The 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit; piety

We now move on to the third of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, piety, as we continue to prepare for the great feast of Pentecost in a little over a week.

Here is the definition of piety that I gave in my overview of the gifts several posts ago:

Piety is the gift of desire to please God by worshiping and serving Him, this God whom we have come to know and understand a little via the other aforementioned gifts of wisdom, understanding, and knowledge.  It gives us the grace to practice true religion. 

The gift of piety is a filial devotion to God as Father.  It is a desire to be intimate with Him, while maintaining a healthy level of respect and awareness that we are not him, and that he is greater than us.   This is the vertical dimension of this gift (there is a horizontal one, which we will note below.)

It is important to note that this gift of piety is distinct from the natural virtue of piety, which is a certain filial love and respect for human authority, notably our parents, and our countries (fatherlands). It is also distinct from the virtue of religion, which is a practice of duty and worship to God as Creator (but not as Father).  The gift of piety perfects the respect and obedience that is practiced in the virtue of religion, but also adds a filial dimension, of which the natural virtue of piety is a reflection of.  This gift makes our worship flow from authentic love, and not from disordered appetites.  We come to worship God from a place of intimacy and closeness with Him.   This gift will dispose one to worship and pray correctly.

I think this balance of love and respect is lacking in many a relationship with God in our times.  We could use a good dose of this gift to bring it to a more healthy balance.  Many of us seem to view as God as distant, not personal, perhaps even something or someone to be feared, while others of us have no fear of him at all, and consider him just "one of us."   This gift of the Spirit allows us to have healthy balance of intimacy and reverence.  The world could stand to have a lot more people in it with this gift operative.(  Of course there are many who do not believe he exists at all, in which case perhaps the gift of the fear of the Lord needs to be experienced first!)

There is also a horizontal dimension to this gift.   When we recognize, and proceed to grow intimate with God as our Father, we realize everyone else is also a child of God, and we treat them with the respect they, too, deserve, and have a love and concern for them.  We will seek to bring others to the merciful Father.  Furthermore, this gift will incline us not just towards fellowship with our fellow creatures on Earth, but also, the cult of the saints in heaven, in veneration of them.   Like our fellow pilgrims on Earth, we honor them as children of God, but we also recognize them of models as to how to properly worship and love of God, and since they are in the presence of God, and can speak to him on our behalf, we pray for their intercession for our needs.

The effects of this gift are as follows:

1) Filial love and respect for the heavenly Father

2) Tender knowledge that leads us to sacrifice for God, in order to please Him

3) Obedience towards the Wisdom of God, his plan for our life

4) Confidence in our heavenly Father, that He will provide all that we need, and he loves us

5) The ability to see and treat our neighbor as brothers and sisters in Christ

To cultivate this gift we can:

1) Practice prayer and mortification (as with all the gifts we have discussed so far).

2) Love our neighbor for God's sake.

3) Foster a spirit of universal kinship of all mankind.

4) Consider all things as belonging to the house of God.

5) Practice abandonment to God, as many spiritual writers propose and describe

6) Reflect often on God's mercy (the practices associated with the Divine Mercy are good for this).

7) Do all our acts in order to please God.

8) Ask the Blessed Mother to intercede and perfect our work and prayer to make it more pleasing to God.

This is a wonderful gift.   It can give us true peace and true love, even in the most difficult moments of our lives.  And even more importantly perhaps, it gives us the graces to spread that true peace and love to others, help them discover the source of it for themselves, and in the process, help spread true, authentic, and lasting peace and love in the world.

Joseph most faithful, pray for us.