Faith, hope, and love

"Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love."  1 Corinthians 13: 13

Yesterday was the Feast of the Holy Trinity.   The Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian Faith.  I may discuss it more in another post.

However, I would like to discuss tonight a few things that definitively tie in to the Trinity, and are essential to understand, if one wishes to begin experiencing the Divine, Trinitarian life here on Earth, and live it fully in Heaven.  Those three things are the three theological virtues; faith, hope, and charity (or love).  They tie in to the Trinity because they, as the Catechism says in Paragraph 1812, "dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity."  So, in order to experience life in the Trinity, one must live the three theological virtues.

Before this paragraph, the Catechism discussed what virtue is in general. It says in paragraph 1803, "A virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good."   It then goes on to discuss human virtues, which we may also discuss in a future post.  However, doing human virtues alone, while perhaps building our character, and making us better people, cannot, in and itself, lead us to experience Divine, or Trinitarian life, inside of us.  For that, one needs the infusion of the theological virtues.  These virtues animate our Christian life, and make us "capable of acting as children of God, and meriting eternal life." (p.1813)   When God infuses these virtues in us, it is a "pledge of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the faculties of the human being." (ibid).    So, here is the connection between the three theological virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which we spoke of a few days ago.  When the virtues are infused in us, the Holy Spirit, with all His gifts, is then given for us to actively live out those virtues.  So, to repeat, we cannot live these virtues on our own, they have to be infused, and then the Holy Spirit needs to come to allow us to live those virtues in their perfection.  That is a lot of grace, but it is all there for us!

One will often hear our Protestant brothers and sisters say that we are saved bv faith alone, not works.  If they are referring to works of the law, or natural works, we agree. However, Catholics believe in works of grace, and those are works done, with the help of the Holy Spirit, as a result of the theological virtues infused in us. We can take those to the grave with us.  In fact, they are the only things that last, as our opening Scripture verse states.

Here is a brief description of each virtue:

1) Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself.  (p.1814)  Every time we make an interior or exterior (public) act of faith, we exercise this virtue.  We exercise this virtue when we give all of ourselves over to this God whom we believe in.  We exercise this virtue when we live out our Faith in any way.
2) Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. (p.1817)  Every time we place our trust in God, even in difficult circumstances, we exercise this virtue.  Every time we believe we or others can be saved, despite our faults and failings, and live our lives accordingly in joyful expectation, and in line with the dignity that our neighbor and ourselves deserve, we exercise this virtue.   I believe in the world today, that we need this virtue the most out of the three.
3) Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God. (p.1822)    I think this is pretty self explanatory.  The key point, though, is that even here, this love is a supernatural gift, it is not something we can do on our own.  We can only love as we should with God's help.

A lot of more can be sound about each of these.  There has been an entire Papal Encyclical written on each of these virtues in the last five years.  Reading them in their entirety, while recommended, is not necessary for salvation.  However, living these virtues is.  Why?  Because, as stated earlier, we are saved not by faith alone, but by faith and works of grace.  We cannot do the necessary works of grace by ourselves; to do those necessary works, we need the infusion of the theological virtues.  Furthermore, we cannot live those virtues without the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, we can say,  we cannot be saved without the Holy Spirit.  So, we see here that while we rightly proclaim Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, all Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, whom we celebrated yesterday, are necessary for salvation.  They are necessary to live joyful, hopeful, and loving lives.

Saint Joseph demonstrated each of these virtues.  He believed God's messenger, the angel, exercising the virtue of faith.  He trusted in God to protect his family, exercising the virtue of hope.  He loved his family as God would love them, exercising the virtue of charity.  Let us turn to him as an example, and an intercessor, for living these virtues.

Joseph, most faithful, pray for us.