Intro to the Theological Virtues

Today we meditate on the 4th Luminous Mystery

The Transfiguration, where on Mt. Tabor, Jesus allows His Divinity to shine through His humanity in such a radiant way that Peter, James and John see with their own eyes that Jesus is not only fully man but He is at the same time fully God. In Jesus God became man for the purpose of sharing His divine life with us so that we might becomes sons and daughters of God, sharing in the glory. Jesus is transfigured on Mt. Tabor, with His divinity shining through His humanity shows us the purpose of our life – to share in the Divine Nature through grace and virtues of Faith, Hope and Love.

The gifts of Faith, Hope and Love enable us to be like God and live like God as His sons and daughters.

These supernatural virtues enable us to do two things:

A.   To make God Himself the goal of our activity

a.    With the Theological virtues we can know God and love God as He is

b.    In this way the theological virtues enable us to reach God

B.   The Theological virtues enable us to engage in divine activity

a.    They let us participate in God’s activity  

This is extraordinary because it means we are able to operate on the divine level

If a thing can act rationally it must be a rational thing

If a thing can act spiritually it must be a spiritual thing

If a thing can act supernaturally, act on a divine level, it must be a supernatural thing,

If we are going to act at the divine level, then we must first be raised to the divine level.

In other words, we must be divinized. This is precisely the plan of God as 2 Peter 1:4  “You will be able to share the divine nature and to escape corruption in a world that is sunk in vice.”

On our own human beings are incapable of acting beyond the human level

With the Gifts of Faith, Hope and Love God raises us to His level so that we can

A.   Direct our activity towards God

B.   Share in God’s activity – to do what God does

How does that happen?  God is infinitely above us, infinitely greater, so how can we get high enough to reach Him and share in His activity? The answer is that God has to raise us above our natural potential, He elevates us to more than we could naturally be on our own.  Think of a little girl who wants to hug her mother, but she is too small to reach up to her mother’s height. If she and her mom are going to embrace the mom will have to stoop down and pick up her up. 

So too, we want to reach God, embrace him, we want to make God the goal of our knowing and loving but we can’t reach him. So God bends down, lifts us up, that we may then embrace Him.

Likewise, once God raises us to His level we can share in His activity.

Think of a little boy who wants to drive his dad’s car – obviously he can’t; only grown-ups can drive cars. But if the dad places his son on his lap, and steers the car by sandwiching the little boy’s hands between the steering wheel and his own hands, then it works. The kid can now do what he has no business doing (We used to do this crazy stuff in the 70’s…now you can only do it in the driveway or something) because his father raised his son up to share in his activity.

In both these examples the children are helped by their parents to do something they couldn’t naturally do on their own.

This transfiguration of our nature and activity requires a supernatural elevation of our being.

The relationship of parent to child must be established between God and humans for the theological virtues to happen.

We become divinized

God became man so that we could be raised to the level of God: share in His being and activity.

This is a remarkable miracle, most Christians don’t even know it. Those who do, take it for granted. If you are not totally blown away by this idea then you either don’t get it or take it for granted.

God’s plan is that we are divinized, transfigured and adopted by Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

At Baptism we received Sanctifying grace – a share in the life of God Himself- which transforms our being, our relationship with God and our capacity for action by equipping us with the theological virtues. These gifts enable us to exist differently, and have the capacity to act differently, not as children of this world, but as children of God.

A brief description of each theological virtue:

Faith means belief in what God has revealed or told us. Faith recognizes that God has given us information we couldn’t know on our own (i.e., revelation), and it accepts that information as being true.

Hope is striving for union with the Trinity. With this virtue, we desire God as our ultimate happiness, and we are able to pursue union with Him before all else.

Charity is a share in God’s love, and so makes us capable of loving both God and neighbor selflessly and sacrificially, for their own sake.