So, without having made a thorough study of it, but judging from Brown’s hints, it seems to me that “merit” is very roughly equivalent to “holiness,” “sanctity,” “righteousness” but it is still almost impossible to translate into English. Notice that Brown, in the footnote above, translates three simple words “vir potens meritis” as “a man powerful in his standing in Heaven”!
My hunch is that, when in a Collect we pray that we may be aided by a Saint’s “merits” we mean that his advocacy for us is connected to his own personal holiness, his righteousness, and more specifically (if Brown’s translation is correct) his standing in the heavenly court before God … much like we would ask a friend, who has a personal relationship with a very powerful ruler, to intercede with him on our behalf and vouch for us.
I get the image of a sinner in the heavenly court, cowering behind a very holy man who is powerful and influential with God. We want to associate our own sorry selves with the “merits” (the goodness, the faithfulness, the righteousness, the power, the influence) of this holy man and we want him to put in a good word for us before this awful Judge. And we are assured that we will be pardoned because this holy man has a personal standing with the Judge himself.
Of course, all this may seem far too “legalistic” “juridical” or “forensic” for the partisans of the mystical Orient … but given that much of the New Testament is written using such language, I think it should be defensible.
It is also interesting to look for equivalents for this notion of the “merits” of the Saints in Eastern liturgical texts.
For instance, a randomly picked troparion for the holy Hieromartyr Myron reads “Wherefore by the fragrance of the gifts God has given thee, thou didst dispel the stench of our souls’ passions.” In the characteristically terse liturgical language of the Orthodox Latin West, the same might be rendered, “and grant that, by the merits of thy blessed Martyr Myron, our souls may be delivered from passions.”
Or try the kontakion of Saint Anastasia: “For Christ has given thee strength which flows to us as a stream of grace, O Virgin Martyr Anastasia.” Her “strength” comes directly from Christ; and through her intercession, it flows to us “as a stream of grace.” Is this very different from the idea of “pleading the merits” of Saint Anastasia?
Also, a very knowledgeable priest told me something rather interesting about the Greek version of the Liturgy of Saint Peter (that is, the medieval Byzantinized version of the Roman Mass). The word merita in the collect Oramus te (in the beginning of the Mass) was rendered as praxis (“works” or “deeds”).
Of course modern Western Rite Orthodox have been aware of the unfortunate connotations which the word “merit” has come to have. In the practice of the Western Rite Vicariate, the term is usually replaced with “prayers” or “intercession,” or better yet translated as “triumphs” or “righteousness” (J. M. Neale, in translating the first line of the Office Hymn Sanctorum meritis, had “The triumphs of the Saints”).
But since Father Turner’s explanation does not seem to be historically tenable, perhaps it’s time for us to stop “censoring” the ancient Collects?
Others are saying that they do not feel it is part of their tradition, not that it is wrong per se…