however, have no such “virtues account,” but only a long record of vice. When they turn away from sin, they may believe that their newly virtuous actions cancel out their former sins. But here too, they are mistaken. The life‑giving forgiveness that follows true conversion is not purchased or earned by virtuous deeds now being performed; it is granted solely through the sheer mercy and generosity of God’s love.
All of this reminds us that God’s love is not a reward for a life of virtue—much less a payment owed to us. Rather, our efforts at living virtuously gradually open the heart to receive God’s love. Indeed, virtue does not prepare us for God’s love so much as it grows only in conjunction with God’s love already at work within us. As we persevere in virtue, our hearts expand, increasing our capacity to receive an ever‑greater measure of God’s transforming grace.
By contrast, turning away from virtue and embracing sin involves a gradual closing of the heart, eventually rendering it impervious to God’s love, grace, and mercy—that frightening and treacherous state we call “mortal sin.” As spiritual masters like Saint Bernard warn us, unless our hearts are steadily opening more fully to the inflowing of God’s redeeming love, they are inevitably closing, however imperceptibly, and becoming less receptive to God’s saving grace.
Therefore, let us renew our commitment to the daily work of virtue—not as a means of earning God’s favor, but as the humble opening of our hearts to His transforming love. Each act of patience, mercy, humility, and charity widens the inner space where God desires to dwell. And as His love takes deeper root within us, we will find that the path of virtue is not a burden but a joy, drawing us ever closer to the One whose mercy alone saves and whose grace alone makes us whole.