CHAPTER XXXII.  DEVOTIONS.

There is in the Church an abundance and a rich variety of what we call devotions—­practices that express our respect, affection and veneration for the chosen friends of God.  These devotions we should be careful not to confound with a thing very differently known as devotion—­to God Himself.  This latter is the soul, the very essence of religion; the former are sometimes irreverently spoken of as “frills.”

Objectively speaking, these devotions find their justification in the dogma of the Communion of Saints, according to which we believe that the blessed in heaven are able and disposed to help the unfortunate here below.  Subjectively they are based on human nature itself.  In our self-conscious weakness and unworthiness, we choose instinctively to approach the throne of God through His tried and faithful friends rather than to hazard ourselves alone and helpless in His presence.

Devotion, as all know, is only another name for charity towards God, piety, holiness, that is, a condition of soul resulting from, and at the same time, conducive to, fidelity to God’s law and the dictates of one’s conscience.  It consists in a proper understanding of our relations to God—­creatures of the Creator, paupers, sinners and children in the presence of a Benefactor, Judge and Father; and in sympathies and sentiments aroused in us by, and corresponding with, these convictions.  In other words, one is devoted to a friend when one knows him well, is true as steel to him, and basks in the sunshine of a love that requites that fidelity.  Towards God, this is devotion.

Devotions differ in pertaining, not directly, but indirectly through the creature to God.  No one but sees at once that devotion, in a certain degree is binding upon all men; a positive want of it is nothing short of impiety.  But devotions have not the dignity of entering into the essence of God-worship.  They are not constituent parts of that flower that grows in God’s garden of the soul—­charity; they are rather the scent and fragrance that linger around its petals and betoken its genuine quality.  They are of counsel, so to speak, as opposed to the precept of charity and devotion.  They are outside all commandment, and are taken up with a view of doing something more than escaping perdition “quasi per ignem.”

For human nature is rarely satisfied with what is rigorously sufficient.  It does not relish living perpetually on the ragged edge of a scant, uncertain meagerness.  People want enough and plenty, abundance and variety.  If there are many avenues that lead to God’s throne, they want to use them.  If there are many outlets for their intense fervor and abundant generosity, they will have them.  Devotions answer these purposes.