DEVOTION. - I. GENERAL NOTIONS. - The word d. is not always rightly understood. This term is often confused with d. in the plural. The latter are rather certain means for attaining true and proper d.. At other times the term is used to indicate attention and a certain sensible fervor in prayer. In the strict sense, it could be defined as: "a reverential and at the same time affectionate movement of the soul toward God, whom we acknowledge to have prerogatives worthy of love and respect." It is an act at once of the intellect, which knows the lovableness of God, and of the will, which gives itself to his service. St. Thomas numbers it among the interior acts of the virtue of religion, together with prayer. The principal object, therefore, of d. is God, who is also its principal cause, inasmuch as he gives it, sustains it, and increases it, according to his good pleasure (Sum. Theol., 2ᵃ-2ᵃᵉ, q. 82, a. 3). On man's part, however, it demands an act of the will, which must be resolved to remain constantly consecrated to the service of God, notwithstanding all physical and spiritual trials. D., in fact, is not the fruit of feeling, but of the will. The very fervor of d., which is often erroneously believed to be due to feeling and therefore inconstant, can instead be a permanent state of the soul, which, under the impulse of a robust will, keeps itself constantly in the total exercise of the service of God. It is necessary as is the virtue of religion to which it belongs. St. Ambrose says that d. is "the first virtue and the foundation of the others, and God requires it of all" (De Abraham, I, 2).
II. QUALITIES OF DEFAMATION
a) Detachment from earthly things. As St. Thomas rightly notes, devotion (from devoueo) etymologically means "consecration to the divinity." This necessarily entails a total self-giving without interference from other human objects. b) Complete submission to the will of God in all the happy and sad vicissitudes of life. c) Not anxiously seeking the interior consolations that sometimes, through God's goodness, accompany devotion, but striving disinterestedly for perfect union with God through charity. d) Consequently devotion must be anchored, like the virtue of religion, in a conscious and lived faith. From all this it follows that true devotion must not be limited to a merely intellectual knowledge of God's demands, but must tend toward an effective union (Sum. Theol., 2a-2ae, q. 180, aa. 1 and 7).
III. MEANS TO OBTAIN IT
St. Thomas indicates one, which, however, he calls "the intrinsic cause of devotion on man's part." It is contemplation or meditation.
Meditation must keep especially two considerations before it: a) the goodness of God and the benefits that man has received from him; b) the awareness of one's own failings, which obliges one to raise one's eyes to heaven, in order to obtain from God pardon and help. According to the best Doctors of the Church, a very effective means is meditation on the mysteries of the life, Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Other means that could help to obtain it and to increase it are: 1) spiritual direction; 2) the frequent use of the Sacraments; 3) the habit of the interior life and of union with God; 4) prayer, a means also indicated by St. Thomas; 5) the mortification of the passions that disturb and distract the soul from true devotion; 6) the particular devotions approved by the Church and suggested by the saints.
IV. EFFECTS OF DEFAMATION
Again according to the Angelic Doctor, they are spiritual joy, which arises from the consideration of God's goodness, and together a sense of sadness that has its origin in the awareness of one's own failings and of the insufficiency of our nature to fulfill perfectly its own duties toward God. The hope, which becomes certainty, of God's help, turns even this feeling of repentance and humility into serenity and joy.
From what has been said thus far it follows that true d. is not an experience nor does it consist in the observance of certain determined religious practices, but rather is sentimental, emotional, a living and positive expression of our faith in God and of the affection that we feel in our heart for him. D. presupposes a profound veneration for God, a sincere gratitude toward him, the desire to be united to him and resignation to his divine will.
Giuseppe Sette
V. DEVOTIONAL PRACTICES
They are the means to attain the end, which is devotion, that is, the interior act of the virtue of religion. Practices of piety and practices of devotion are the same thing.
The great Catholic devotions are directed to the Most Holy Trinity, to Our Lord Jesus Christ, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to St. Joseph, to the angels, to the saints and even to the souls in Purgatory (v. CULTO). The most common devotional practices, such as the sign of the Cross, the Way of the Cross, the Holy Hour, the visit to the Most Blessed Sacrament, processions, the nine first Fridays, etc., have received the explicit or implicit approval of the Church and the favor of the masters of the spiritual life.
These devotions offer precious advantages (indulgences, etc.) and particular graces of a spiritual and even material order. All of them produce moral and social effects of the highest interest. It is in the practice of these devotions, so foolishly despised or neglected by short-sighted or blind spirits, that small and great, children and adults, learned and ignorant, have learned and are learning to raise their souls above the vulgarities or the baseness of this world. Abuses must, however, be avoided. Devotional practices become abusive when they place entirely secondary practices ahead of the fundamental acts of religion; when they take too preponderant a part in life, passing even ahead of the duties of one's state; when the whole effect is made to depend on the exterior act or, worse still, on a particular combination of exterior acts. Interior worship with the practice of Christian virtue is the essential condition for devotional practices to attain their purpose and for superstition to be avoided. There is, moreover, a certain order to be followed in devotional practices. Of obligatory nature in them there is nothing except what God and the Church prescribe in public worship, in the Commandments and in the Precepts. Finally, there is respect for the norms of the Church in matters of worship. Some devotional practices have been proscribed by the Church; thus devotion to the Penitent Heart of Jesus (Holy Office, 15 July 1893), the title of B. V. Mary Interior (Holy Office, 13 Dec. 1893), devotion to the Heart of St. Joseph (Sacred Congregation of Rites, in Nanneten, 14 June 1873), devotion to the annihilated love of Jesus, and the rosary of the Most Holy Wounds of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Holy Office, 12 Dec. 1939; AAS, 32 [1940], p. 24).
For the norms of the CIC on the matter (cann. 1259, 1261, 1279) v. CULTO. The Holy Office, by decree of 17 May 1937, returned to the subject of not introducing new forms of devotion into the Church (AAS, 29 [1937], p. 304). This decree is also referred to by the recent encyclical Mediator Dei et hominum of 20 Nov. 1947 (AAS, 29 [1947], p. 588). Books of piety and devotion, too, may not be printed by clerics or by laypersons without ecclesiastical approval (can. 1385).