Priestly Piety
First Meditation - Its Nature and Source
I. What is piety? According to Cicero's definition, adopted by St. Thomas and afterwards by all the Scholastics:
Pietas est per quam a sanguine junctis patriaeque benevolis officium et diligens tribuitur cultus. (1 Rhet., lib. ii)And St. Laurence Justinian emphasizes piety's interior dispositions and exterior manifestation:
per quam a conjunctis sanguine et benevolentia affectus et diligens tribuitur cultus.Piety therefore regards immediately and principally one's own parents, with whom one is primarily connected by the ties of blood and benevolence; and the term "pious" applies in its first acceptation to the man who loves, respects, reverences, obeys and serves his parents. That is why St. Monica on her deathbed could call her son pious, notwithstanding his dissipated life. And St. Augustine himself tells us:
"It was a joy to me to have this one testimony from her: when her illness was close to its end, meeting with expressions of endearment such services as I rendered, she called me a dutiful, loving son, and said in the great affection of her love that she had never heard from my mouth any harsh or reproachful word addressed to herself. But what possible comparison was there, O my God who made us, between the honour I showed her and the service she rendered me?" (Confessions, Bk. ix, chap. xii. Trans. Sheed.)Obsequium, honor, servitus. Obedience, honour, service: these three things, when rendered to our parents, constitute natural piety. But since God is
"the Father from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth takes its title" (Eph. iv, 15);since God is the Supreme being, excelling all others, their Source and Origin; since God created us to His own image and likeness, and communicated to us, by grace, His own divine Spirit whereby we cry out to God: Abba-Father! (Rom. viii, 15) - in short, because God is our Father first and foremost, before any earthly parents, the term "pious" belongs primarily to the person who renders filial obedience, honour and service to God our Father in Heaven. We may say that piety is the keeping of the fourth commandment fused with the first; it is the Father and the child living together in the same home, the child never leaving it, never running away either in thought or desire or deed. Piety is being, living, willing at one with God our Father.
II. Piety means living by the Faith; not merely possessing the Faith, carrying it silently in the depths of the soul like a jewel in its casket or in the vaults of a bank. Piety means that the capital truths of our Faith have sunk into our minds, like a gentle dew from the heavens, taking up the leadership, becoming the very soul and centre, of all other knowledge and truth.
Piety means that our wills are continually being drawn towards, and unceasingly aspire after, the everlasting good as revealed by the dogmas of the Faith, with a longing that surpasses all other longing. Piety means that our exterior acts are all informed and conditioned by the divine teachings and precepts; that in all our trials and difficulties we turn to God, our Father, to Whom we confide our hopes and our joys. Piety enables us to put into practice the words of the psalmist:
"Familiaris est Dominus timentibus eum, et foedus suum manifestat eis." (Ps. xxiv, 14, revised.)"No man ever feared the Lord, but found graciousness in Him, and revelation in His covenant." It enables us to sing perpetually:
"Benedictus Deus, qui non amovit orationem meam, et misericordiam suam a me." (Ps. lxv, 20.)"Blessed be God, who does not reject my prayer, does not withhold His mercy from me."
It brings us to that happy state described by the Apostle St. Paul in Chapter vii of his Epistle to the Romans: a state which may be summed up in the following words: we are liberated in Jesus Christ by virtue of a spiritual principle of life from the principle of sin and death; set free, we think the thoughts of the spirit, the wisdom that brings life and peace; our spirit is no longer one of slavery, to govern us by fear; it is a spirit of adoption, which makes us cry out to God as a child cries to its father; it is the Spirit of God Himself making us His children, His heirs, giving us a share of Christ's inheritance after we have partaken of Christ's sufferings.
So Piety is something very intimate; it issues from the Heart of God into the heart of man, and thence it flows into outward acts, which are its fruit and necessary manifestation. Piety is the worship of the Father in spirit and in truth; it is the virtue of religion spread over the whole man and raised to filial heights, making us exclaim at every elevation of our spirit to God: "Our Father who art in heaven."
III. The Word was God. The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us. And that same divine Word told us:
He that seeth me, seeth the Father also. (John xiv, 9.)And to love the Son is to love also the Father.
All our piety towards God, then, should be directed through Christ, who, being the God-Man, has come within our easy reach. There is nothing like St. Matthew's eleventh chapter for showing us how we should be pious towards our Divine Lord Jesus Christ. Let us transcribe the evangelist's recording of Christ's words, and let these words sink deeply into our minds and hearts:
"I confess to Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to little ones."So great is God our Father - Tu solus Altissimus - that in order to become good children of God we must ever remain as little ones.
"Yea, Father: for so hath it seemed good in Thy sight."All belongs to Christ, and as an indication of Christ's greatness He would have us understand that:
"All things are delivered to me by my Father."
"No one knoweth the Son, but the Father,"neither men of learning nor prophets nor cherubim, but only the Father, whose understanding is infinite. And
"neither doth anyone know the Father, but the Son" -not all our deepest lucubrations on the Nature of the Godhead can adequately teach us Who the Father is; only the Son, infinite like the Father, can impart this knowledge:
"and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal Him."Hence, all knowledge of God that strays from the doctrine given by the Son is falsehood; there is no true knowledge of God except in the teachings of Christ, who, therefore, says to us:
"Come to me, all ye that labour and are heavily burdened.""All who are burdened by life's cares, or by the heavy duties of the priesdy ministry, or by sin, come to Me and I shall give you relief and rest; I shall encourage and give you consolation; take My yoke upon you and learn of Me; take Me for your Master, making yourselves My constant disciples; take Me as the universal Teacher of your lives, because I am meek and gentle and of kindly dispositions. Notwithstanding My personal greatness I know how to make Myself a little child towards those who submit to My teaching; I am humble of heart, like a mother stooping to instruct her little one, lisping in a language that the child understands. Come to Me, because only by following My system of teaching, only by relishing My teaching in actual practice, becoming wise through the knowledge I impart with a wisdom that combines goodness and truth, only by learning My words and moulding your conduct entirely upon them will you find rest for your souls, that source of true happiness about which men so copiously and so unavailingly discuss and argue. Come to Me, because the yoke I lay upon you is sweet, the burden I impose is light; and My hand, with its infinite strength helps you to bear them; and My Spirit will buoy you up and make them easy to bear."
O Jesus, keep me very small and make me sit down in the classroom with Thy pupils, where do Thou infuse into my inmost soul the law of Faith and of the Spirit, that wisdom which we call piety, wherewith the Father of Lights is venerated and worshipped, the Father from Whom descends every good and perfect gift!
Resolutions
Since every living being produces acts in conformity with its specific nature, I wish my piety to be a living thing, manifesting itself spontaneously in acts of piety. Therefore:
1. I am resolved to animate my entire priestly ministry with a spirit of piety, saying Mass and the Divine Office, exposing the Blessed Sacrament, reciting the rosary or Novena prayers, preaching and teaching catechism, all under the impulse and guidance of the selfsame spirit of piety.
2. Not satisfied with the above, I shall imbue all my liturgical acts with this spirit of piety, considering that each one yields a very special fruit which belongs exclusively to the officiating priest; for example, in distributing the Sacraments, in blessings and consecrations.
When administering the Holy Viaticum, let us say, what great profit for my soul, in terms of devotion and piety, if I had stopped to reflect that this particular task was essentially mine to perform, holier, more pleasing to God and more profitable to my soul, than any mere meditation! Alas! Haven't I turned the whole liturgical system into something mechanical, cold and fruitless, as though it were instituted only for the benefit of others? How holy a priest would become if he once began to take the liturgical acts as his own proud personal possession!
3. And since the perfect worship of God consists in loving God, revering Him, and rendering Him service by obeying His commands; from now on I wish to consider the observance of every divine precept or evangelical counsel, and the works of zeal and of mercy as so many acts of piety and religion; so that one day God may be able to say for my benefit:
I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to Me a son. (2 Kings vii, 14.)_________________________
Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.
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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!
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