All virtues provide man with the desire and ability to do good and make right choices in his life.
Sacred Scripture reveals the special Theological Virtues of faith, hope, and love. Love is also known as charity.
The Theological Virtues are powers that raise man up above the natural world, direct him toward God, and allow him achieve the happiness of Heaven.
These exceptional graces are given by God directly and are infused into the souls of the faithful at Baptism.
Being a Christian requires that these gifts from God be exercised and developed throughout life.
Gifts from God at Baptism:
Virtues for living in relationship with God:
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. There are three Theological Virtues: faith, hope, and charity.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1813
Power well beyond our own:
Virtue that we cannot produce by ourselves:
Faith, hope and charity go together. Hope is practiced through the virtue of patience, which continues to do good even in the face of apparent failure, and through the virtue of humility, which accepts God’s mystery and trusts him even at times of darkness. Faith tells us that God has given his Son for our sakes and gives us the victorious certainty that it is really true: God is love! It thus transforms our impatience and our doubts into the sure hope that God holds the world in his hands and that, as the dramatic imagery of the end of the Book of Revelation points out, in spite of all darkness He ultimately triumphs in glory. Faith, which sees the love of God revealed in the pierced heart of Jesus on the Cross, gives rise to love. Love is the light—and in the end, the only light—that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working. Love is possible, and we are able to practise it because we are created in the image of God.
Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, December 25, 2005
Virtues that touch God:
Faith, hope, and love are often misunderstood:
Therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober. Those who sleep go to sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet that is hope for salvation.
1 Thessalonians 5: 6-8
Strength for greater devotion to God:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Life in the seminary:
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