I AM, God says, Master of the Three Virtues.
Faith is a loyal wife.
Charity is a fervent mother.
But hope is a very little girl.
I am, God says, the Master of the Virtues.
It is Faith who holds fast through century upon century.
It is Charity who gives herself through centuries of centuries,
But it is my little hope
Who gets up every morning.
I am, God says, the Lord of the Virtues.
It is Faith who resists through century upon century.
It is Charity who yields through century upon century.
But it is my little hope
Who every morning
Says good-day to us.
I am, God says, the Lord of the Virtues.
Faith is a soldier, a captain who defends a fortress.
A town belonging to the King,
On the marches of Gascony, on the marches of Lorraine.
Charity is a doctor, a Little Sister of the poor,
Who nurses the sick, who nurses the wounded,
The poor subjects of the King,
On the marches of Gascony, on the marches of Lorraine.
But it is my little hope
Who says good-day to the poor man and the orphan.
I am, God says, the Lord of the Virtues.
Faith is a church, a cathedral rooted in the soil of France.
Charity is a hospital, an alms-house which gathers up all the
wretchedness of the world.
But without hope it would be nothing but a cemetery.
I am, God says, the Lord of the Virtues.
It is Faith who watches through centuries of centuries.
It Is Charity who watches through centuries of centuries.
But it is my little hope
who lies down every evening
and gets up every morning
and really has very good nights.
I am, God says, the Lord of that virtue.
It is my little hope
who goes to sleep every evening,
In her child’s bed,
after having said a good prayer,
and who wakes every morning and gets up
and says her prayers with new attention.
I am, God says, Lord of the Three Virtues.
Faith is a great tree, an oak rooted in the heart of France,
And under the wings of that tree, Charity, my daughter Charity shelters all the distress of the world.
And my little hope is only that little promise of a bud which shows itself at the very beginning of April.
And when one sees the tree, when you look at the oak,
That rough oak bark, thirteen and fourteen times and eighteen times a centenarian,
And which will be a centenarian and venerable throughout ages upon ages,
That hard, wrinkled bark and those branches which are like a jungle of enormous arms,
(A jungle which is an order),
And those roots which plunge down and seize the earth like a jungle of enormous legs,
(A jungle which is an order),
When you see so much strength and so much roughness the little tender bud looks like nothing at all.
Then it seems like a parasite on the tree, to eat at the tree’s table.
Like mistletoe, like a fungus.
Then it seems to feed on the tree (and the peasants call them gluttons), then it seems to lean on the tree, to issue from the tree, unable to be anything, unable to exist without the tree. And in fact, today it comes out of the tree, at the axil of the branches, at the axil of the leaves and it cannot exist at all without the tree. It seems to come from the tree, to steal the nourishment of the tree.
And yet, from it everything comes. Without a bud which had once come forth, the tree would not exist. Without these thousands of buds which come forth only once, at the very beginning of April and perhaps in the last days of March nothing would last, the tree would not last, would not hold its place as a tree (and that place must be held), without that sap which rises and oozes in the month of May, without those thousands of buds which pierce tenderly at the axil of the bard branches.
Every place must be held. Every life springs from tenderness.