RESPONDING TO GOD'S DEVOTION

WEDNESDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF LENT

Dan 3:14-20,24-25,28; Dan 3:52-56; Jn 8:31-42

The Colour of Devotion to God

To make a habit of living a holy life we must develop a devotion to the word of God by gladly listening, fervently meditating, and joyfully contemplating God in his word daily. Devotion can be described as the presence of the object of our love in our everyday activities. St. Francis de Sales uses conjugal love to explain the meaning of devotion and how it works. The devotion between spouses who are in love is that presence and sweetness of the love of the other spouse, which enters into every activity of the day, making it less burdensome. When the object of our love takes a firm grip on our hearts and modifies how we see and carry out every task of the day, we say we are devoted to such an object or person. The goal of the Christian life is this devotion. We are to love God with all our minds, hearts, and strength. In other words, we should be committed to God’s word and presence within and around us. Only such devotion can correspond to the name of God, ‘I Am who I Am.’ The great Shema of Israel calls each Israelite to such a devotion to the God of Israel. The three young men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, had such devotion to God in Babylon that they resisted the command of King Nebuchadnezzar to worship his idol. Their response to the king resonates with devotion, as we have described. “Your question hardly requires an answer: if our God, the one we serve, is able to save us from the burning fiery furnace and from your power, O king, he will save us; and even if he does not, then you must know, O king, that we will not serve your god or worship the statue you have erected.”

Love for the beloved must never be coercive, for then it will lose the character of love. The love of a true lover enables and ennobles the beloved to be his true self. The faith and loving devotion of the three young men to God leaves God free to act or not to act in response to their situation and predicament. The love of God for us has this character; he gives us all we need to be ourselves without coercion, allowing us to come freely to him. The season of Lent and the observances purify us to love God with such devotion. Without developing the devotional character or habit of love, our love for God is a passing shadow or morning dew that quickly disappears with the first sign of the sun or heat. “O Israel and Judah, what should I do with you?” asks the LORD. “For your love vanishes like the morning mist and disappears like dew in the sunlight.” Hos 6:4. It is one thing to love and another to work it into a habit. The first is given to us as a gift from God in prayer because the object of our love is God, who is beyond our grasp. The second aspect, devotion or habit, requires consistency and constancy, especially in meditative and contemplative prayer. The conjugal devotion of the spouses to each other offers us an example; consistent and constant spending of time with each other develops a genuine devotion. Just as devotion makes the spouses live in and for each other, our devotion to God is a sign of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, and we dwell in the Spirit of Christ.

Our Lord urges the Jews who listened and believed in his word to develop this devotion. “To the Jews who believed in him Jesus said: If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples, you will learn the truth and the truth will make you free.” In these words, he beckons us to intimacy with him and shows us how to develop such devotion by dwelling in his words. We achieve this only by reading/listening, meditating, and contemplating the words of Jesus. Without this devotion, we would still be acting by impulses of our sinful nature and evil habits. These make us slaves of dark forces who are rulers of this world, principalities, and powers. Our Lord judged the Pharisees to be from the devil because their impulses to kill and hate are from the devil. “I tell you most solemnly, everyone who commits sin is a slave. Now the slave’s place in the house is not assured, but the son’s place is assured.” When we live in the word of God by establishing Christ’s teachings within our minds, allowing them to inflame our hearts and move our wills to act at every juncture, then we are truly set free from slavery to sin and attain the status of a son, with the mind of Jesus Christ. The word of God transforms our minds and hearts so that we can act at every instance with spiritual and virtuous impulses like Christians.

Let us pray: Enlighten, O God of compassion, the hearts of your children, sanctified by penance, and in your kindness grant those you stir to a sense of devotion a gracious hearing when they cry out to you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.