The text is taken from Corinthians 13:13: Now but three things remain: faith, hope, love. But of these three the greatest - this - is love. The piece reveals the three fundamental tenets of Christian life with contrasting austere and lush harmonies and brief, contrapuntal episodes, ending with a gently pulsing chord-shift on the word caritas, over which the well-known plainsong melody ubi caritas can be heard.