XXVI — PIETY AND DEVOTION

Presence of God. — O God, our Father, pour into me the true spirit of piety and devotion.

Meditation

1 — The Christian religion is not limited to the simple relations of a creature with his Creator, relations which, given the infinite distance between the two terms, would remain only in the sphere of reverence and homage, without any character of intimacy, without any confident impulse toward God. The Christian knows he is bound to God for other reasons besides that, already so great, of creation, namely because of elevation to the supernatural state and Redemption. The Christian feels himself not only creature, but child of God and redeemed by Christ, and this gives to his relations with God that sense of filial piety which is the soul of all his religion.

Let us contemplate Jesus in his relations with God: He feels Himself Son, Son who lives for the Father from whom He received existence: “the Father... sent me, and I live because of the Father” (Jn. 6:58); Son who has no other ideal than to fulfill the Father’s will, to which He adheres with all the impulse of his heart: “Yes, Father, for so it has pleased You” (Mt. 11:26); Son who in all his actions aims solely at the Father’s good pleasure: “I always do what pleases Him” (Jn. 8:28). Jesus, the Only-Begotten of the Father, the one Son of God by nature, has made us sharers by grace in his divine sonship, so that we “are called and truly are children of God” (cf. 1 Jn. 3:1). And if we are, it is most fitting that we seek also to share in Christ’s sentiments of filial piety toward the heavenly Father.

This is precisely the tone and characteristic the divine Master gave to our religion. “You, therefore,” He taught us, “shall pray thus: Our Father, who art in heaven” (Mt. 6:9). He does not want us to consider and invoke God except as Father: the Father who provides for all our needs; the Father who wants to be prayed to in secret and in secret will hear our supplications; the Father who sees all our actions, even the most hidden, and prepares for us their reward; the Father who wants to be honored through observance of the commandments and who delights to make his dwelling in souls that love Him. Divine fatherhood is the center of Christian religion, and to this fatherhood there must correspond on our part a sense of profound filial piety: to love God as a child loves his father, seeking to please Him in all things. Piety is truly the heart of our religion.

2 — If God has willed to raise us to the state of his children, it is right that we live as such and not as servants. The servant does only what is strictly necessary to receive wages, not to be dismissed. The child, instead, is not preoccupied with reward, but, tenderly loving his father, places himself at his disposal without reserve, without restriction. The servant is lazy and miserly, seeks to spare himself as much as possible, and does not want to give the master one crumb more than what is agreed. Not so the child: for him there is no time of work or vacation; for him nothing is too fatiguing when it is a matter of pleasing the father. Always ready at his commands, always attentive to his desires, he is glad to be able to repeat at every moment: “Behold, I come to do, O God, your will” (Heb. 10:7). Thus in our relations toward God, filial piety pours into devotion, which is precisely “the will to do promptly all that pertains to the service of God” (II-II, q. 82, a. 1).

Both piety and devotion can be alive in a soul even if it feels arid and cold in the sensitive part, to the point of carrying out all exercises of prayer and virtue without tasting the least sweetness or comfort, but rather experiencing strong repugnances.

This should not alarm us. St. Thomas teaches that devotion is an act of the will, and this act can indeed subsist despite aridities, coldness, repugnances, and even rebellions of the lower part. St. Paul himself, although raised to the third heaven, was not yet completely free from these miseries and confessed: “I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, and I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind” (Rom. 7:22-23). And just as Paul, despite these resistances of the sensitive part, was not without true piety and true devotion, so the soul is not without them when, despite all, it remains firm in the will’s decision to give itself promptly to God’s service. Devotion — from the Latin devoveo — means consecration to the divinity; and the soul gives itself totally to God not by impulses and enthusiasms of feeling, but by act of the will. Indeed, when devotion is deprived of every taste for divine things, “it is worth double, because the soul performs all the works it must do and, in addition, with force of will it subdues the sensitive appetite” (Venerable John of Jesus Mary, O.C.D.).

Colloquy

O most high God, who have willed to be Father to me, grant that I may truly be son to You: a devoted and loving son, attentive and docile to your signs, desirous of serving You and pleasing You in every thing. O You who have for me a Father’s heart, create in me a son’s heart: a heart free from servile fear, but rich in filial fear; a disinterested and generous heart that fears one thing alone — to offend You — and desires one thing alone — to give You delight.

“May your will be my willing, my passion, my honor! Grant that I seek it, find it, fulfill it. Show me your ways, point out your paths. O Father, You have designs over me; manifest them clearly to me and grant that I follow them until I obtain the salvation of my soul. Grant that every joy without You be bitter to me, every desire outside You impossible, every rest outside You unbearable, and every labor done for You sweet.

“Grant that my piety be not merely a habit, but a continual impulse of the heart... and that my spirit, incapable of ignoring You, ardent in seeking You, may know how to find You, O most benign Father.

“Oh, may my speech not displease You! May I, trusting and calm, await your answers, and on your word may I rest” (St. Thomas Aquinas).

Receive me, O Father, into your embrace; receive me into your intimacy. Grant, I beg You, that my heart not lose itself when You leave it in darkness and discouragement, but, sustained by your grace, may always persevere in seeking and serving You with good will.