Step 22: Faith, Hope, and Love

“And now at last, after all that has been said, there remains that triad, faith, hope, and love, binding and securing the union of all.”

--St. John Climacus

“Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”

--John 14:23

One of the things that I like most about The Ladder of Divine Ascent is this last step.  It’s here that the humanity of Climacus is revealed most clearly.  Some ancient writers talk about contemplation of God as the ultimate spiritual goal. Others talk about a mystical union with God.  Climacus is a little more down to earth than that.

Climacus talks about love.  And while he says that this kind of love is hard to put into words (what kind of love isn’t hard to put into words?), he’s not afraid to try to describe it.  Some mystics said that it was incorrect to compare the bond of love between God and the believer with plain old love between human beings.  Not Climacus; “There is nothing wrong about offering human analogies for longing, fear, concern, zeal, service, and love of God.  Lucky the man who loves and longs for God as a smitten lover does for his beloved.”

For Climacus, as for Jesus, love of God is tied to love of neighbor, “He who loves the Lord has first loved his brother, for the latter is proof of the former.”  Love of God means becoming like God, and God is love.  In part that means that the love between God and me cannot stay just between us.  It overflows.  The channel between me and God is not deep enough to hold the great outpouring of God’s love and so it spills over into my other relationships.

Another thing that I appreciate about Climacus is that he doesn’t let the method of spirituality overshadow the goal of spirituality.  He doesn’t get hung up on technique.  Sometimes a particular practice works, sometimes it doesn’t.  What’s important is that we come to love God and reflect his image in the world.  That’s a good thing to remember.  Being a Christian does include living in a particular way.  There are things that Christians do, ways we pray and worship, ways we conduct ourselves, things we consider right and wrong, but these things are not ends in themselves.  “So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13).”  At its heart, Christianity is about the free flow of love between God and us, his creation.

Prayer:

O God,  you indeed are love, and to you be praise, dominion, power.  In you is the cause, past, present and future, of all that is good forever and ever.  Amen. (St John Climacus)

St. John Climacus, pray for us.