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 the basis of our hope, God loved for His own sake.
The theological virtues are faith, hope and charity. The theological virtues are infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as His children and of meriting eternal life. They are the pledge of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
The Virtue of Faith
Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us and that the church proposes for our belief.
God is truth itself and it is necessary to come to know Him. In Heaven we shall see him face to face and we shall be like Him. Here on earth, we do not see God; it is through faith in Him, and in His Son, that we believe in His word, that we know Him. What he tells us of himself, of His nature, of His life, of His plan of Redemption through His Son, Jesus, we know with certitude. The Word, Jesus, who is always in the bosom of the Father, tells us that which he sees, and we know it because we believe what He tells us. This knowledge of faith is then a divine knowledge, and that is why our Lord said it is a knowledge that gains eternal life. By faith, the believer freely commits his entire self to God, and seeks to know and do God’s will. Faith works through charity which makes it alive.
The Gift of Faith Remains
Even in one who has committed a Mortal Sin
We retain the gift of faith provided that the sin is not against faith. We sin against faith by refusing to accept the word of God as presented to us by the Church. And hence are without sanctifying grace, and charity, and not fully united with Christ.
The Disciple of Christ
The disciple must not keep the virtue of faith and live by it. He must also profess it openly, bear witness to it, and work to spread it. All Christians must be prepared to confess Christ before others and to follow Him along the way of the Cross, amidst the trials of life which we encounter. Service and witness to the faith are necessary for salvation: “Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.” (Mt.10:32f)
In the Light of Faith we know where our blessing lies
We are told through the words of Saint Paul that: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1Cor:2,9) But this great blessing is beyond the strength of our entire nature. Can we attain to it? Yes, without a doubt, God even places in our soul this certainty of achieving this great inheritance, the fruits and merits of Jesus, despite the obstacles opposed to it.
