“The theological virtues dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity. They have God for their origin, their motive, and their object – God known by faith, God hoped in and loved for his own sake. There are three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. They inform all the moral (human) virtues and give life to them.” – Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 1840/1841
Instances of the word “faith” in the Holy Bible number about 380 and eclipse hope and charity. The virtues must exist in you together or they are devoid of their true meaning. Once we are in heaven – as we hope – faith and hope will be truly realized; charity (love) remains.
In his book God or Nothing, Cardinal Robert Sarah writes, “Our life of faith most often walks in the night. The more faith has to confront trials, the stronger it becomes. Nights of faith always end with finding the little light of God.”
“Faith” is one of those words that gets tossed around, probably more than any other word. With our secular friends, faith seems often to be brought down to the lowest denominator and finds itself sparring with reason.
Christians might be thought of as having some sort of blindness or be irrational to have faith. Like it or not, faith is a necessary part of our human nature. We cannot function without faith. In every encounter, whether with a cashier or our spouse, we exhibit some level of faith, and it is not blind.
The difference is with God. Faith from him is supernatural. Meaning it is, and always will be, true. “It is certain,” as the Catechism says.
Pope St. John Paul II writes, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth – in a word, to know himself – so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.” (Fides et Ratio)
On the Christian side, faith also gets brought down to the lowest denominator. All Christians will profess faith in Jesus as being their “Lord and Savior.” Anything beyond that, one wonders what the fuss is all about.
Why is supernatural faith denied or refused? God can be reasonably perceived. St. Paul writes, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.” (Romans 1:19-20)
We read in CCC 154/155, “Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed are contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason. …
“In faith, the human intellect and will cooperate with divine grace, (as St. Thomas says,) ‘Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.’”
If the existence of God is perceived just by walking out the door, and you, me and our fellow Christians have faith, why does the world push it away? There is the problem of evil, which is for another time. Could Christians be the fault?
The problem is, the Church split (like Israel), and subsequently the virtues of faith, hope and charity, while true from God, have been distorted, so there no longer is what people perceive as “one faith.”
With “once saved, always saved,” Christian hope has been achieved before heaven. Additionally, we really have not been the best stewards of our resources, so consequently our hope has been redirected to “saving the planet” through technology.
With charity (love), we have also reduced it to the lowest denominator. We have exchanged the creature for the creator. Love for neighbor (important), competes with, or has usurped, love for God (more important).
St. Thomas defines love as an act of the will: To love is to will the good of the other. If you think closely about this definition, “will” and “good” will have a massive spectrum of meaning and understanding.
Now return to the top of this article and reread the first paragraph. Keep this in mind when you exercise your faith, hope and charity, and you will be truly happy.