Have you ever seen the crazy look in a serious athlete’s eyes? There is a gear in that mind that is not in most, one that makes him unsatisfied with mediocrity. He doesn’t want to be good, he wants to be the greatest, and he is willing to push through extremes to become just that.
It is a look that knows no limits and keeps striving to be better and better. There is no extreme to becoming the best.
Sound insane? Well, I wish that we could all have this desire for greatness when it comes to the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. You see, if you take other virtues to the extreme, they become vices. Take courage, for instance—the virtue that allows us to overcome great (and even dangerous) obstacles. Too much courage would be the vice of recklessness, like a guy walking across the Grand Canyon on a tightrope without a safety harness or someone rushing into a burning building to save a goldfish.
Faith, hope, and charity, however, have no extreme. They are gifts from God that orient and conform us to his own divine life. We cannot believe in God too much, hope in him beyond reason, or love him to an excess. The more they increase in us, the more we become conformed to the life of God, and the more God dwells in us as the one intimately known and loved. And we are not left unchanged.
The theological virtues make our drive for greatness operate on a supernatural level. Because by being transformed in faith, hope, and charity, we can no longer settle for mediocrity but strive for holiness, and holiness knows no extreme. By entering into the divine life in the theological virtues, we are not meant to be merely good people, but great saints.
St. Paul described his striving after the greatness of holiness in these radical athletic terms:
Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified. (1 Cor 9:24–27)
We can be bold and ask every day for an increase in the gifts of faith, hope, and charity. As we are conformed to God’s divine life through these virtues, people should see that we are determined to become saints and that God is present within us. He is not just making us good, but is pushing us through the limitless extremes of faith, hope, and love into the greatness of holiness.
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Photo by Free-Photos from Pixabay
