Purifying our popular piety
This will be a continuing, endless task. We first of all should be most thankful that despite the many secularizing factors affecting the world today, we in our country still manage to have a very moving popular piety or showing of our faith, devotion, and religion.
But we should not forget that while we are most happy that we still have a vibrant spirit of popular piety, we should also feel the need to continually purify that piety from elements that undermine it even if they look like they are reinforcing it.
We cannot deny popular piety is very vulnerable to all kinds of superstitious beliefs and practices that have the appearance of faith, devotion, and religion, but actually do not lead us to God but rather to our own sense of self-fulfillment.
Not that with God and the authentic practice of piety and religion we would not have this sense of self-fulfillment. In fact, with God and the authentic practice of piety and religion we would have a deep and abiding sense of self-fulfillment.
But it is a self-fulfillment that does not confine us to our own selves. It will truly bring us to God and to everybody else, irrespective of our differences. It is a self-fulfillment that fills us with awareness.
We just have to realize that our spirit of popular piety is not a product of herd mentality, where like animals we would just blindly follow the tide, trends, and atmosphere.
We need to put all our mind and heart into our piety and religion, and not just be dragged by the unreliable impulses of our human instincts and emotions.
We should always feel the need to rectify our intentions, because it is very easy to fall into self-deception and hypocrisy. Christ told us to “be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Mt 6,1)
Then he continued, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others…But when you pray, go into your room close the door and pray to your Father…” (Mt 6,5,6)
It is not that we cannot pray collectively in public. We can and should because that is simply an expression of our social nature. And our piety and practice of religion can also have this collective and public character because of our social nature. But we should see to it that our intentions are pure.
That is, that we are truly talking and adoring God, and not just making a show. And that our relationship with everybody else becomes tighter and more meaningful.
We need to examine ourselves to see if indeed our participation in the acts of popular piety is authentically motivated by faith and love for God and others. From there, let us help one another develop a true spirit of popular piety, doing a lot of catechesis and giving good example of how this popular piety ought to be lived.
We need a lot of role models in this department of our life. Let’s take advantage of what we already have in terms of popular piety and develop it further, pushing it to a higher level, and not allowing it to deteriorate into a pagan, orgiastic celebration!
- Latest
