Piety

This is what it means to be pius.Pietas in traditional Latin usage expressed a complex, highly valued Roman virtue; a man with pietas respected his responsibilities to gods, country, parents, and kin.

At the fall of Troy, Aeneas carries to safety his father, the lame Anchises, and the Lares and Penates, the statues of the household gods.

[8]) Professor Richard McBrien said piety "is a gift of the Holy Spirit by which we are motivated and enabled to be faithful and respectful to those—ultimately, God—who have had a positive, formative influence on our lives and to whom we owe a debt of gratitude,"[9] and requires one to acknowledge, to the extent possible, the sources of those many blessings through words and gestures great and small.

[10] The gift of piety perfects the virtue of justice, enabling the individual to fulfill his obligations to God and neighbor, and to do so willingly and joyfully.

Pope John Paul II defined piety as "the gift of reverence for what comes from God," and related it to his earlier lectures on the Theology of the Body.

[15] In a General Audience in June 2014, Pope Francis said, "When the Holy Spirit helps us sense the presence of the Lord and all of his love for us, it warms our heart and drives us almost naturally to prayer and celebration.

It engenders interior attitudes rarely observed to the same degree elsewhere: patience, the sense of the cross in daily life, detachment, openness to others, devotion.

By reason of these aspects, we readily call it "popular piety," that is, religion of the people, rather than religiosity.They are the manifestation of a theological life nourished by the working of the Holy Spirit who has been poured into our hearts (cf.

Romans 5:5).While acknowledging that Anglican piety took the forms of more frequent communion and liturgical observances and customs, Bishop Ronald Williams spoke for increased reading of the Bible.[22][importance?]