Reverence

It is that fundamental attitude toward being in which one gives all being the opportunity to unfold itself in its specific nature, in which one neither behaves as its master nor acts toward it in a spirit of familiar conviviality. In its most primitive form reverence is a response to the general value of being as such, to the dignity which all being (as opposed to nothingness or mere fictitiousness) possesses, to the value of its own consistency, of standing on its own, of the ultimate positiveness of being. In this right and appropriate attitude toward being as such, this affirmation free from obtrusiveness, this silent, contemplative disposition toward being as being, the world begins to disclose itself in its entire depth, differentiation, and plenitude of value.

—Dietrich von Hildebrand, Liturgy and Personality (1943)