Day 7: The Gift of Piety

The seventh day of the Holy Spirit Novena turns to the Gift of Piety. The Catholic tradition draws Piety (Latin: pietas) from a Roman Stoic vocabulary in which the word named the dutiful love of a son for his father, of a citizen for his country, and of a worshiper for his gods. The Christian transformation of the term is decisive: the Gift of Piety is the supernatural disposition by which the Holy Spirit makes the Catholic soul love God as a true Father with a real filial affection.

Today's invocation

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and kindle in them the fire of Your love. Send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. Amen.

Today's meditation

The biblical foundation of the Gift of Piety is in Saint Paul's words to the Galatians: "because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'" (Galatians 4:6). The cry Abba is the Aramaic intimate form of address to a father, the form a small child uses, with no equivalent dignified register; the Lord Jesus uses it Himself in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:36). The Holy Spirit's gift to the baptized Christian is the same cry: the disposition by which the Catholic soul addresses God not as a distant deity but as Father in the most intimate sense.

Saint Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 121) treats the Gift of Piety as the Holy Spirit's perfection of the natural virtue of religion. The natural virtue of religion gives the soul the habituated disposition to render to God the worship that is owed Him. The Gift of Piety adds the affective dimension: the soul does not only render owed worship but does so with the love of a son for his father, with delight, with the desire for the Father's company, with grief over offending Him.

Today's intention

Today, ask the Holy Spirit for the Gift of Piety in your relationship with God the Father. Holy Spirit, deepen in me the disposition of filial love. Let me approach the Father not as a stranger or as a feared judge but as the Lord Jesus has taught me to approach Him. If you have struggled with father-images in your own life (an absent or harsh earthly father, the cultural weight of patriarchal language, the difficulty of trusting God as Father), bring this struggle to the Holy Spirit explicitly today.

Reflection

The Gift of Piety has a horizontal dimension as well as a vertical one. The Catholic faithful who are formed by the Gift come to love not only God as Father but also their fellow human beings as the brothers and sisters of Christ. The Catholic doctrine of the Mystical Body makes every baptized Christian a member of the same body, and the Gift of Piety inclines us to love them with the warmth of a true family member. This is why the Gift of Piety is the foundation of the Catholic apostolate of charity: the works of mercy flow from the Gift, not as a matter of duty alone but as an overflow of family love.

The principal sign of the Gift of Piety in the practical Catholic life is the affection with which the soul approaches the sacraments and prayers of the Church. The Catholic who loves to attend Mass (not only attends from duty), who loves to go to confession (not only goes when conscience requires), who loves to pray the rosary and to keep the saints' days, has been given the Gift of Piety in considerable measure. The Catholic who attends but does not love, who prays but without affection, may be in a temporary period of dryness (the dark night, treated in the Mary Undoer of Knots Novena Day 8) or may be in need of an increase of the Gift of Piety, which the Holy Spirit gives when asked.

Closing prayers

Pray seven times each: the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be.

Holy Spirit, Spirit of Piety, teach us to call God Father with filial love.