On Faith, Hope and Love

"The blessed apostle offers as a summary of salvation the perfection of these three virtues. `Now,' he says, `these three things remain - faith, hope, love' (1 Cor. 13:13). For it is faith - with its fear of the judgment and punishment to come - which brings about the decline of sin's contagion. It is hope which draws our mind from the things of the present and which in its anticipation of heavenly rewards spurns all the pleasures of the body. And it is love which fires us to long for Christ, to be zealous for the fruit of the spiritual virtues and to detest utterly whatever is contrary to these virtues."

St. John Cassian.