There is some disagreement among the Doctors regarding the Gift of piety. St. Augustine lays out the different possible meanings of the term pietas in The City of God when he explains that, “Piety most properly has been understood to be the worship of God, which the Greeks call theosebiam, and yet it is also said to be had dutifully towards parents, and in the customs of the commoners this word is even often used of works of mercy (Cap.1, n.3).” So for St. Augustine, it seems that true piety is directed towards God, though he recognizes that there are parallels between this kind of worship and earthly filial piety, such as is offered to parents.

St. Thomas, thinking in a similar vein, declares that the Gift of piety is that thing “whereby, at the Holy Ghost’s instigation, we pay worship and duty to God as our Father.(II.II.121)” Though he says relatively little about this Gift, I would imagine that he thinks of piety as the Gift whereby we worship God specifically as our spiritual Father (as opposed to our Creator, our Judge, our final end, or any of His other aspects.)

St. Bonaventure, in his Commentaries on the Sentences, has a somewhat different take. Quoting Augustine, he notes that the sort of piety whereby we acknowledge God as our Father belongs to wisdom, and thus it wouldn’t make sense for it to be a Gift in its own right. Noting the association of the word pietas with filial piety, he agrees with Thomas that this cannot be a Gift because the honoring of parents is a requirement of the natural virtue of justice. He therefore concludes that the Gift of piety must be directed towards other people, and acts of piety must be good deeds done to them. Even this has a danger of overlapping with another virtue, because the impulse to do good to others is sometimes attributed to the virtue of mercy. Bonaventure manages, however, to distinguish. “The virtue of mercy relates to a conformity with nature and the necessity of neediness or misery, but piety turns towards the divine image in one’s neighbor (3.35.1.6).”

His idea seems to be something like this. When we see another person in great distress, we have a natural impulse to want to help them. It is painful to me to see the pain of someone else, and pity may motivate me to do something about it. I wouldn’t want to say that this is necessarily a bad thing — after all, Bonaventure does call mercy a kind of virtue — but might there not be something in Emerson’s declaration that the dollar he gives to the beggar is a “wicked dollar”? Emerson recognizes that he is alleviating his own discomfort at the price of robbing the beggar of his dignity, and even without endorsing Emerson’s full philosophy we might feel some sympathy for this sentiment. Natural pity does seem to include an element of contempt.

The Gift of piety, in Bonaventure’s view, is something different. Piety is moved to help another precisely because that person bears the image of God. Piety looks on the poor or helpless one and sees the suffering Christ. Remembering the parable of the sheep and the goats, piety is inclined to respect neediness as something that makes the sufferer to resemble Our Lord on the cross, and in that light, it is eager to treat the poor or needy one as a dear friend and an honored guest. In this way piety can truly be regarded as a Gift of the Holy Spirit, because it requires supernatural aid to see holiness in a person who is lacking in natural goods.

I’m not qualified to definitely adjudicate the debate between the Angelic and Seraphic Doctors about the true nature of this particular Gift. Both recognize that the Gift must be a supernatural version of the honor due by nature to our parents; for this reason, both agree that piety is the Gift corresponding to the virtue of justice. Their ideas about how this natural virtue is turned into a supernatural Gift are somewhat different, and Thomas’ version does seem to capture better what we colloquially think of when we hear the word ‘piety.’ And if Thomas is right, it seems appropriate that we normally associate this virtue most strongly with simple and devout people, who seem to capture most perfectly the trusting, childlike attitude that we ought to adopt towards our divine Father.

Whether or not he is right, however, about the Gift of piety per se, I think Bonaventure’s distinction between different acts of mercy is a good one. There is a difference between helping others out of pity, and helping others out of piety. As with the Gift of fear, it seems likely that there is a spectrum. Most of us, when we set out to do works of mercy, are motivated by some combination of pity and piety. One indicator of which is stronger might be found in the degree to which we congratulate ourselves at the end of the day for the good works we have done. But as with the Gift of fear, we should not shun good and useful impulses merely because we recognize that we could have better ones. It takes a supernatural Gift of grace to see God in flawed human beings. With patience, prayer, and regular reception of the Sacraments, we can hope that this Gift will be manifested more and more in our daily lives.