The things I love the most about our faith are the things I don’t know. Mysteries the substance for which I hunger and feed upon. This is why the Rosary touches me in such a profound way. Only recently, while drudging my way through some novenas (yes, drudging) have I started to truly realize the value of its mysteries.
Besides the glorious, sorrowful, joyful, & luminous mysteries, there are also three little Aves at the beginning of the Rosary where (I’m told) we are to pray for the virtues of faith, hope, and love. These virtues are mysteries in themselves.
When praying these Aves, I would often have in mind 1 Corinthians 13:
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially, then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Because love is the greatest, I used to pray more fervently for that virtue than for the other two. They didn’t seem as important. In fact, I sometimes wondered how faith and hope were even useful.
When praying my novena, which was for the faithless, I started thinking about faith in a different light. I realized that they were hopeless because they were faithless. They couldn’t have hope because they didn’t believe in it.
What do we have hope in? We hope for the greatest of these, the greatest desire of our hearts – Love.
So we must have faith in hope, and hope in love. They lead to each other, and they can't be separated. At present we know only partially, but someday we shall know fully!
