Easter 2026 - Reading #12 - Piety
Reading
Pope Benedict XVI, in his general audience on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, spoke of piety as the gift that restores the broken relationship between God and humanity: "The gift of piety arouses in the believer a new capacity for relationship with God and with others. Through piety we experience God not as a distant lawgiver but as a loving Father. The gift of piety is therefore at the root of a new way of relating to our brothers and sisters, it prompts us to be gentle, patient, and merciful, not from mere natural inclination but from the supernatural awareness that every person is a child of God."
Benedict continued: "Piety is not mere sentimentality. It is a firm disposition of the heart, rooted in the Holy Spirit, that enables us to see with the eyes of faith and to respond with the heart of a son or daughter of God. It is the gift that makes worship genuine and fraternity real."
The pope emphasized that piety has both a vertical and horizontal dimension: it transforms our worship of God by making it personal and intimate, and it transforms our treatment of others by making it familial and compassionate. Without piety, worship becomes performance and fraternity becomes mere social convention.
Reflection
Thirteen days into Easter, Benedict XVI draws together the vertical and horizontal dimensions of piety: it changes how we relate to God (worship becomes personal) and how we relate to others (strangers become siblings). This double transformation is the hallmark of a gift that is genuinely working in a person's soul.
The test of piety is not how we feel during prayer but how we treat people after it. If our worship of God does not make us more gentle, patient, and compassionate toward the people in our lives, something has gone wrong. The gift of piety refuses to let us split our lives into a sacred compartment (where we are devout) and a secular compartment (where we are ruthless). If God is truly our Father, then the person who annoys us at work is truly our brother. We cannot honor the Father while dismissing his children.
As this week of piety comes to a close, take stock of both dimensions. In your prayer, are you speaking to God as Father, honestly, intimately, with trust? In your daily interactions, are you treating others as members of your family, with the patience and mercy you would extend to a sibling? The gift of piety integrates these two movements into a single life, and as we prepare to receive the gift of knowledge next week, this integration will prove essential. Knowledge without piety becomes cold and analytical; piety without knowledge becomes vague and sentimental. Together, they begin to form the mind and heart of a person truly alive in the Spirit.