Faith and hope are the contagion from the other's delight in knowing and discovering us

Heliotrope arborescens marine, a Peruvian native flower

Three times St Paul expresses astonishment at this notion that to know is really to be known by God (Gal 4:8-9; 1 Cor 8:1-3; & 1 Cor 13:11-13).  "In other words, St Paul simply takes it for granted that “being known” is what underlies all our knowing, and that we do not yet know properly because our “being known” is still to some extent veiled from us in a world run by rivalry and death. And this “being known” is in fact the reception of a loving regard towards which we, like so many heliotropes, find ourselves empowered to stretch in faith and hope. No wonder love is the greatest of these three, because it is the coming towards us of what really and inalterably is, the regard which creates, while faith and hope are the given response from within us to what is; the given response which love calls forth, while we are “on the way.” Faith and hope are a relaxing into our being uncovered, discovered, as someone loved. But they are relaxing into love’s discovery of us.                                                                                                                                                          

       "What did the treasure in the field think after the man had found it, and covered it over and while he had gone off to sell everything in order to buy the field?  

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." Matt. 13:44

"Treasure doesn't think, you may say. Precisely. Hence the importance of faith and hope: faith and hope are what it looks like for unthinking treasure, which has no idea of its worth, to find itself actually being able to share in the delight of the one who has found it while waiting for him to come back and take possession. Faith and hope are the contagion from the other's delight in knowing and discovering us, and of course the treasure depends entirely on that never-to-be-withdrawn delight and discovery emanating from the other rather than anything within itself." - James Alison On Being Liked (p 133-134)