Apostle admonishes us to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.
St. Francis de Sales calls confidence in God and distrust in ourselves
the two balancing poles by the help of which we are enabled to keep our
equilibrium. To distrust ourselves, and to have the fullest trust in
God, this is the essence of Christian hope.

Christian hope is an essential condition for eternal happiness. By hope
we anticipate life eternal. It is to us a pledge and a foretaste, and
when we shall pass into eternity with this living hope, our hope will
be transformed into possession of that which we have hoped for the
possession of God, the supreme good.

III. Charity, the third of the divine virtues, is the virtue infused by
God into our souls which enables us to love God above all things, and
for His sake to love our neighbor as ourselves. That such divine
charity surpasses human power is quite evident. It is inseparably
united to sanctifying grace. He who possesses sanctifying grace
possesses also the virtue of divine charity. He who loses sanctifying
grace through mortal sin, loses also divine charity. The virtue of
charity is a participation in the divine charity with which God loves
us. It is a divine commandment that we must love God with our whole
heart, with our whole soul, with our whole strength, and that we must
love our neighbor as ourselves, for God's sake. To give oneself wholly
to God, to prefer Him to all things, rather lose all things than offend
Him, to seek to accomplish His holy will in all things, to observe His
commandments, to offer up to God every thought, word, and deed, to work
and suffer for God, to live and die for God, this is the true love of
God.

"He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth