The Righteous Live of Faith

“My righteous live of faith”: it is a sentence of the Apostle and of the Prophet. For the Apostle says what the Prophet predicted: that the righteous live of faith. If that is so, or rather because it is so, we must studiously and frequently meditate on the mysteries of our faith; for without faith it is impossible to please God. Indeed, where the faith is not, there cannot be hope; because it is needed that the person who approaches God believes that He is and rewards those who seek Him; otherwise, what hope would there be? Now, where there is no hope, charity cannot be there. Who, in fact, would love one, who he has no hope of getting any good? It is by faith then that we are promoted to hope, and by hope we will progress to charity. But if I have not charity, it is of no use to me. What is the fruit of charity? You learn it from the very mouth of truth: If anyone loves Me, he will be loved by My Father, and I will love him too, and I will manifest Myself to him. From loving kindness comes the manifestation, of manifestation comes contemplation, of contemplation comes knowledge (intuitive). Now, when Christ appears, He Who is our life, we will also appear with Him in glory, and we will be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.

“You see, from where and how you arrive, and by what degree we rise, by means of hope and charity, from faith to knowledge divine, and by knowledge to eternal life. However,” he said, “the eternal life is to know Thee, true God, and the one Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ. Therefore, there is a life which proceeds from faith and a life which proceeds from knowledge. Of faith is the inner life, of knowledge is eternal life. From faith is this life of which, in the meantime, we shall live well; of knowledge is this life of which we shall live happily in the future. Faith is thus the beginning and the foundation of all good. What attachment must we not have for the faith, from which all good takes its base and strength?

“But as in faith is the beginning of all good, so in knowledge is all good consumed and perfected. Let us therefore go on to perfection, advance ourselves by all the degrees possible, rise ourselves from faith to knowledge, in order to understand what we believe. Think how many have studied this and how much the philosophers of the world benefited, and being ashamed of their inferiority in that, because what can be known of God is manifested to them, according to the Apostle, since knowing God, they did not glorify Him as such: so, they knew Him. What do we do then, we who, from the cradle, have received the tradition of the faith? The love of the truth must make in us something more than the love of vanity could have done in them; it is necessary that we can do something more, us that the faith directs, that hope brings forth, that charity pushes. It must, therefore, be to us little to believe of God what is true; apply to conceiving what we believe; we must always strive to understand the reason, what we hold by the faith.”

- Saint Richard of Saint-Victor