When practicality competes with piety

These two values should go together. When they happen to be in conflict, and especially when we give more importance to practicality than to piety, it could only mean one thing-that our priorities have gone awry.

We have chosen to be a Martha instead of a Mary. But things could even be worse than that comparison. Especially these days when we are often swept away by strong pressures from all over, there is always that danger to fall for the enticements of practicality and completely leave piety behind.

To be realistic in our present conditions, we need to be ready to resist this great temptation and work toward giving piety priority over practicality. Better still, we should find a way where the two values, in their proper order, can be put together.

This, of course, will require some deepening in our convictions that God should be treated first before anything else in our life. God should be the beginning and end of everything in our life.

He is, in fact, everything to us. We need to convince ourselves more strongly that there is nothing in life where God need not be the center of interest, or where he can be set aside, at least for some time. Again, God is everything to us! That is non-negotiable.

This means that we should strengthen our belief, beefing it up with the appropriate skills, that everything is and should be related to God. It's when we think that there are things that are not directly relatable to God that gives rise to this conflict between practicality and piety.

We need to overcome that common dichotomy of dividing, and not merely distinguishing, the sacred from the mundane. Such dichotomy is blind to the presence and providence of God working in everything in our life. It would only recognize God's presence and work in some sacred places or activities or some special occasions, but not in the things of the world.

We have to develop a strong sense of piety while immersed in the world, doing mundane things that are supposed to give glory to God and are the raw material, so to speak, for God's providence to operate in the world.

We have to develop a strong sense of relating things to God, asking ourselves questions like: Is what I am doing now what God really wants me to do? Am I doing things with rectitude of intention? Am I doing it right? What is God trying to tell me at this moment, in this particular occasion? Etc.

We have to avoid falling into worldliness, secularism, materialism and the many bad consequences they produce, like activism and the so-called "professionalitis." In this concern, no effort should be spared, especially now when practically everyone is already deeply affected by these anomalies, one way or another.

It's not that we should always behave in a serious or solemn way, which is what many people caricaturize piety to be. Piety can lend itself easily into any situation. It is versatile, adaptable to any situation, and even creative.

This creativity of piety is in fact the reason why it has to go together with practicality. It's when one is practical that any situation, no matter how mundane and insignificant, can be made use of to effect the dynamics of piety. It's truly amazing when one finally discovers how little and simple it takes to be with God always.

I remember a modern saint who talked a lot about human devices to keep him always in the presence of God all throughout the day. He would attach spiritual and moral considerations to certain things and acts that he would usually do everyday.