A prayer for faith, hope, and love when they hurt

When my wife and I were engaged, we wrote a prayer to the patrons of married life, Joseph and Mary, and prayed it in our marriage preparation and at our wedding. One part of it uses these words, and I have prayed them ever since:

I think they capture something Mary and Joseph can teach us about the theological virtues.

First, I pray: “Give me a faith that is humble and obedient.”

Consider the faith of Mary and Joseph. When the Angel Gabriel promises the Blessed Mother a miraculous child, she doesn’t understand. But she humbly and obediently says, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your word.” 

Joseph makes his own plans when he hears of the pregnancy but when the angel speaks to him in a dream he humbly and obediently offers his silent act of faith: Joseph woke and  “did as the angel of the Lord commanded him,” says Matthew.

We also need humility and obedience to have faith.

Often, when we hear a tough doctrine, we run it through a filter of our own political or economic ideology, or our culture’s scientific empiricism — then we enthusiastically accept what we agree with, and conveniently ignore what bothers us.

But faith like that is close-minded. Rejecting everything that disagrees with our preconceived notions is an act of unbelief, not an act of faith. 

To have a faith that is humble and obedient is to be open-minded enough to doubt our own conclusions, and obedient enough to choose Christ’s way of seeing things over our own — on every issue from IVF to immigration. 

Second, I pray: “Give me a hope that proves itself with action.” 

Hope consists in trusting that God will do what he promises to do, says the Catechism. This hope has to be “not just ‘informative’ but ‘performative,’” Pope Benedict said.

Mary trusted God so much that as soon as she heard what he had to say, she “went with haste” to act on it. Joseph trusted so much that, at God’s word, he fled the country with his family.

The truth is, you don’t really have hope unless you act on that hope.

Too often my hope is all talk. I hope in providence — but I have a hard time trusting him enough to give sacrificially. I hope in heaven — but I have a hard time skipping the pleasures of this life in favor of a future life.

But the good news is, actions of trust work to increase trust. Two of my children, when they were young, were afraid to go into the swimming pool. To overcome their fear, I would lead them in. If a son crouched and refused to go one step further, screaming, he would get more afraid the more I insisted. But if a daughter followed timidly behind me, her trust in me would grow with every step.

Our hope will grow if we follow God’s way, one step at a time, into darkness, trusting that he knows the way.

Last, I pray: “Give me a love that accepts suffering and setback.”

Charity, or love, “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things,” says St. Paul. Love is when “our will and God’s will increasingly coincide,” says Pope Benedict XVI. 

You can see how this works in the life of the Holy Family.

When Jesus was an infant, Mary learned that doing God’s will would break her heart.  When Jesus was a boy, Joseph learned that doing God’s will would mean anxiety and uncertainty. They loved God anyway, and that changed history. When Jesus was an adult, he learned from them to choose God’s will despite suffering and death.

I need to learn from them also. 

It’s easy to conform my will to God’s when it means comfort and success. It’s hard to love God when doing so means suffering and rejection. 

All three of these virtues are really, really hard. In fact, impossible.

That’s why faith, hope, and love are called “theological virtues.” We can only live them with his grace. And that’s where that prayer comes in.