BEING PIOUS

September 7, 2008

Have you noticed how qualities that used to be considered offensive are now treated as virtuous, and vice versa? For example, pride, once at the top of the list of deadly sins, is now encouraged. Sloth and gluttony are extolled as "kicking back", relaxing, and enjoying the good life. Anger is now a healthy defiance, an attitude of "I'm not going to take it anymore". The lustful person is now the "liberated" individual who has freed himself from unhealthy inhibition. The greedy person is now to be respected for his or her hard driving attitude and clever "get rich quick" schemes.

On the other hand, the temperate person, for example, is often viewed as someone who does not know how to let loose and have a good time. The prudent person is the one who lacks a daring spirit and is afraid to "just do it".

Similarly, "fear of the Lord" was once extolled as a proper reverence for God's majesty, but is now considered a sign of lack of emotional development toward adult autonomy. The pious person was once respected as having achieved a high degree of spiritual perfection. Now, to say someone is pious is synonymous with calling him sanctimonious and hypocritically self‑righteous.
This is a sad and curious turnabout. Where to begin to turn things right side up again I don't know, but piety is as good a place as any.

Piety is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, all of which are permanent dispositions which make us docile in following the prompting of the Holy Spirit. These gifts sustain the moral life of Christians. They complete and perfect the virtues of those who receive them.

The gift of piety signals our need for the assistance of the Holy Spirit to help us to give God the homage that is his due. Our ability to reverence and serve God is itself God's gift. We pray in one of the prayers of the Mass: "Father, you have no need of our praise, yet our desire to thank you is itself your gift. Our prayer of thanksgiving adds nothing to your greatness, but makes us grow in your grace, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

The gift of piety, greatly to be desired, helps us to realize the ultimate purpose of our existence. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states it, "God puts us in the world to know, to love, and to serve Him, and so to come to paradise" (1721).

While the gift of fear of the Lord prompts us to withdraw from any evil that would offend God, the gift of piety enables us to make a right approach to God and to deepen our relationship with Him through service.

Unfortunately, true piety is often confused with pietism, which could be described as a preoccupation with religious externals. But authentic piety is not limited to prayer, worship and other acts of religious devotion. Rather, the essence of true piety consists in demonstrating honor, respect, and appreciation whenever appropriate.

Piety enables us to extend this respect to all to whom it is due, including parents, community, nation, and world. Piety, then, is important to the fulfillment of the requirements of justice: it moves us to acknowledge how indebted we are to others, either because of the superior role they play in our life or because of the benefits they contribute to us. Piety impels us to show gratitude and appreciation to anyone who is a source of life, maturity, human development, and personal enrichment for us.

Above all, piety enables us to offer fitting honor and service to God as our Father. St. Thomas Aquinas, writing on piety, said, "Because God is called our Father par excellence, homage to him is termed piety." Hence, the chief act of the gift of piety is to reverence God in a spirit of sonship, through which the believer participates in the very Sonship of Jesus.

The second concern of the gift of piety is solicitude of others. Piety toward God is always ordered toward coming to the aid of God's children. This self‑giving service is the very lifeblood of the Church, and it is rendered only with great difficulty unless one possesses the gift of piety.

The perfection of piety is found in the saints, who are the best exemplars of finding Christ in everyone, and therefore of according everyone an honor and respect that may seem uncalled for in the eyes of others, but from the saint's perspective is entirely proper. They are able to see with heightened sensitivity how each one is an image of God and so possesses inalienable dignity and eternal worth.

+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 19-Sep-2008 13:30 sitemap