Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Gift of Piety
The Gift of Piety is the gift of the Holy Spirit that moves our hearts to love God with the love that children have for their father
The Gifts of the Holy Spirit empower us to deepen our intimacy with God and to participate in His Divine Life. Three of the Gifts enhance our will – our ability to choose what is good even when the choice gets difficult: Piety, Fortitude, and Fear of the Lord. These gifts strengthen our ability to choose the ultimate good with the strength of the Holy Spirit. Fortitude strengthens our will to choose what is right and good even in the face of danger or adversity. Fear of the Lord inspires us to treasure our relationship with God and to fear losing it. Piety moves our hearts to love God with filial love.
Gifts of the Holy Spirit: the Gift of Piety
The Gift of Piety is the gift of the Holy Spirit that moves our hearts to love God with the love that children have for their father. With the Gift of Piety the Holy Spirit moves us beyond the virtue of religion, the virtue of giving to God the honor and worship that is due to him as Creator and Lord. Piety is what empowers us to be like Jesus and call our Heavenly Father “Abba” – “Daddy.”
Scripture says that we have a “spirit of adoption.” By our unity with Jesus, God’s beloved Son, we are adopted into God’s family. We become children of God and Piety allows us to love God as our father. This is unique among all of the religions of the world.
What does this mean in practical terms?
1. The Gift of Piety calls us to the Beatitude “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” It gives us a hunger to belong to God’s family and to live as members of His family.
2. Piety inspires us to understand the Church as the family of God
3. Piety inspires us to mourn for those who are lost in sin – our brothers and sisters who are estranged from the love of the Family.
4. Piety inspires us to meekness – to let go of anger and revenge for the sake of the unity of the family. It also calls us to be merciful to others. In case you’re counting, that means that the Gift of Piety moves us to live out three of the seven Beatitudes!
The Gift of Piety is active in all of us, but it is especially strong in some Christians. There are many saints we could look to as a model of Piety – but none fits better than Mary, the Mother of God. Mary’s willingness to say “yes” to God was not born out of fear or a sense of destiny, but out of the trust that a daughter has for her father. Mary proved this time and time again throughout Jesus’ life. And of course as the Mother of God, she lived as a member of God’s family – spouse of the Holy Spirit, mother to the Son and now Mother of us all through Jesus.
Your Challenge
Your challenge is to examine your own life and see how the Gift of Piety is active. Have you had times when you were drawn to God as a son or daughter drawn to a father’s love? Tell us in the comments below!
Empower your adventure by discovering your Gifts of the Holy Spirit!
Your Next Action Step
The key to changing any behavior – including living the adventure of faith – is to systematize your behavior into habit formation. The programs of From the Abbey teach you how to build key spiritual virtues that help you to develop a spiritual life even amidst the bustle of everyday life. Does this sound like something you need? I have a great opportunity for you to get more involved with what From the Abbey has to offer. Take a look below . . .
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I am working with a bad habit that I have and thanks to the Virgin Mary I was doing well for four days and yesterday I failed. I was watching the Pope’s visit to Colombia and I got to the Lord and asked Him I needed His mercy and I have not seen it in the material world I do need it NOW.
Habits can be very difficult to change. Combatting habitual sin is going to be part of the Deep Conversion course, which will be the “advanced” course for the Crypt in the Rebuild Your Inner Abbey program. Here are a few tips from my research for that course:
1. Instead of fighting a habit head-on, try to find what conditions trigger the habit and then pair a good habit with those conditions.
2. Go to reconciliation more often. That’s the best place to experience God’s mercy in a tangible way through the priest. But then you need to TRUST that God wants to give you His mercy and the grace to overcome the habit. He may let you struggle with it, not as a test, but to help you strengthen your resolve. He always gives you the grace you need to overcome, but He also wants to strengthen your resolve to holiness.
3. You’re not alone! Everyone struggles with habitual sin. I am finally making headway on a habitual sin that started in college – that was over 20 years ago! There is virtue in the struggle. Knowing it’s a sin, confessing it and seeking the mercy and grace of Jesus, and being determined to fight it – that’s the sign that you’re moving in grace.
Thank you so much for sharing your struggle with us. I hope you’ll consider joining our free online community, where we can support each other in our quest for holiness.