Faith, Love, Virtues, and Participation in the Divine Nature

"For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 1:5-8)
"Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you" (2 Peter 1:10-11)

There are three lists in scripture - beginning with Faith and ending with Love - which contain a full range of virtues that supplement God's gift of faith, that conforms us to Christ and grant us admittance to his kingdom.
"The moral virtues are acquired by human effort. They are the fruit and seed of morally good acts; they dispose all the powers of the human being for communion with divine love."
"Human virtues acquired by education, by deliberate acts and by a perseverance ever-renewed in repeated efforts are purified and elevated by divine grace. With God's help, they forge character and give facility in the practice of the good. The virtuous man is happy to practice them." (CCC1810-13)

(1) Saint Peter's list in 2 Peter 1:5-8:
Faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, mutual affection, love.

(2) Saint Paul's list in Romans 5:1-5
Faith, suffering, endurance, character, hope, God's love.

(3) Saint Paul's list in 2 Corinthians 8:7
Faith, speech, knowledge, utmost eagerness, generous giving, love.

The purpose of a virtuous life is to rise above the sinful and decaying world toward an imperishable life with God. This participation in the divine life is a gift that comes to us through the sacraments (CCC 1692). It is especially in the Eucharist that we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity:
"The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation. "Sacramental grace" is the grace of the Holy Spirit, given by Christ and proper to each sacrament. The Spirit heals and transforms those who receive him by conforming them to the Son of God. The fruit of the sacramental life is that the Spirit of adoption makes the faithful partakers in the divine nature by uniting them in a living union with the only Son, the Savior." (CCC 1129)

"Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature." (2 Peter 1:4)

I am heading to mass. How I long to participate in the Holy Eucharist where I will meet Jesus in the actual body, blood, soul and divinity! I am eternally grateful for the riches of this immeasurable grace (Ephesians 2:7).