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HOLY GHOST HOMEPAGE (General Articles)
| INTRODUCTION TO THE SEVEN GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST (a very brief coverage of all seven Gifts) |
| Gift of Fear | Gift of Piety | Gift of Knowledge | Gift of Fortitude | Gift of Counsel | Gift of Understanding | Gift of Wisdom |
| THE TWELVE FRUITS OF THE HOLY GHOST (a brief coverage of all 12 Fruits) |
| PRAYERS TO THE HOLY GHOST | NOVENA TO THE HOLY GHOST |
Links will be activated as articles appear on those pages
HOLY GHOST HOMEPAGE (General Articles)
| INTRODUCTION TO THE SEVEN GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST (a very brief coverage of all seven Gifts) |
| Gift of Fear | Gift of Piety | Gift of Knowledge | Gift of Fortitude | Gift of Counsel | Gift of Understanding | Gift of Wisdom |
| THE TWELVE FRUITS OF THE HOLY GHOST (a brief coverage of all 12 Fruits) |
| PRAYERS TO THE HOLY GHOST | NOVENA TO THE HOLY GHOST |
WORDS OF WARNING!
Before we go any further, a WORD OF WARNING needs to be said! The Gifts of the Holy Ghost might sound like human virtues―fear, piety, knowledge, fortitude, counsel, understanding and wisdom―but they are not human virtues. They are divine actions by the Holy Ghost that make us think and act in a supra-human way and much more perfectly than if we were merely using our human virtues of the same name. Therefore, mere human knowledge is far inferior to the Holy Ghost’s Gift of Knowledge, whereby the Holy Ghost directly informs our mind without any need on our part for research, study, analysis, reasoning, consultation, etc. A simple stupid analogy would be along the lines of not having to work out math problems because you are given the answer key. Or not having to walk to work because someone takes you to work in their car. Or not having to swim across a lake because someone loans you their boat. Some of the early Fathers of the Church compare the Gifts of the Holy Ghost to the invisible wind that blows into the sails of a ship and pushes it along in the direction the wind is blowing―but, before that can happen, we have to have sails on the mast and those sails must be unfurled. If we play our part, the Holy Ghost will play His part! This applies to all the Gifts of the Holy Ghost―even though they sound like everyday human actions, they are not human actions but divine interventions and actions by the Holy Ghost.
ANOTHER WARNING is the fact that, even though you received the dormant seeds of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost together with sanctifying grace in your Baptism; and even though those dormant seeds were activated when you received the Sacrament of Confirmation; this DOES NOT MEAN that they will always and automatically work for you! The Seven Gifts―even though you have them in your soul―will usually only be activated by the Holy Ghost if He sees that you are serious about your spiritual life and are making progress in the acquisition and practice of the virtues: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! ... He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly! … For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8; 2 Corinthians 9:6). God is not going to reward a stubborn sinner, or a lukewarm person, or a spiritually negligent person by giving them some of His choicest Gifts! On the contrary, God says: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot! But, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16). Which boss is going to reward an employee who is lazy, negligent, offensive and a thief? Rather than reward such an employee, he is more likely to fire him!
So let us proudly presume and expect the Holy Ghost to reward our abuse of the spiritual life through indifference, neglect, laziness, worldliness or lukewarmness―for then the Holy Ghost will leave us to ourselves and our own puny human power! As you sow, so shall you reap!
ANOTHER WARNING is the fact that, even though you received the dormant seeds of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost together with sanctifying grace in your Baptism; and even though those dormant seeds were activated when you received the Sacrament of Confirmation; this DOES NOT MEAN that they will always and automatically work for you! The Seven Gifts―even though you have them in your soul―will usually only be activated by the Holy Ghost if He sees that you are serious about your spiritual life and are making progress in the acquisition and practice of the virtues: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked! For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap! ... He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly! … For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption! But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting!” (Galatians 6:7-8; 2 Corinthians 9:6). God is not going to reward a stubborn sinner, or a lukewarm person, or a spiritually negligent person by giving them some of His choicest Gifts! On the contrary, God says: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot! But, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 3:15-16). Which boss is going to reward an employee who is lazy, negligent, offensive and a thief? Rather than reward such an employee, he is more likely to fire him!
So let us proudly presume and expect the Holy Ghost to reward our abuse of the spiritual life through indifference, neglect, laziness, worldliness or lukewarmness―for then the Holy Ghost will leave us to ourselves and our own puny human power! As you sow, so shall you reap!
THE SEVEN GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST
2. THE GIFT OF PIETY
2. THE GIFT OF PIETY
Pious Joke
Piety! What a joke! Or at least it is a joking matter for the worldly! What is piety? Most people would find it hard to explain properly. Most have only a vague notion of what piety is—they imagine a pious person to be someone who folds their hands in prayer-like fashion; who genuflects slowly; makes the Sign of the Cross carefully; doesn’t curse or swear; etc. For the worldly minded, “Holy Roller” is substituted for the word “pious” with much mockery and merriment. What is piety?
Mistaken Identity
We must first point out—in order to avoid mistaken identity—that there is a VIRTUE called Piety, and there is also a GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST called Piety. The two, though similar, are not the same. Speaking of the VIRTUE OF PIETY, St. Thomas Aquinas writes:
“Man becomes a debtor to other men in various ways, according to their various excellence and the various benefits received from them. On both counts God holds first place. In second place … are our parents and our country, that have given us birth and nourishment. Consequently, man is debtor, after God, chiefly to his parents and his country. Wherefore just as it belongs to Religion to give worship to God, so does it belong to Piety, in the second place, to give worship to one’s parents and one’s country. The worship due to our parents includes the worship given to all our kindred, since our kinsfolk are those who descend from the same parents. The worship given to our country includes homage to all our fellow-citizens and to all the friends of our country. Therefore Piety extends chiefly to these. It is by Piety that we do our duty towards our kindred and well-wishers of our country and render them faithful service … [It is] a part of justice ... Since the nature of justice consists in rendering another person his due … [However], when we find our parents [or country] to be a hindrance in our way to God, we must ignore them by hating and fleeing from them. For if our parents incite us to sin, and withdraw us from the service of God, we must, as regards this point, abandon and hate them” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 101, art. 1, 3 & 4). So much for the VIRTUE of Piety.
The Gift of Piety
What of the GIFT OF PIETY? What is that? How does it differ from the Virtue of Piety? If, as has been already stated, the Gifts are different to the Virtues, how can Piety be both a Virtue and a Gift? These are the questions to which this current article shall be devoted.
St. Thomas points out that the Virtue of Piety is mainly concerned with family, friends and country—“It is by piety that we do our duty towards our kindred and well-wishers of our country and render them faithful service”—St. Thomas goes on to say: “[Piety] is reckoned among the Gifts in Isaias 11:2. The Piety that pays duty and worship to a [human] father in the flesh―is a Virtue: but the piety [godliness] that is a Gift, pays this duty and worship to God as Father ... To pay worship to God as Creator, as the Virtue of Religion does, is more excellent than to pay worship to one’s father in the flesh, as the Piety that is a virtue does. But to pay worship to God as Father [not as Creator] is yet even more excellent than to pay worship to God as Creator and Lord. That is why the Virtue of Religion is greater than the Virtue of Piety; while the Gift of Piety is greater than the Virtue of Religion” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 121, art. 1). Whew! Still with us? Good!
The Gift of Piety or Godliness Puts God First
“Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice” (Matthew 6:33). Piety, as St. Thomas states, belongs to Justice—that is to say “giving others their due”—whether the “other” be man or God. As St. Thomas points out, we owe God more than we owe man; therefore we must pay God first, love God first, serve God first, look after God’s interests first. That is what the Gift of Piety or Godliness is all about. The word “Godliness” seems to expound this better. We are part of God’s family—He created our soul and adopted us as His children.
Piety Not Popular
Today, Piety is far from popular. Instead of giving to God, family, friends and country, it is all about getting from God family, friends and country. Our interests take precedence over all other interests. Piety is seen as a weakness, not a strength. Piety is seen to be more of a “Party-Pooper” than “Partier.” Pious Pete or Pious Pat is not the first name on the list for invites!! Given the immense pressure of human respect in the world today, many deliberately shy away from coming across as being pious. As St. Louis de Montfort puts it, in his book, The Love of Eternal Wisdom [the bold print highlights what refers to Piety]:
“Those who proceed according to the wisdom of the world are those who know how to manage well their affairs and to arrange things to their temporal advantage without appearing to do so; who know the art of deceiving and how to cleverly cheat without being noticed; who say or do one thing and have another thing in mind; who are thoroughly acquainted with the way and the flattery of the world; who know how to please everybody in order to reach their goal, not troubling much about the honor and interests of God [which is what the Gift of Piety is all about]; who make a secret but deadly fusion of truth with untruth, of the Gospel with the world, of virtue with vice, of Jesus Christ with Satan; who wish to pass as honest people, but not as religious men; who despise and corrupt or readily condemn every religious practice which does not conform to their own. In short, the worldly wise are those who, being guided only by their human senses and reason, seek only to appear as Christian and honest folk, without troubling much to please God or to do penance for the sins which they have committed against His divine Majesty” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Love of Eternal Wisdom, chapter 7).
Family Home Life
We were made to live in a home and we have been wisely equipped for such life by God―just as fish are for life in water, or birds for flight through the air. We like the looks of those persons at home because, as a matter of fact, they look like us―“birds of a feather flock together”; we can understand their gifts and deficiencies, for by blood we share with them the common source of both. We can relax and be ourselves within the family; here there is no need for armor, nothing to be gained by bluff, no mercy is given for showing-off, and no scorn is shown for weakness. We move through that family life with none of the timidity and caution that we feel among strangers, none of the haunting fear that eats into our confidence as we enter strange lands and places, or into levels of society that are new to us. We are at home, and our movements, mannerisms and words show it. It is in family that we are seen at our very best and at our very worst―for here we are at home. We belong. This sense of ease and sense of belonging that we feel is strictly limited to human family life, for it is only within those strict limits that we are natural sons.
Adopted Into The Divine Family
However, the divine family is altogether out of our orbit! There is nothing in our nature that gives us the right and privilege of calling God our Father. It is only when the supernatural has entered into our lives—through Baptism and the Sanctifying Grace which it gives—that we can be called sons of God. Yet even that does not change our human nature―but, leaving it intact, it elevates our human nature. Nevertheless, we still cannot be called the sons of God—except by adoption and not by nature.
Adoption, as we ordinarily understand it, is a warm mercy that throws open the doors of home to a homeless child, giving the child access, not merely to the home, but also access to the very hearts of the household—the adopted child is immediately and forever one of the family.
If we could so elevate the nature of the dog, so that the dog would become like ourselves―knowing and loving as we do, speaking our language, cultivating our manners, aiming at our goals―then we would begin to have some little idea of what God expects of us in His adoption of us as sons! In fact, there would be much less of distance between a dog’s leap to human nature, than in the massive leap of man or woman to the divine heights of God’s own family. There is infinity between our nature and God’s nature, between our life and His; and we have absolutely no equipment for divine living.
The adoption, by which we become sons of God, is obviously a work possible only to Almighty God; nothing else could possibly overcome the difficulties involved in such adoption: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). If we are to live the divine family life as sons, we must share in the divine life; we must be given a life that is over and above our human life, which will enable us to live on a divine level. Just like the dog can no longer live as a dog if he was to be miraculously granted a human nature; neither can we just live a worldly life once we have been adopted by the Divine Nature.
Grace Perfects Our Weak Nature
God overcomes this difficulty by the gift of Sanctifying Grace—for grace perfects nature; it elevates nature; it sanctifies nature; it beautifies nature; it strengthens nature. Charity is like a spouse to Sanctifying Grace―they go everywhere together. By this gift of Sanctifying Grace we are made to be divinely alive―by the absence of Sanctifying Grace we are supernaturally dead. If you kick-out Sanctifying Grace from your souls by committing mortal sin―then Charity goes out the door with Sanctifying Grace. St. Paul (Romans 5:5) says: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, Who is given to us.” For “God is Charity” (1 John 4:8) and when we have Sanctifying Grace and Charity in our soul, then we become temples of the Holy Ghost, who dwells within our soul: “Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). “Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells within you? But if any man violates the temple of God, him shall God destroy! For the temple of God is holy, which you are!” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). The Holy Spirit has been given to us, and dwells within us: “His Spirit dwells in you … Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:11, 14), so that we really become temples of the Holy Ghost.
If God were to stop short at the gift of the life of grace and withhold it from us, then we would be supernatural paralytics, incapable of the least supernatural activity—which would be a poor kind of adoption indeed, and a pitiful share of the family life into which we are adopted.
Like A Thug in A Convent
With Charity as the bond of union, and with the virtues moving under the direction of Charity to our ―which is God―we are able move and function on the family plane of the divine. But we do it badly! We are embarrassed in the divinely civilized social life proper to God due to our sins; and we are an embarrassment to the divine family which has adopted us. We are infinitely out of our element, as red-necked, heavy-handed, and ill-at-ease―just like a thug in a convent. We need something MORE than just a participation in the divine life, which is GRACE. We need something MORE than those divinely elevated powers of action which are the VIRTUES. We need something that will enable us to move ‘socially’ in the divine family as God moves―something that will be a help in making our souls easily responsive to God’s own movement in our soul.
Divine Social Graces
That ‘social’ gift―by which we act as God acts in all His relations with others―is the gift of the Holy Ghost which is called the Gift of Piety. This Gift of Piety―not to be mistaken with the Virtue of Piety―communicates the spirit of the family of God to us. The Gift of Piety is absolutely necessary in order to perfect―to a heroic degree―all that falls under the Virtue of Justice (which is giving others their due) and to perfect all the other virtues related to Justice, especially the Virtue of Religion and the Virtue of Piety.
St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “Now the Holy Ghost moves us to this effect among others, of having a filial affection towards God, according to Romans 8:15: ‘You have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: “Abba!” (Father). And since it belongs properly to Piety to pay duty and worship to one’s father, it follows that the piety, which is instigated by the Holy Ghost, by which we pay worship and duty to God as our Father, is a gift of the Holy Ghost” (Summa, IIa IIae, q. 121, art. 1).
This is the Gift which completes and perfects our adoption into the family of God. Because of this Gift, it can be said of us: “Like father, like son!” With it, it is not only true that we have a divine life and act towards divine goals, but we also act divinely―for by this Gift we share the justice of God. Justice concerns itself with what is due to others. The Gift of Piety deals only with our relations to others, and with all our relations with others. In other words, it deals with the proper field of Justice, whereby the Gift of Piety perfects the Virtue of Justice giving it its fullest divine bloom. Just as Justice is the absolute requisite for social living among men, so the Gift of Piety is the absolute requisite for the social living of the sons of God.
Effects of the Gift of Piety
The effects that the intense action of the Gift of Piety produces in the soul are truly marvelous. The following are the principal effects:
(1) It places in the soul a truly filial tenderness toward our Heavenly Father. This is the primary and fundamental effect of the Gift of Piety. Dom Columba Marmion, the saintly abbot of Maredsous, also possessed to a high degree this awareness of our adoptive divine sonship. For him God was above all our Father. The monastery was the “house of the Father” and all its members formed God’s family. The same thing must be said of the whole world and of all men. Dom Marmion insists repeatedly on the necessity of cultivating this spirit of adoption, that should be the Christian’s basic attitude toward God. A splendid text of his invaluable work, Christ in His Mysteries, admirably summarizes his thought:
“Never let us forget that all Christian life, all holiness, is being by grace what Jesus is by nature―the Son of God. It is this that makes our religion sublime. The source of all the greatness of Jesus, the source of the value of all His states, the source of the fruitfulness of all His mysteries―is all found in His divine generation and His quality of Son of God. In the same way, the saint who is the highest in Heaven is the one who here below was most perfectly a child of God, who made the grace of supernatural adoption in Jesus Christ the most fruitful” (Christ in His Mysteries, p. 55).
(2) It enables us to adore the mystery of the Divine Paternity within the Trinity. In its most sublime manifestations, the Gift of Piety makes us penetrate the mystery of the intimate life of God by giving us a greater awareness, filled with respect and adoration, of the divine paternity of the Father in relation to the Word. The soul rejoices and loves to repeat, in the depth of its soul, sublime words such as those of the Gloria in Excelsis Deo: “We give Thee thanks for Thy great glory!” It is the worship and adoration of God for His own sake, and without any selfish consideration of the benefits the soul has received from Him.
(3) It arouses in the soul a childlike abandonment in the arms of the Heavenly Father. The soul abandons itself calmly and confidently to the heavenly Father. It is not preoccupied with any care, and nothing is capable of disturbing its unalterable peace―even for an instant. The soul asks nothing and rejects nothing―in regard to health or sickness; a long life or a short life; consolations or dryness; strength or weakness; persecution or praise; activity or idleness. It abandons itself completely in the arms of God, and asks only to glorify Him with all its powers.
(4) It makes us see in our neighbor a son of God and a brother in Jesus Christ. This is a natural consequence of our adoption as children of God through grace. If God is our Father, we are all sons of God and brothers in Jesus Christ―either actually or potentially. But souls that are dominated by the Gift of Piety perceive and live this sublime truth with forcefulness! They love all men with a great tenderness, because they see them as beloved brothers in Christ, and they would like to shower upon them every kind of grace and blessing.
(5) It moves us to love and devotion for the persons and things related to the Fatherhood of God or Christian brotherhood. The Gift of Piety perfects and intensifies the soul’s filial love for the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom it considers as a tender Mother and in whom it has all the confidence that a child has in the best of mothers. The soul tenderly loves the angels and the saints, whom it considers as its older brothers who already enjoy the continual presence of the Father in the eternal mansion of the children of God; it has a tender affection for the souls in Purgatory, its suffering brothers, whom it assists by frequent prayers and sacrifices; it shows a tender care for the members of the Church on Earth, especially the Pope and the clergy. It looks upon all lawful superiors as fathers, and serves and obeys them in everything that is non-sinful with true filial joy.
It wishes to see its country imbued with the spirit of Jesus Christ in its laws and customs, and for it would willingly shed its blood, or suffer the flames like another St. Joan of Arc. It has a deep veneration for Sacred Scripture, and reads it as if it were a letter sent from Heaven by the Father, to tell it what it must do or what is desired of it. It has a great respect for all holy things, especially those used for the cult and service of God (sacred vessels, monstrances, and so on), viewing them as articles for the service and glorification of the Father. St. Thérèse was delighted with her office of sacristan, which permitted her to touch the sacred vessels and to see her face reflected inside the chalices.
These are the chief effects of the Gift of Piety if it is cultivated and allowed to develop unhindered in our souls. Yet, we must state again, that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost can only really work in our souls after a long apprenticeship in the practice of Virtues—and this cannot be bypassed.
Opposed Vices
The vices opposed to the Gift of Piety can be grouped under the generic name of impiety. St. Gregory the Great names hardness of heart as opposed to the Gift of Piety since it is born of a disorderly love of self. Father Lallemant has written admirably on this hardness of heart:
“The vice that is opposed to the Gift of Piety is hardness of heart, which springs out of an ill-regulated love of ourselves; for this love makes us naturally sensible only to our own interests, so that nothing affects us except in reference to ourselves. We behold the offences done against God without tears, and the miseries of our neighbor without compassion; we are unwilling to inconvenience ourselves to oblige others; we cannot put up with their faults; we inveigh against them on the slightest ground, and harbor in our hearts feelings of bitterness and resentment, hatred and antipathy, against them.”
On the other hand, the more charity or love of God a soul possesses, the more sensitive it is to the interests of God and those of its neighbor.
This hardness is worst in the great ones of the world, in rich misers and pleasure-seekers, and in those who never soften their hearts by exercises of piety and familiarity with spiritual things. It is also often to be found amongst men of learning, who do not join devotion to knowledge and who, to disguise this fault from themselves, call it strength of mind; but the truly learned have been the most pious of men, as St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, St. Bernard; and of the Society, Laynez, Suarez, Bellarmine, and Lessius.
A soul which cannot weep for its sins―at least with tears of the heart―is full either of impiety or of impurity, one or the other, as is generally the case with those whose heart is hardened. It is a great misfortune when natural and acquired talents are more esteemed in religion than piety. You will sometimes see religious, and perhaps superiors, who will loudly declare that they attach much more value to a practical active mind than to all those “petty devotions”, which, they say, are all very well for women, but are unbecoming in a strong mind―meaning, by “strength of mind”, that hardness of heart, which is so opposed to the spirit of Piety. They ought to bear in mind that devotion is an act of Religion, or a fruit of Religion and of Charity, and consequently that it is to be preferred to all the moral virtues, Religion following immediately in order of dignity the theological virtues.
The Means to Cultivate This Gift
In addition to the general means for disposing oneself for the activity of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, such as practice of the moral virtues, prayer, fidelity to grace, and so on, the following practices are more immediately related to the Gift of Piety:
(a) Cultivating the spirit of adopted children of God. There are few truths that have been repeated as often in the Gospel as the truth that God is our Father. Our Lord repeats this truth fourteen times in the Sermon on the Mount alone. This doctrine of our adopted sonship is so predominant in the New Testament, that some writers have seen it as the most basic and essential theme of Christianity. God is our Creator and will be our Judge at the moment of death; but, before all else and above all else, He is always our Father. The Gift of Fear of the Lord arouses in us a respectful reverence for God, but this is in no way incompatible with the tenderness and filial confidence inspired in us by the Gift of Piety.
(b) Cultivating the spirit of universal brotherhood toward all men. This is, as we have seen, the principal secondary effect of the Gift of Piety. Even before it is practiced in all its plenitude, by the activation of the Gift, we can prepare ourselves for it with help of ordinary grace. We should strive ever to increase the capacity of our love so that we may embrace the whole world with the arms of love. We are all sons of God and brothers of Christ.
(c) Considering all things, even purely material things, as pertaining to the house of the Father. What a profoundly religious sense is discovered in all things by those souls that are ruled by the Gift of Piety! St. Francis of Assisi ardently embraced a tree, because it was “his brother” in God. St. Paul of the Cross would become ecstatic over the little flowers in his garden, because to him they spoke of the heavenly Father. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux broke into tears of tenderness when she contemplated a hen gathering its chicks under its wings and remembered the Gospel image by which Christ wanted to show us the sentiments of His divine heart, even toward ungrateful and rebellious children (cf. Matthew 23:37).
How differently we could evaluate created things, even purely material things, if we would strive to discover, under the light of Faith, the religious meaning hidden within them. All creation is truly the house of the Father, and all things in it belong to Him. With what delicacy would we act toward even purely material things! We would discover in them something divine, which would make us respect them as if they were sacred vessels. Such a Christian attitude, so holy and meritorious in the eyes of God, would distance us from sin, which is always some kind of sacrilege against God or the things of God! Our whole life would be elevated to a loftier plane, reaching sublime heights under the most loving gaze of our heavenly Father.
(d) Cultivating the spirit of complete abandonment to God. We will not attain this spirit perfectly until the Gift of Piety is intensely actuated in us, but we should try to do what we can to cultivate total abandonment to God. To this end, we should be fully convinced that, since God is our Father, it is impossible that any evil could befall us unless He permits it.
For that reason, we should strive to remain indifferent in regard to health or sickness, the shortness or the length of our life, peace or war, consolation or aridity in our spiritual life, and so on, constantly repeating our acts of surrender and abandonment to His most holy will. The fiat, the “yes,” the “whatever Thou dost desire, Lord” should be the basic attitude of the Christian toward his God, in a complete filial abandonment to His divine and paternal will, which can only desire for us the greatest good, even though at times it might appear to be an evil in the sight of our purely human and natural gaze.
Piety! What a joke! Or at least it is a joking matter for the worldly! What is piety? Most people would find it hard to explain properly. Most have only a vague notion of what piety is—they imagine a pious person to be someone who folds their hands in prayer-like fashion; who genuflects slowly; makes the Sign of the Cross carefully; doesn’t curse or swear; etc. For the worldly minded, “Holy Roller” is substituted for the word “pious” with much mockery and merriment. What is piety?
Mistaken Identity
We must first point out—in order to avoid mistaken identity—that there is a VIRTUE called Piety, and there is also a GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST called Piety. The two, though similar, are not the same. Speaking of the VIRTUE OF PIETY, St. Thomas Aquinas writes:
“Man becomes a debtor to other men in various ways, according to their various excellence and the various benefits received from them. On both counts God holds first place. In second place … are our parents and our country, that have given us birth and nourishment. Consequently, man is debtor, after God, chiefly to his parents and his country. Wherefore just as it belongs to Religion to give worship to God, so does it belong to Piety, in the second place, to give worship to one’s parents and one’s country. The worship due to our parents includes the worship given to all our kindred, since our kinsfolk are those who descend from the same parents. The worship given to our country includes homage to all our fellow-citizens and to all the friends of our country. Therefore Piety extends chiefly to these. It is by Piety that we do our duty towards our kindred and well-wishers of our country and render them faithful service … [It is] a part of justice ... Since the nature of justice consists in rendering another person his due … [However], when we find our parents [or country] to be a hindrance in our way to God, we must ignore them by hating and fleeing from them. For if our parents incite us to sin, and withdraw us from the service of God, we must, as regards this point, abandon and hate them” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 101, art. 1, 3 & 4). So much for the VIRTUE of Piety.
The Gift of Piety
What of the GIFT OF PIETY? What is that? How does it differ from the Virtue of Piety? If, as has been already stated, the Gifts are different to the Virtues, how can Piety be both a Virtue and a Gift? These are the questions to which this current article shall be devoted.
St. Thomas points out that the Virtue of Piety is mainly concerned with family, friends and country—“It is by piety that we do our duty towards our kindred and well-wishers of our country and render them faithful service”—St. Thomas goes on to say: “[Piety] is reckoned among the Gifts in Isaias 11:2. The Piety that pays duty and worship to a [human] father in the flesh―is a Virtue: but the piety [godliness] that is a Gift, pays this duty and worship to God as Father ... To pay worship to God as Creator, as the Virtue of Religion does, is more excellent than to pay worship to one’s father in the flesh, as the Piety that is a virtue does. But to pay worship to God as Father [not as Creator] is yet even more excellent than to pay worship to God as Creator and Lord. That is why the Virtue of Religion is greater than the Virtue of Piety; while the Gift of Piety is greater than the Virtue of Religion” (Summa, IIa-IIae, q. 121, art. 1). Whew! Still with us? Good!
The Gift of Piety or Godliness Puts God First
“Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice” (Matthew 6:33). Piety, as St. Thomas states, belongs to Justice—that is to say “giving others their due”—whether the “other” be man or God. As St. Thomas points out, we owe God more than we owe man; therefore we must pay God first, love God first, serve God first, look after God’s interests first. That is what the Gift of Piety or Godliness is all about. The word “Godliness” seems to expound this better. We are part of God’s family—He created our soul and adopted us as His children.
Piety Not Popular
Today, Piety is far from popular. Instead of giving to God, family, friends and country, it is all about getting from God family, friends and country. Our interests take precedence over all other interests. Piety is seen as a weakness, not a strength. Piety is seen to be more of a “Party-Pooper” than “Partier.” Pious Pete or Pious Pat is not the first name on the list for invites!! Given the immense pressure of human respect in the world today, many deliberately shy away from coming across as being pious. As St. Louis de Montfort puts it, in his book, The Love of Eternal Wisdom [the bold print highlights what refers to Piety]:
“Those who proceed according to the wisdom of the world are those who know how to manage well their affairs and to arrange things to their temporal advantage without appearing to do so; who know the art of deceiving and how to cleverly cheat without being noticed; who say or do one thing and have another thing in mind; who are thoroughly acquainted with the way and the flattery of the world; who know how to please everybody in order to reach their goal, not troubling much about the honor and interests of God [which is what the Gift of Piety is all about]; who make a secret but deadly fusion of truth with untruth, of the Gospel with the world, of virtue with vice, of Jesus Christ with Satan; who wish to pass as honest people, but not as religious men; who despise and corrupt or readily condemn every religious practice which does not conform to their own. In short, the worldly wise are those who, being guided only by their human senses and reason, seek only to appear as Christian and honest folk, without troubling much to please God or to do penance for the sins which they have committed against His divine Majesty” (St. Louis de Montfort, The Love of Eternal Wisdom, chapter 7).
Family Home Life
We were made to live in a home and we have been wisely equipped for such life by God―just as fish are for life in water, or birds for flight through the air. We like the looks of those persons at home because, as a matter of fact, they look like us―“birds of a feather flock together”; we can understand their gifts and deficiencies, for by blood we share with them the common source of both. We can relax and be ourselves within the family; here there is no need for armor, nothing to be gained by bluff, no mercy is given for showing-off, and no scorn is shown for weakness. We move through that family life with none of the timidity and caution that we feel among strangers, none of the haunting fear that eats into our confidence as we enter strange lands and places, or into levels of society that are new to us. We are at home, and our movements, mannerisms and words show it. It is in family that we are seen at our very best and at our very worst―for here we are at home. We belong. This sense of ease and sense of belonging that we feel is strictly limited to human family life, for it is only within those strict limits that we are natural sons.
Adopted Into The Divine Family
However, the divine family is altogether out of our orbit! There is nothing in our nature that gives us the right and privilege of calling God our Father. It is only when the supernatural has entered into our lives—through Baptism and the Sanctifying Grace which it gives—that we can be called sons of God. Yet even that does not change our human nature―but, leaving it intact, it elevates our human nature. Nevertheless, we still cannot be called the sons of God—except by adoption and not by nature.
Adoption, as we ordinarily understand it, is a warm mercy that throws open the doors of home to a homeless child, giving the child access, not merely to the home, but also access to the very hearts of the household—the adopted child is immediately and forever one of the family.
If we could so elevate the nature of the dog, so that the dog would become like ourselves―knowing and loving as we do, speaking our language, cultivating our manners, aiming at our goals―then we would begin to have some little idea of what God expects of us in His adoption of us as sons! In fact, there would be much less of distance between a dog’s leap to human nature, than in the massive leap of man or woman to the divine heights of God’s own family. There is infinity between our nature and God’s nature, between our life and His; and we have absolutely no equipment for divine living.
The adoption, by which we become sons of God, is obviously a work possible only to Almighty God; nothing else could possibly overcome the difficulties involved in such adoption: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). If we are to live the divine family life as sons, we must share in the divine life; we must be given a life that is over and above our human life, which will enable us to live on a divine level. Just like the dog can no longer live as a dog if he was to be miraculously granted a human nature; neither can we just live a worldly life once we have been adopted by the Divine Nature.
Grace Perfects Our Weak Nature
God overcomes this difficulty by the gift of Sanctifying Grace—for grace perfects nature; it elevates nature; it sanctifies nature; it beautifies nature; it strengthens nature. Charity is like a spouse to Sanctifying Grace―they go everywhere together. By this gift of Sanctifying Grace we are made to be divinely alive―by the absence of Sanctifying Grace we are supernaturally dead. If you kick-out Sanctifying Grace from your souls by committing mortal sin―then Charity goes out the door with Sanctifying Grace. St. Paul (Romans 5:5) says: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, Who is given to us.” For “God is Charity” (1 John 4:8) and when we have Sanctifying Grace and Charity in our soul, then we become temples of the Holy Ghost, who dwells within our soul: “Know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). “Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells within you? But if any man violates the temple of God, him shall God destroy! For the temple of God is holy, which you are!” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). The Holy Spirit has been given to us, and dwells within us: “His Spirit dwells in you … Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:11, 14), so that we really become temples of the Holy Ghost.
If God were to stop short at the gift of the life of grace and withhold it from us, then we would be supernatural paralytics, incapable of the least supernatural activity—which would be a poor kind of adoption indeed, and a pitiful share of the family life into which we are adopted.
Like A Thug in A Convent
With Charity as the bond of union, and with the virtues moving under the direction of Charity to our ―which is God―we are able move and function on the family plane of the divine. But we do it badly! We are embarrassed in the divinely civilized social life proper to God due to our sins; and we are an embarrassment to the divine family which has adopted us. We are infinitely out of our element, as red-necked, heavy-handed, and ill-at-ease―just like a thug in a convent. We need something MORE than just a participation in the divine life, which is GRACE. We need something MORE than those divinely elevated powers of action which are the VIRTUES. We need something that will enable us to move ‘socially’ in the divine family as God moves―something that will be a help in making our souls easily responsive to God’s own movement in our soul.
Divine Social Graces
That ‘social’ gift―by which we act as God acts in all His relations with others―is the gift of the Holy Ghost which is called the Gift of Piety. This Gift of Piety―not to be mistaken with the Virtue of Piety―communicates the spirit of the family of God to us. The Gift of Piety is absolutely necessary in order to perfect―to a heroic degree―all that falls under the Virtue of Justice (which is giving others their due) and to perfect all the other virtues related to Justice, especially the Virtue of Religion and the Virtue of Piety.
St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “Now the Holy Ghost moves us to this effect among others, of having a filial affection towards God, according to Romans 8:15: ‘You have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: “Abba!” (Father). And since it belongs properly to Piety to pay duty and worship to one’s father, it follows that the piety, which is instigated by the Holy Ghost, by which we pay worship and duty to God as our Father, is a gift of the Holy Ghost” (Summa, IIa IIae, q. 121, art. 1).
This is the Gift which completes and perfects our adoption into the family of God. Because of this Gift, it can be said of us: “Like father, like son!” With it, it is not only true that we have a divine life and act towards divine goals, but we also act divinely―for by this Gift we share the justice of God. Justice concerns itself with what is due to others. The Gift of Piety deals only with our relations to others, and with all our relations with others. In other words, it deals with the proper field of Justice, whereby the Gift of Piety perfects the Virtue of Justice giving it its fullest divine bloom. Just as Justice is the absolute requisite for social living among men, so the Gift of Piety is the absolute requisite for the social living of the sons of God.
Effects of the Gift of Piety
The effects that the intense action of the Gift of Piety produces in the soul are truly marvelous. The following are the principal effects:
(1) It places in the soul a truly filial tenderness toward our Heavenly Father. This is the primary and fundamental effect of the Gift of Piety. Dom Columba Marmion, the saintly abbot of Maredsous, also possessed to a high degree this awareness of our adoptive divine sonship. For him God was above all our Father. The monastery was the “house of the Father” and all its members formed God’s family. The same thing must be said of the whole world and of all men. Dom Marmion insists repeatedly on the necessity of cultivating this spirit of adoption, that should be the Christian’s basic attitude toward God. A splendid text of his invaluable work, Christ in His Mysteries, admirably summarizes his thought:
“Never let us forget that all Christian life, all holiness, is being by grace what Jesus is by nature―the Son of God. It is this that makes our religion sublime. The source of all the greatness of Jesus, the source of the value of all His states, the source of the fruitfulness of all His mysteries―is all found in His divine generation and His quality of Son of God. In the same way, the saint who is the highest in Heaven is the one who here below was most perfectly a child of God, who made the grace of supernatural adoption in Jesus Christ the most fruitful” (Christ in His Mysteries, p. 55).
(2) It enables us to adore the mystery of the Divine Paternity within the Trinity. In its most sublime manifestations, the Gift of Piety makes us penetrate the mystery of the intimate life of God by giving us a greater awareness, filled with respect and adoration, of the divine paternity of the Father in relation to the Word. The soul rejoices and loves to repeat, in the depth of its soul, sublime words such as those of the Gloria in Excelsis Deo: “We give Thee thanks for Thy great glory!” It is the worship and adoration of God for His own sake, and without any selfish consideration of the benefits the soul has received from Him.
(3) It arouses in the soul a childlike abandonment in the arms of the Heavenly Father. The soul abandons itself calmly and confidently to the heavenly Father. It is not preoccupied with any care, and nothing is capable of disturbing its unalterable peace―even for an instant. The soul asks nothing and rejects nothing―in regard to health or sickness; a long life or a short life; consolations or dryness; strength or weakness; persecution or praise; activity or idleness. It abandons itself completely in the arms of God, and asks only to glorify Him with all its powers.
(4) It makes us see in our neighbor a son of God and a brother in Jesus Christ. This is a natural consequence of our adoption as children of God through grace. If God is our Father, we are all sons of God and brothers in Jesus Christ―either actually or potentially. But souls that are dominated by the Gift of Piety perceive and live this sublime truth with forcefulness! They love all men with a great tenderness, because they see them as beloved brothers in Christ, and they would like to shower upon them every kind of grace and blessing.
(5) It moves us to love and devotion for the persons and things related to the Fatherhood of God or Christian brotherhood. The Gift of Piety perfects and intensifies the soul’s filial love for the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom it considers as a tender Mother and in whom it has all the confidence that a child has in the best of mothers. The soul tenderly loves the angels and the saints, whom it considers as its older brothers who already enjoy the continual presence of the Father in the eternal mansion of the children of God; it has a tender affection for the souls in Purgatory, its suffering brothers, whom it assists by frequent prayers and sacrifices; it shows a tender care for the members of the Church on Earth, especially the Pope and the clergy. It looks upon all lawful superiors as fathers, and serves and obeys them in everything that is non-sinful with true filial joy.
It wishes to see its country imbued with the spirit of Jesus Christ in its laws and customs, and for it would willingly shed its blood, or suffer the flames like another St. Joan of Arc. It has a deep veneration for Sacred Scripture, and reads it as if it were a letter sent from Heaven by the Father, to tell it what it must do or what is desired of it. It has a great respect for all holy things, especially those used for the cult and service of God (sacred vessels, monstrances, and so on), viewing them as articles for the service and glorification of the Father. St. Thérèse was delighted with her office of sacristan, which permitted her to touch the sacred vessels and to see her face reflected inside the chalices.
These are the chief effects of the Gift of Piety if it is cultivated and allowed to develop unhindered in our souls. Yet, we must state again, that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost can only really work in our souls after a long apprenticeship in the practice of Virtues—and this cannot be bypassed.
Opposed Vices
The vices opposed to the Gift of Piety can be grouped under the generic name of impiety. St. Gregory the Great names hardness of heart as opposed to the Gift of Piety since it is born of a disorderly love of self. Father Lallemant has written admirably on this hardness of heart:
“The vice that is opposed to the Gift of Piety is hardness of heart, which springs out of an ill-regulated love of ourselves; for this love makes us naturally sensible only to our own interests, so that nothing affects us except in reference to ourselves. We behold the offences done against God without tears, and the miseries of our neighbor without compassion; we are unwilling to inconvenience ourselves to oblige others; we cannot put up with their faults; we inveigh against them on the slightest ground, and harbor in our hearts feelings of bitterness and resentment, hatred and antipathy, against them.”
On the other hand, the more charity or love of God a soul possesses, the more sensitive it is to the interests of God and those of its neighbor.
This hardness is worst in the great ones of the world, in rich misers and pleasure-seekers, and in those who never soften their hearts by exercises of piety and familiarity with spiritual things. It is also often to be found amongst men of learning, who do not join devotion to knowledge and who, to disguise this fault from themselves, call it strength of mind; but the truly learned have been the most pious of men, as St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, St. Bernard; and of the Society, Laynez, Suarez, Bellarmine, and Lessius.
A soul which cannot weep for its sins―at least with tears of the heart―is full either of impiety or of impurity, one or the other, as is generally the case with those whose heart is hardened. It is a great misfortune when natural and acquired talents are more esteemed in religion than piety. You will sometimes see religious, and perhaps superiors, who will loudly declare that they attach much more value to a practical active mind than to all those “petty devotions”, which, they say, are all very well for women, but are unbecoming in a strong mind―meaning, by “strength of mind”, that hardness of heart, which is so opposed to the spirit of Piety. They ought to bear in mind that devotion is an act of Religion, or a fruit of Religion and of Charity, and consequently that it is to be preferred to all the moral virtues, Religion following immediately in order of dignity the theological virtues.
The Means to Cultivate This Gift
In addition to the general means for disposing oneself for the activity of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, such as practice of the moral virtues, prayer, fidelity to grace, and so on, the following practices are more immediately related to the Gift of Piety:
(a) Cultivating the spirit of adopted children of God. There are few truths that have been repeated as often in the Gospel as the truth that God is our Father. Our Lord repeats this truth fourteen times in the Sermon on the Mount alone. This doctrine of our adopted sonship is so predominant in the New Testament, that some writers have seen it as the most basic and essential theme of Christianity. God is our Creator and will be our Judge at the moment of death; but, before all else and above all else, He is always our Father. The Gift of Fear of the Lord arouses in us a respectful reverence for God, but this is in no way incompatible with the tenderness and filial confidence inspired in us by the Gift of Piety.
(b) Cultivating the spirit of universal brotherhood toward all men. This is, as we have seen, the principal secondary effect of the Gift of Piety. Even before it is practiced in all its plenitude, by the activation of the Gift, we can prepare ourselves for it with help of ordinary grace. We should strive ever to increase the capacity of our love so that we may embrace the whole world with the arms of love. We are all sons of God and brothers of Christ.
(c) Considering all things, even purely material things, as pertaining to the house of the Father. What a profoundly religious sense is discovered in all things by those souls that are ruled by the Gift of Piety! St. Francis of Assisi ardently embraced a tree, because it was “his brother” in God. St. Paul of the Cross would become ecstatic over the little flowers in his garden, because to him they spoke of the heavenly Father. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux broke into tears of tenderness when she contemplated a hen gathering its chicks under its wings and remembered the Gospel image by which Christ wanted to show us the sentiments of His divine heart, even toward ungrateful and rebellious children (cf. Matthew 23:37).
How differently we could evaluate created things, even purely material things, if we would strive to discover, under the light of Faith, the religious meaning hidden within them. All creation is truly the house of the Father, and all things in it belong to Him. With what delicacy would we act toward even purely material things! We would discover in them something divine, which would make us respect them as if they were sacred vessels. Such a Christian attitude, so holy and meritorious in the eyes of God, would distance us from sin, which is always some kind of sacrilege against God or the things of God! Our whole life would be elevated to a loftier plane, reaching sublime heights under the most loving gaze of our heavenly Father.
(d) Cultivating the spirit of complete abandonment to God. We will not attain this spirit perfectly until the Gift of Piety is intensely actuated in us, but we should try to do what we can to cultivate total abandonment to God. To this end, we should be fully convinced that, since God is our Father, it is impossible that any evil could befall us unless He permits it.
For that reason, we should strive to remain indifferent in regard to health or sickness, the shortness or the length of our life, peace or war, consolation or aridity in our spiritual life, and so on, constantly repeating our acts of surrender and abandonment to His most holy will. The fiat, the “yes,” the “whatever Thou dost desire, Lord” should be the basic attitude of the Christian toward his God, in a complete filial abandonment to His divine and paternal will, which can only desire for us the greatest good, even though at times it might appear to be an evil in the sight of our purely human and natural gaze.