The spiritual gift of mercy is usually confused with the gift of piety. They are different spiritual gifts. The term piety comes from the Latin "pietas". It is the Latin translation of the Fear of God. This is what Saint Augustine explains in his book Confessions.
The fear of the Lord or Piety is defined as constancy, firmness, devotion, equanimity, stability. The mercy instead is defined as compassion, amability, affability, benedicence, benevolence. Piety and mercy are spiritual gifts of the will, the spiritual gifts of the will are the gifts that take us on the path of spiritual enlightenment (Gnosis).
The gifts of the will are: righteousness (the golden rule, Matthew 7:12), continuous improvement, mercy, and godliness.
Piety is from the spiritual point of view more important than mercy: what is the use of having a spiritual gift, if not lived with constancy?
The spiritual gifts are progressive, that is, they are lived because we grow, we all have a ranking of mercy, of righteousness. And by this ranking we are judged.
The Bible presents us different cases where these gifts are manifested. For example, we have the spiritual gift of piety in the combat between David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17). When we fight in inferior conditions, piety is key to winning. David has little chance of winning but remains "firm" in a difficult situation, he is precise and exact, he hits the target and wins.
Let us remember that gifts are way, truth, and life (John 14: 6). They are path because they are progressive and they are true because they are precise and exact.
Cases of mercy we have the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) and the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). The purpose of these parables is to teach us that sin and justice are forms of error. The mercy is precision and accuracy.
The gifts of the will constitute the beginning of the blessed life, that is to say to live the spiritual gifts we inherit from God. After the Gnosis we receive the gifts of the knowledge (1 Corinthians 12:31): wisdom, understanding and discernment. Piety and mercy have a common basis: progressive thinking and mentality
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