Norms of Piety: A Plan for Everyday Living

EVERYONE’S LIFE today seems to be filled with all kinds of activities. If a person wants to keep on top of his work and his social relations and not overlook other important aspects of his life, he has to organize himself, plan things out, not leave things to last minute improvisation. In a word,-he needs a plan of life. This plan should be concrete and flexible at the same time, capable of adapting itself to changing circumstances. It should include professional work, the family, and apostolate, while at the same time forming a synthesis in the unity of life which should be characteristic of every Christian. Such a plan should not be a straitjacket, but rather like rails along which a train, symbolizing our life as a Christian, moves swiftly and safely.

This fully personalized plan, the result of reflection, will enable us to accomplish more with the time we have available, and will help us to be realists. In this sense a plan of life expands in a practical way to embrace both the human and the spiritual. For a Christian, the full life is nothing more than human life itself lived in a Christian manner. Hence the importance of religious formation and of the interior life in order to sanctify human activities and, at the same time, to turn them into instruments of apostolate.

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