St. Thomas on Devotion

St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae writes:

Devotion is derived from "devote" [The Latin 'devovere' means 'to vow']; wherefore those persons are said to be "devout" who, in a way, devote themselves to God, so as to subject themselves wholly to Him ... Hence devotion is apparently nothing else but the will to give oneself readily to things concerning the service of God.

But a vow is an act of religion. Therefore devotion is also an act of religion ... Now it is evident that to do what pertains to the worship or service of God, belongs properly to religion. Wherefore it belongs to that virtue to have the will ready to do such things, and this is to be devout. Hence it is evident that devotion is an act of religion.

The extrinsic and chief cause of devotion is God ... But the intrinsic cause on our part must needs be meditation or contemplation. For it was stated above that devotion is an act of the will to the effect that man surrenders himself readily to the service of God. Now every act of the will proceeds from some consideration, since the object of the will is a good understood ... Consequently meditation must needs be the cause of devotion, in so far as through meditation man conceives the thought of surrendering himself to God's service.

ST II-II, q. 82, a. 1-3

Having read these words of St. Thomas one might ask how do they relate to devotion (s) as commonly understood by the faithful? To answer this question let us turn to one of the great spiritual writers of the nineteenth century, Fr. Frederick William Faber. In his work Growth in Holiness, or the Progress of the Spiritual Life he devotes an entire chapter to the subject of devotion. The following is a selection of the most pertinent sections of the chapter.

In theology, devotion means a particular propension of the soul to God, whereby it devotes itself to the worship and service of God. This it may do by vow, by oath, or by simple sentiment. Thus an author, who once passed under the name of St. Augustine, says that devotion is the act of turning ourselves towards God with a humble and pious affection, humble because of the consciousness of our own weakness, and pious because of our confidence in the divine compassion. But St. Thomas more accurately as well as more clearly defines it as the will to do promptly whatever belongs to the service of God ... Perhaps I may then be permitted to call devotion 'spiritual agility'.

Theologians go on to divide devotion into substantial and accidental, and accidental they again subdivide into spiritual and sensible. Substantial devotion is that intelligent promptitude of the will to serve God, which rests on no attraction of the affections or imagination, but on the principles of the faith, and fixes the soul in a solid resolution to serve God, under whatever circumstances. Spiritual devotion is in reality only a state of substantial devotion, to which God is pleased to add his gift of sweetness. This adds to the agility of substantial devotion and gives it more force to overcome difficulties, and a certain pleasure in overcoming them. Sensible devotion is also a state of substantial devotion, wherein God condescends still further by allowing his sweetness to not only to inundate our spirits, but also to flow into our sensitive appetites.

It is thus of great importance to distinguish the effects of devotion from devotion itself; and St. Thomas helps us to do this in a very simple and clear manner. He says the devotions causes a light in the soul, and that the effects of this light vary according to the objects on which it falls. If it brings the beauty of God close to the soul so that it has a certain enjoyment of Him, the result is joy and gladness. If it shows God far off, beyond the reach of our nothingness and the attainment of our weakness, then it causes anxiety and longing.

We have already seen in what devotion consists: but how are we to know it? It is know by the strong practical will, which without relying upon itself puts forth every effort, and does not spare itself. It is known by a promptitude or agility of action which fears no kind of work and limits itself to no degree, which has no reserves with God, and does not stipulate for its reward. Perseverance shows it. It shows itself in suffering and self-violence. It is manifest in the sanctification of our ordinary actions. It shows itself in unselfishness and the renunciation of our own interests. In speaking of its signs, however, we must remember that it is an essentially interior thing. Moreover, it is a habit, and habits do not commonly become sensible except in acts.

What then, it may be asked are special devotions, and how do they fit in with what has been said of devotion in general? I must repeat somewhat, in order to make this plain. Devotion is a devoting of ourselves to God, a loving promptitude of the will in all that concerns His worship and service; in fine, a spiritual agility. Moreover, substantial devotion rests on the principles of the faith ... Now devotion is a practical acting out of belief in spiritual things and in an unseen world; and Christianity is a worship not of things, but of Divine Persons, disclosing themselves to us in certain mysteries. Every such mystery, circumstance [in the life of Our Lord, Our Lady, the saints] and feature [of the Church] becomes in its degree the object of a special devotion.

Every man who is a friend of God is in a state of habitual or sanctifying grace, in which his friendship with his Creator consists. Upon this habitual grace God is endlessly sending down the impulses of his actual grace, illustrating the understanding in every circumstance of life. In addition to those two kinds of grace, every baptised person has infused into his soul seven supernatural gifts of the Holy Ghost ... Of these gifts four belong to the intellect, Wisdom, Understanding, Science, and Counsel; and three to the will, Fortitude, Piety and Fear. Devotion is the fruit of the gift of piety, which may be defined to be the divine ray that illuminates the mind and bends the heart to worship God and to help our neighbour as his image. But devotion of its own nature specialises, that is, singles out an object and magnifies it, and for the time excludes other objects from its loving attention ... Different devotions are connected with different virtues, and have special gifts for the attainment of those virtues. The Holy Ghost also leads different souls, either by natural character or supernatural attraction, to different devotions and gives them various lights. Thus we have special devotions to our Lord's infancy, his Passion, his Cross, his Precious Blood, his Sacred Heart, to his Mother, his Angels, his Apostles, and the various orders of his saints. The unity of our faith hinders one-sidedness of our special devotions and the devotions of all the children of the Church may be considered a single worship of the Holy Trinity.

Such is the account to be given of special devotions, which are, as it were, developments of the worship of the sacred humanity of the Eternal Word. They are essentially doctrinal devotions, and therefore we should always jealously ascertain that they have had the approval of the Church. But, say some, they change and grow, and this is a difficulty ... It must be admitted then that devotions grow. History is too clear to allow of a case being made out on the other side. If devotion were not grounded on dogma, it would be unreal. We have no business to be devoted to an untrue thing, or a fanciful mystery ... The mind and heart of the Church, her doctors and her people, work and move together so that devotions almost represent the turn theology is taking in their day. Sometimes they run ahead of the schools; sometimes the schools run ahead of them. The schools and the people are never found far apart. The history of the doctrine and devotion of the Immaculate Conception is an illustration of this. Now the Church is pre-eminently a soul-saving institution; and doctrine has as much to do with the saving of souls as sacraments, jurisdiction, discipline, hierarchy, and ceremonies, or perhaps even more; and devotions are the application of doctrine to the souls of the people.