Two weeks ago I gave a sermon on frequent Confession as the antidote for "Lukewarmness", which is laziness in the service of God through the toleration of many, many, venial sins. When a person lives in this state, they just say: "Oh well, everybody does!" They tolerate all sorts of things in their life, and don't even bother to confess them. Mortal sin can sneak up on a person like that - given time.

I would like to look at this from another angle today concerning the gift of Piety. First you saw the Sacramental forum of Confession, now I would like you to see the forum of Grace and the Gift of the Holy Ghost. So think about it for a moment, and remember that the Virtue of Piety, unlike the gift of Piety, has to do with the relationship of children to their parents - we are talking about the Virtue, now.

You know the fourth Commandment: "Honour Thy Father and Thy Mother!" Well, children, it is a Virtue to honour your parents. Children must always do this, and it is called Piety, for our parents are the ones who gave us life, and the debt we owe to our parents in the natural order, cannot be paid back; you can never pay back the gift of life like that.

Now in the Supernatural domain with God as our Father, it is a special gift - one of the seven - that enables a child of God - an adopted son, or daughter - to return love to the Eternal Father, and this is the gift of Piety. Although the focus is not on paying the debt - like the Virtue of Religion is - like giving to God what is God's by right -- supernatural worship, and prayer and sacrifice and penance. The measure of Piety is not justice, it is not contractual relationships, it is the honour of your father. The gift of Piety has to do with the honour that the child owes in filial affection to his adorable Eternal Father.

In the wonderful book, "The Sanctifier", which relies a lot on Saint Thomas Aquinas, we read these words about Piety. The gift of Piety is not concerned with what is owed to God, it does not measure the honour to him. How could you measure? On the contrary, the gift of Piety is inspired by the spirit of adoption by which we call upon God as our Father. Since he is our Father we should have a deep filial affection for Him in our hearts, because it is proper that children love their Father. The Gift of Piety is the Gift of the Holy Spirit, and envelopes in us this filial affection, thus we are concerned about the Honour and Glory of our Father because we are His children.

Saint Francis of Assisi is really the Saint of this Gift, Piety, he excelled in this gift. When he found this truth he was not yet converted, and he dreamed of the glory of becoming a Knight errant. He met this leper one day who came to him, and he felt this supernatural movement in his soul when he saw him. He responded to it, and at that very moment he received a revelation - and the revelation was of "human fraternity" - the bond of fraternal love. We would perhaps call it today: "Solidarity".

When Saint Francis understood that he knew then that all men are brothers. He received the marvellous effects of the gift of Piety. It enables us to perform our obligations towards others - not by the measure of strict justice, but in accord with the great affection we bear them in our souls, for Christ's sake. So Piety then is not only on the vertical level, but because we are the Mystical Body of Christ, Piety then stretches out to your brothers and sisters. After all, the Second Commandment is likened to the first: "Love your neighbour as Christ loved him!

We see this in Saint Mary Magdalene when she was converted, and she came to that great Pharisee's House, Simon, who had this magnificent banquet of food there, and he got very upset to say the least, and judged Mary Magdalene when she came in and began to anoint Our Lord's Feet with her tears, and the demonstratively offer Him her contrition. He was scandalised by this, and Our Lord said that on the contrary, because of her great love, her many sins are forgiven, and that he hadn't even offered Jesus anything when He came in; yet this woman had not ceased loving Him, expressing and honouring Him and His Father. Our course, Saint Mary Magdalene did that again at the end, shortly before the Crucifixion. So there are many examples of honouring God Our Father.

Now what I wanted you to focus on was the Gift of Piety, or this filial affection for God Our Father. It has a powerful affect on lukewarmness, because it makes you seek the Honour of God. If you think about the vows the husband and wife take when they are married, after saying: "In good times and bad, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer...". After saying that, the husband and wife profess to each other: "I will love you and honour you all the days of my life!"

So when you think about the love of two spouses for each other, the word "honour" takes on a very profound meaning, because it has the sense that you are loving your Spouse in every way possible - in the little things, the big things, the wide things, the narrow things - everything - because you love her for herself, or him for himself. In this you honour God, and you honour your Spouse. So there are many ways of showing in practicality how we honour God and we honour our neighbour. Let me give you a couple of examples, and I will get to the real meat of what I am going to say today:

This is an engineering problem, and you see the obviousness of it all of what Piety does for your soul. There was a train - the regular train that you take from Sydney to Melbourne, of something like that - and this train was in a desert region, either in India, or in South Arabia. Anyway, picture the scene of lots and lots of sand dunes and dry barren land with a lot of strong wind. So this particular train had to make its passage through this region. Every time the train made the journey -- the sand, dirt and dust - because of the wind - came in through the windows, the doors, the cracks, holes, everywhere, and it got all over the passengers. No sooner did they get to their destination they found they were covered with sand and dust, and this really was upsetting. The people were complaining to the Management of this Company. They couldn't figure it out, so they started to put in double sealed and double-paned windows; made sure the doors and cracks were sealed as best they could, but it wouldn't help. There were so many little cracks, little holes and places where dust could get in, that -- sure enough, the passengers would still be covered in dust and sand. It got to the point where they were really going to lose the Train Line..

So one day this Engineer figured it out. He figured out a very ingenious way to block out, not only the dust, but every single particle of it. It is called, "positive pressure", and they do this now in all your businesses, high rise buildings and elevator shafts - to prevent fires. What they did was put a little fan on top of the carriage so that it would pressurise the cabin with regular air, because there was a fan pushing, and the air pushed through the holes and the cracks, and sure enough -- it kept the dust out! Amazing, a simple little thing stopped the dust from coming in, and now of course they use that practice everywhere.

I wanted you to see that by way of analogy for what the gift of Piety does to your soul. You know how venial sins can get in everywhere; they can get in every little crack, every little hole, very little leeway, every inch you give, venial sins will find a way into your life, because of weakness, because of Original Sin, because of world, the flesh and the devil. So you find your soul every day getting dusted by various things that come at you.

We have already talked about frequent Confession, and what that does. But what you want to see now is, just like in that train situation. The Gift of Piety, when we allow it to really be what it is meant to be every day is like that "positive pressure". When you honour your Father in Heaven, and you honour your Blessed Mother, and the little things: the filial affection, the affection you have (and it is something that you carry with you) -- in the office, or wherever you are on this property and whatever you are doing in your tasks with your roster etc. -- that you are away of the honour of your Father, and how that honour is both vertical and horizontal, because of human solidarity, because we have to love our neighbour as Christ has loved him.

When we are in touch with that -- affectively - this true Piety which honours a brother, which honours a sister - we have the remedy for lukewarmness. Justice is not the measure here. This is not what the Gift of Piety does. Justice matters are a different situation. The Gift of Piety is not concerned with measuring your neighbour at all, it only honours your neighbour by the filial Love of God, and the filial affection that God has for your neighbour. And you want to respond to your Father in that way by loving your neighbour as Christ has Loved you.

So, having said that, you can see then that this wonderful gift affectively pushes out all the dust from every little nook and cranny; every little crack, every little hole, every little predominant fault that you have -- or whatever it is that dusts you, constantly, every day. It is a real effective remedy, because it is nothing more than honouring God. It is a state of honouring, -- just like a husband and wife when they pronounce their vows to each other .

I would like you to think about that because two weeks ago I had this dream. I don't know whether it was in the night or in the day. It has nothing to do with anybody here or anything like that, it is a purely symbolic dream, but I knew straight away the meaning of it for me, and it and to do with a lesson for myself on lukewarmness. It was so vivid I didn't know how to say it two weeks, so I didn't put it in to my homily, but it has never left me, and I see now, today, how it fits in, and I would like to share it with you. It is nothing more than a symbol.

I saw myself with a lot of people - married people with children, and families - and we were in this cave of some sort, with big rocks, and we were trying to follow a pathway. There were children all around, and everything. We were on our way somewhere, and at the moment everyone had stopped. All of a sudden there was a really big earthquake, and these big boulders started falling, and a strong wind started coming through the pathway with smoke and fire. There was panic. The smoke was coming in so quickly you couldn't see where to go, you just knew the pathway out was that way. Everybody just grabbed a child, or anyone they could and just ran. There was no time to think - nothing - you just had to get out of there, fast.

I remember that I didn't have anybody with me, or anything; I seemed to be running alone. It was terribly dark and full of smoke, and the wind was keeping the fire off our back so that we could make the pathway. I didn't know where anybody else was, it appeared they were all ahead of me, so I was coming out last. All of a sudden I heard a child behind me, crying. I stopped and looked around, and it was a little girl about two years old, who couldn't really know or understand what was happening. This child was in sheer terror - panic - he had somewhat got left in the chaos of it all. The child was trapped and could not move, or get out. I knew that I had to do something, and it was right then I woke up. I didn't know what I did - whether I went to save the child, or whether I ran away.

It disturbed me, and I got to thinking about it, about what I would have done, and I knew straight away that if I was lukewarm in my heart, and that if I had allowed overtime my soul to become so lukewarm, I would not have been able to withstand the temptation to run away, and to leave that child. The sheer heat of this fire and boulders, I knew for certain the child was going to die, and I knew for certain that if I went there I, too, was going to die. I knew the answer for me was lukewarmness. It came home very clear; it is a symbol, maybe, of the Church - I don't know what it is. But I know this, lukewarmness will make you run. The sheer fear of all these things, because you are not in touch, really. You have been tolerating too long the laziness of not really practicing the Faith, or virtue and love, and all those wonderful things you talk about. Then you will flee - you will run

I was aware that without the Grace of God, you would run. Then I looked at it again, and then I looked deeply within myself, and I really examined my conscience, and I said: "What would I do? Would I really do that?" A part of me said: "No!"; part of me said that I would go, because I felt in my soul that that child, even though knew the child could not get out, I couldn't leave that child - I couldn't leave it. I had to go and run, and I knew that all I could do was let it hold me, and I could hold it. I knew that was going to be the end of my life. So there was a part of me in myself that consoled me that that is what I would have done, I would have gone and been with that child, because that child was too young to even know what was happening. It just knew that it had to have its mother or its father. The child recognised me, and I know and I hope and pray that is what I would do.

I knew, also, that this would give great honour to God, and I would be happy for ever and ever, to say the least. I knew that it would be the finish of my earthly life. But you see, this is where the honour of your father and the love of your brother and sister in the solidarity of human suffering, really comes into the picture. I really asked myself, and really looked at that, for it stayed in my mind, and even now I can see it. I asked myself: "Would I have really done that?" Would I really do that when the crunch comes, and there is sheer panic, and the devil is screaming in your ear. Don't even kid yourself that you would do the virtuous thing; don't even deceive yourself, because in the sheer panic, and when the devil will scream in your ear, every doubt, every .... what's the use.

But I knew in my soul - and you know in your soul what you have to do. It is because of the filial affection. If we have that filial affection for God, we will also have that for our brother, regardless of their age, or their disability, or our liking them, or not liking them. They belong to God, and for His honour I knew that no-one who has ever loved God like that, and was left unaided. So I started imagining to myself that God would make a big miracle, and He would crack open the rock, and then all of a sudden the child and I would be able to go free, and I would be able to bring the child to his mother, and it would be a great honour to God.

But I also thought to myself that God was probably thinking, too, that: "My son, this is your hour, I have planned this for you to give Me Glory since before you were born. It is your time, My son." What a joy and what a Glory this is to God, and this is the filial affection of Piety; it's very deep.

There are three degrees of this wonderful gift in us. The first degree of this gift, which is kind of like beginners, or so to speak is when we regard our brethren in the first degree of this gift, the soul gives itself, generously, to others in the way proper to the gift. In other words, we a generous to the first degree; you are just generous in your love - that's all. It is more or less your surplus. You are not yet at the giving stage where you are giving what you need yourself. But you are generous - that is the first stage of filial affection on the solidarity with your brothers and sisters.

The second degree is no longer an overflow of generosity, whereby the soul gives what is superfluous - it now gives what it needs. The soul not only loves God in a very deep and generous way, it loves God even to what it needs, and is willing to part with it for the sake of another. and the gift of filial affection, of Piety for your father who loves and is honoured by the love of a brother. After all, is it not said that a parent is honoured in his children - isn't that the measure of honour in a parent? All you fathers and mothers, you know that very well. You are honoured by the goodness of your children, aren't you? It even brings tears to your eyes to be honoured that way by your children. Here we are in the second degree: what is the highest degree of this gift? It is this: the last degree of this gift, particularly in those dedicated to the Apostolic life - that means the salvation of souls, like in vows - consists in giving oneself, without reserve, in giving everything for others.

In other words, you not only give the fruit of the tree, you give the tree, itself. That is the highest degree of the gift of Piety, and that is why when you vow yourself by promises and minor vows and Religious vows, and all, you are giving to God, not only the fruits - you are giving Him the entire tree; you are giving Him yourself for His Glory, for the salvation of your brothers and your sisters.

We see this in many examples: the "Unpetalled Rose" - Theresa, the 'Little Flower', the Saints - they all lived at this heroic degree of total giving of self out of filial affection, to honour the One Who Created them - my brother and my sister.

So I can see now, and I saw in myself, that lukewarmness is really a killer; it really is, you don't need it, for if the crunch comes all of a sudden, and you are not prepared, spiritually, you (I saw in myself) will run; you will run. People will say to you afterwards: "It's all right, Father, don't worry about it - what else could do?" What else could I have done? They will never know what I could have done, but I will carry what I could have done for the rest of my life, because I let go, I left a soul, I let a soul perish.

Can you understand that? I know it is only symbolic, and I know it probably has something to do with the mystery of the Church in our time, but it really came home to me like that - that's why I was really affected much more than you think. When I gave that sermon on lukewarmness it spoke more to me than it did to you, and it just came to me, all of that.

Anyway, I know that that's the answer. Lukewarmness is a killer, it is very subtle, it is like a disease, but it kills, because it takes away from your heart, filial affection, to honour your Maker, your Redeemer, your Maker. So the remedy is Piety - filial affection, and prayer to God, often; frequent Confession, and a lot of other things.