The mountain in Galilee where Jesus had arranged to meet his apostles doesn’t have an earthly geographical name because the encounter was a new creation and the fulfillment of a universal mission, not confined to earthly boundaries. On that mountain, Jesus gave the constitution of the New Covenant, making disciples of all nations and transforming them into children of God through the sacrament of Baptism. These new creatures of God were destined to be good, as every work of God is inherently good.
The Gospel recounts the encounters between the Son of God and humans. While these encounters have multiple characters, only three are effective and creative, providing us with the keys to accessing Jesus’ saving power.
The foundation for the other two encounters is Faith. Jesus consistently sought Faith, as it is the capacity to receive His grace. When we ask without Faith, the grace of Jesus slips away without any effect. Just as stones need intellectual capacity before we can engage in a conversation with them, Faith prepares us as a fertile soil, ready to accept the Word of God—Jesus—and bring Him to life in abundance.
Hope plays a crucial role in calibrating Faith, ensuring it has the necessary expansion to safeguard us from the double-edged dangers of arrogant presumption and unfounded trust. First, it helps us overcome the presumption that we can achieve our salvation through our own efforts. Second, it addresses the unfounded trust that almighty God is obligated to save us without our obedience and conversion. Hope’s primary function is to prepare our will to accept God’s invitation and call, infuse life into our Faith, and carry it without hesitation towards Love, which encompasses God and good works.
The third key is Love. Without Love, Faith and Hope remain formless and empty, similar to the darkness that envelops the deep, devoid of the Holy Spirit of God. Love, in fact, imprints the image of God on our Faith and Hope, and embodies in us the character and profile of God. Love transforms us into good people, just like God; compassionate and caring towards all imperfections; saviors and redeemers from all kinds of sin; dispensers of all the beatitudes to the poor, the mourners, the meek, and those who hunger and thirst for justice; providers of peace, thus creating children of God. Love brings the perfection of completion to Christian morality because it alone directs all our energies towards God, to love Him with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, and to love our neighbor with the same intensity. Love demands perfection in all the virtues, not one or the other, or some more than others, because we must be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.
Through the perfection of faith, hope, and love, even the most insignificant acts of the Christian acquire saving power and bring forth the fruit of eternal life. These virtues connect the lives of God and the Christian, merging them in an unbroken and undivided union in the communion of the New Covenant nature of the Church, the Body of Christ.
