Do good works done before baptism and confirmation increase anything?
A viewer notes that good works after baptism and confirmation increase justification, and asks whether good works done before baptism and confirmation increase anything.
Answer
Yes, they increase your chances of coming to salvation, because God leads you toward baptism through them. You find this in chapters four and five of session six of the Council of Trent, which speak of God's prevenient grace. Whether you are saved or not saved, you cannot do any genuinely good work without God's prevenient grace first moving you. So God gives grace to the unsaved man, the man responds and does good works, and Trent says those works put him in the way of salvation. No good work is ever wasted in the Catholic Church. If it does not count before you are saved, it counts after; it can even be applied to a soul in purgatory, and any good work or suffering can be offered for someone else, which is what the communion of saints and the treasury of merits are about. Just as Jesus fed the five thousand and twelve baskets were left over, nothing is wasted.