The Isaiah Gifts: Piety

When I first read the parable of the Hidden Treasure (Matthew 13:44; also see previous posts), I let my mind wander through the possibilities of what the farmer might have done after he sold everything he had bought the field which contained the treasure? Did he dig up the treasure and take it to his new home? For sure! But after that, what? I figured he'd enjoy it for a while, then be consumed with the desire to share his treasure with his friends. Then, while they admired it, he would return to his field to see what else he could dig up.

Parable of the Hidden Treasure by Rembrandt (Eszterházy collection, 1871)

I discovered Jesus six years ago (or is it seven?) and I remember being so happy at having found him I was on a cloud for days. I spent nearly all my time with him, talking to him, listening to him, learning from him, being loved by him, but within a few days I felt myself consumed with the desire to share him with others—and I did. I'd talk to everybody I met about Jesus, and while they were undoubtedly kicked at first to see this man who had denied God's existence for twenty five years now proclaiming him, I am sure I wore their patience thin after a while.

But that didn't stop me. I wanted to talk about him to more people and I went to my spiritual director asking him for permission to preach. "What will you preach about?" he asked amused. "Even the apostles were with Jesus for three years before they went out. You have not even spent a year with him."

"I'll preach the little I know," I said.

"And what is the little you know?" he asked.

"That God loves me," I answered. He studied me for a long moment, then told me I could go ahead.

I have not stopped preaching since then. I cannot. Because I have discovered the truth about the treasure—the kingdom of heaven—and I cannot keep it to myself.

The truth is that God loves me. He loves me tremendously. He loves me without condition. He doesn't care whether I am fat or thin, tall or short, ugly or handsome, smart or stupid, he loves me. I could be brown, black, white, even purple, he loves me. I could hurt him but that still doesn't change anything for him, he loves me.

When you encounter love like that, what do you do? Unless you have a heart of stone, you can only love him back. And when he asks you to love others like he loves you, what do you do? You can only love them the same way he does you. Unconditionally.

This understanding led me to an understanding of the gift of piety and how it works in making us holy. In one of his teachings on the gifts of the Holy Spirit during the Regina Coeli in May 1989, Pope John Paul II gave one of the best explanations of piety that I’ve ever come across and as I simply cannot say it any better, here are his words. “With the gift of piety,” the Holy Father wrote, “the Spirit heals our hearts of every form of hardness, and opens them to tenderness towards God and our brothers and sisters.

“Tenderness, as a truly filial attitude towards God, is expressed in prayer. The experience of one’s own existential poverty, of the void which earthly things leave in the soul, gives rise to the need to have recourse to God in order to obtain grace, help and pardon. The gift of piety directs and nourishes such need, enriching it with sentiments of profound confidence in God; trusted as a good and generous Father.

“Tenderness, an authentically fraternal openness towards one’s neighbor, is manifested in meekness. With the gift of piety the Spirit infuses into the believer a new capacity for love of the brethren, making his heart participate in some manner in the very meekness of the Heart of Christ. The “pious” Christian always sees others as children of the same Father, called to be part of the family of God which is the Church. He feels urged to treat them with the kindness and friendliness which are proper to a frank and fraternal relationship.

“The gift of piety further extinguishes in the heart those fires of tension and division which are bitterness, anger and impatience, and nourishes feelings of understanding, tolerance, and pardon. Such a gift is, therefore, at the root of that new human community which is based on the civilization of love.”

Amen.