Faith, Hope, And Love In Times Of Grief And Loss

One thing that continues to fascinate me about theology in the life of the church is the passion of all the truly great theologians to bring together the wisdom of the ages with the truth of God revealed in Jesus Christ; neither excludes the other. One especially powerful illustration of how this works is a rich tradition that begins with St. Paul and culminates for United Methodists (who still represent a significant portion of this column's readership) in the work of John Wesley. At the heart of this tradition is the understanding of three gifts of the Spirit to which Paul referred at 1 Cor 13:13 --- faith hope and love --- and the way that they have come to be called three "supernatural" virtues that God renews in people, even as God calls everyone to keep renewing in and by themselves the four "ordinary" virtues (moderation, courage, wisdom, fairness) that I wrote about a couple of columns back.

From the perspective of faith, all seven virtues --- once again, "good habits" --- are necessary to peoples' becoming all that they can be, in the sight of God. (In Wesley's phrasing, to peoples' becoming perfect, after the example of Christ.) All of these virtues, and not just four of them, are important for becoming the individual that God intends for each person to become. In this sense, then, the supernatural virtues share in common with the natural ones the characteristic of being --- here comes that word again --- "hinges" upon which our coming fully to be in the image of our Creator, turns. Holding onto all of them can become especially important to the process of recovering from grief and loss.

Grief and loss can unhinge faith, hope, and love within people just as insidiously as they can unhinge other virtues. In the first place, faith can become unhinged in the sense that we can lose the power to believe what God has revealed and is revealing, even and especially in troubled and troubling times. In essence, we can lose the sense that relationships, possessions, and losses are inextricably intertwined in a world history with cosmic and everlasting significance. In grief, faith, as the assurance of things not seen, is what whispers in our ear that life does indeed go on, and that life is good.

Secondly, hope can become unhinged in the sense that we can lose confidence in the life everlasting that God desires for every human being. Nothing can be more painful, in the midst of losing a sense of having a meaningful future on earth, than losing as well what the Christian tradition has understood hope's true object to be, a sense of promise of eternal life with God, the quality of which begins in the here and now. From the perspective of this kind of hope, present suffering cannot possibly compare with the glory that is yet to come. (Romans 8:18)

Finally, love can become unhinged in the sense that we can become too grief-stricken ourselves to give to those we love the kind of acknowledgment, attention, and affection that they so willingly give to us in our time of loss. Grief itself is love-based; we have the capacity to grieve because we are created with the capacity to love. But grief can also become yet another form of self-absorption. An effective way through it is to work hard at loving people back, even and especially when it feels like we do not have the resources within ourselves to do so.

As important as all seven of the life-completing virtues are to living as God desires people to live, there is an important difference between the ones that we call cardinal from those that we call supernatural. The difference applies equally well to our own grieving and to our caring with and for other grieving persons. By treating faith, hope, and love as gifts of the Spirit rather than as capacities engrafted into our created nature, St. Paul bequeathed to the church and all of its caregivers through the centuries the responsibility to remain always mindful of Who is the True Healer, Sustainer, Guide, and Reconciler in human life.

It is not us. We who seek faithfully to bring faith, hope, and love to bear especially in times of grief and loss --- our own, our friends', and our care receivers --- are at best God's agents, through Whom alone whatever small part we may play in another's recovery comes to its fruition. Thanks be to God, neither we nor those for whom we care are ever alone in the process.