The sign went up one morning in the front yard of my parents’ house: For Sale. There was a finality about that moment as a young girl in a pick-up truck pounded the wooden sign into the ground and took a picture to send to the real estate agent. It was the same sign I’d seen all over our town. But now it was in front of the home my parents had been in for the past 50 years. The house was officially for sale. My parents were moving.
It seemed surreal as we prepared to support my parents as they moved from their home into a much smaller apartment. So much loss. None of us realized how much would need to be given away or thrown away in order to make the move. With every item that couldn’t go with them, a part of me died…. That part of me that had grown up there as a child, loved to listen to the birds, had run down the hallways and learned to cook in the kitchen, loved and been loved…. Connections, security, past roots…
Now with the sign hanging ominously in the front yard, the unknown was closer and the leap into the future imminent. A lot of fear flowed through our family in those final days…. My siblings wanted the best. We tried to do the best thing for them.
I often say that I have infinite trust in divine Providence…but when it is your own parents’ happiness at stake it suddenly seems a flimsy hope. If I could just be sure. If I could control the outcome. If I could know the future…. But we can’t. We have to do our best. The best we can with what we have at the moment. Then it sometimes feels we have nothing left but to hope against hope that it all works out.
The Holy Spirit moves within our souls at times such as this, activating in us the gift of piety. The gift of piety is a supernatural habit infused in our souls in Baptism. When this gift within us is weak, we try to convince ourselves that God is good, to believe that God will take care of us. But under the influence of the gift of piety, we change our outlook completely. Jordan Aumann in his book Spiritual Theology states: “For those who are governed by the gift of piety, the world and all creation are considered as the house of the Father, and everything in the universe becomes a testimony of his infinite goodness. Such persons are able to discover the religious meaning hidden in all things.”
It is the gift of piety that surprises us with an affection for God as our beloved Father and an absolute child-like love. As we go through the situations of our life that could make us tremble, we walk instead with a filial confidence in the heavenly Father from whom all things come. Aumann states: “Intimately penetrated with the sentiment of its adoptive divine filiation, the soul abandons itself calmly and confidently to the heavenly Father. it is not preoccupied with any care, and nothing is capable of disturbing its unalterable peace, even for an instant. The soul asks nothing and rejects nothing. It is not concerned about health or sickness, a long life or a short life, consolations or aridity, persecution or praise, activity or idleness. It is completely submissive to the will of God and seeks only to glorify God with all its powers…. These souls run to God as a child runs to its Father.”
Here are two ways you can dispose yourself for the activity of the Holy Spirit related to the gift of piety:
1) Consider all things, even material things, as belonging to the house of God. St Francis of Assisi, for example, saw and judged all things in this visible world as belonging in some way to the heavenly Father. The created universe and everything about our lives is truly the Father’s domain. All things belong to him. By treating all things and every situation as somehow belonging also to God, we grow in union, respect and reverence for the Almighty and tender Father.
2) Practice daily a spirit of surrender and trust in God. We can try to do what we can, as I did as I faced the losses connected with my parents’ move. Even though our trust in God won’t be perfect until the gift of piety is intensely activated in us, the practice of striving for an evenness of spirit because we know for certain that God loves us as a father and cares for us in our daily needs will dispose us for the action of the Holy Spirit’s power.
A Prayer
O Holy Spirit, create in me the heart of a child toward its heavenly Father, a heart that seeks him always, loving and serving him with good will. Create in me a heart to my brothers and sisters that is kind, gentle, and meek with all. Amen.
Touching the Sunrise 