"At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. So, faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
- 1 Cor. 13:12-13

Paul’s triad of virtues — faith, hope, and love — has been in my mind and heart for years. But only recently did I hear the whisper of time that runs beneath his words.

Just before naming the three, Paul looks back: “When I was a child…” In that simple recollection, he folds the passage of time into a rhythm of revelation. The child gives way to the grown one. What we have now is a life lived in reflection, full of outlines and shadows. What awaits is clarity — the unmediated gaze, the encounter face to face. The statement, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child… but when I became a man, I put aside childish things” in verse 11 sets us up for the “at present” and “then” dichotomy in the verses quoted above. The former term refers to the life we are living now. The latter to the life to come.

In this present hour, faith is the soul’s steady hand reaching toward what it cannot touch. It believes not because it has seen, but because it senses the pulse of something real beyond the visible. Hope walks beside faith, eyes fixed forward, longing for that unseen truth to arrive in its fullness.

And love — love is the quiet current beneath them both. It is what keeps faith from hardening into dogma, and hope from dissolving into wishful thinking. Love believes what it cannot yet behold. Love yearns for what it has not yet received.

But in the age to come — when the mirror shatters and we see not in fragments but in fullness — faith will find its completion in sight, and hope will dissolve into realization. What need will there be to believe or to wait in longing when we are finally home? Yet love will remain.

For love is not only the means but also the end; not only the path but also the arrival. It is the language of eternity, the atmosphere of all that is whole and holy. Even when faith and hope have been quenched like thirst, love will remain at work. Embracing, knowing, and being known.

In the beginning, love called the world into being. In the end, love will be all that remains.