There are three foundational virtues—faith, hope, and love. The term charity is often used for love. These three are known as theological virtues. They prepare us to participate in the divine life, and they “relate directly to God. They dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity” (CCC, 1812). In Greek, theos means God. They are gifts from God that call for a response on our part.
The theological virtues are the foundation of Christian moral activity; they animate it and give it its special character. They inform and give life to all the moral virtues. They 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 the faculties of the human being. 153 —CCC, 1813
Faith is a theological virtue, a gift from God, by which we believe in God and all he has revealed to us and that the Holy Spirit offers for our belief.
“Faith in God leads us to turn to him alone as our first origin and ultimate goal, and neither to prefer anything to him nor to substitute anything for him” (CCC, 229).
Faith, then, is a grace given to us by God, and it is a human act, a conscious and free act on our part to respond to God’s grace. It is an act of the Church which precedes and makes possible individual faith, supporting and nourishing the faith of all believers. The gift of faith remains with the person who has not sinned against it, but without good works it is dead (see James 2:26). “When it is deprived of hope and love, faith does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of his Body” (CCC, 1815).
The disciple of Christ must not only keep the faith and live on it, but also profess it, confidently bear witness to it, and spread it: ‘All however must be prepared to confess Christ before men and to follow him along the way of the Cross, amidst the persecutions which the Church never lacks. ’154 —CCC, 1816
Only by faith can we come to know and experience God as the Holy Trinity—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Without faith we cannot believe in the Trinity and thus without faith we cannot be saved.
Jesus models faithfulness when he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before his Death: “‘Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want’” (Mark 14:36). Jesus is alone in the garden. His disciples are off sleeping. He has one last chance to abandon the message to which he had committed himself. Instead, knowing that dire consequences would result, he prays to his Father and pledges obedience.
Faith leads to a faith-filled life. The Blessed Virgin Mary models faith in action when she freely says yes to God’s invitation to be the mother of the savior (see Luke 1:26-38). By her faith and obedience Mary becomes the Mother of God and of us all.
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” (CCC, 1817). Hope is the virtue that makes us long for the happiness that God placed in our hearts. It allows us to remain encouraged and sustains us when we’re lonely or feeling abandoned. Hope preserves us from selfishness and leads us to the happiness that results from charity (see CCC, 1818).
Hope is the ‘sure and steadfast anchor of the soul . . . that enters . . . where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf. ’155 Hope is also a weapon that protects us in the struggle of salvation. . . . It affords us joy even under trial. —CCC, 1820
Hope is expressed and nurtured by prayer and by the Lord’s Prayer in particular. The Our Father summarizes everything that hope leads us to want. We can hope for the glory of Heaven because God promised that for those who love him and live in him. “In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere . . . and to obtain the joy of heaven, as God’s eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ” (CCC, 1821).
Charity is the New Commandment to love that Jesus gives us. Charity, or love, is superior to all the virtues. “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2).
The practice of the moral life animated by charity gives to the Christian the spiritual freedom of the children of God. —CCC, 1828
The virtues are cultivated in us by the Holy Spirit. We will never be adequately filled with them. “True virtue has no limits but goes on and on,” Saint Francis de Sales wrote. Charity, he said, “is the virtue of virtues, and which having a definite object, would become infinite if it could meet with a heart capable of infinity.” There’s no end to how much this virtue could grow in us, he said, if only our hearts were big enough.