What is true devotion? What does it look like in action? Learn how devotion is a gift of oneself from this excerpt, taken from The Gift of Oneself: Surrendering to God As a Way of Life.
What Is Devotion?
TO GIVE oneself to God is to surrender oneself to Him by an ardent act of love. The soul of good will has made this act at the beginning of her spiritual life or of her conversion. Afterwards, she has renewed it as often as possible, repeating it both in time of prayer and of work, amid sorrows and joys, in darkness and in light, during interior trial and divine consolation. Gradually, love has taken entire possession of her, has warmed, inflamed, purified her. Like devouring fire, it has advanced, consuming her sins, her bad habits, her imperfections, penetrating even into the center of the soul, and transforming itself there into a mighty furnace-flame which no human force can extinguish, a flame in which she dies at last, a victim of holy love.
A Selfless Gift to God
To give oneself to God is to forget self in order to think only of Him to whom one is surrendered. Henceforth, Divine Love takes possession of the soul, establishing its throne and expelling useless thoughts, one by one. The soul which has yielded to love’s rule must abdicate her own interests, the transaction of her personal affairs, the care of her future, leaving to God the responsibility of all.
To give oneself to God is to be devoted to His interests, to spend oneself in noble and holy causes, to enter the militia of Jesus, the King. It is to vow uncompromising hatred of His enemies; it is to extend by all possible means, the reign of the Divine Master.
Love, self-forgetfulness, devotion: that is the gift of self, that is perfection.
Ideal life, life which is infinitely delightful, which Angels might envy us!
To be devoted to others while forgetting oneself, to forget self in order to love Jesus better, to love in self-forgetfulness and in devotion—what happier lot can fall to a poor mortal?
To devote self is to surrender one’s existence to Jesus, to consecrate to Him all the forces of one’s body, all the ardor of one’s heart, all the energy of one’s will, all the light and all the strength of one’s mind.
To be devoted is to give Jesus entire dominion over all one’s being, praying Him to dispose of it when and how He pleases, to employ it in labor or in suffering, in activity or in repose, in fatigue, mortification, or fasting, according to the requirements of His glory.
A Selfless Gift to Others
To be devoted is to be at the disposal of the Divine Master in whatever place He desires the soul to be, whether in the silence of a cloister or the solitude of a desert, there to lift suppliant hands to God; whether it be in a public place, in the midst of tumult, there to remind a frivolous world of the terrible importance of the present life; or in some uncivilized region, to carry the Gospel to poor souls who are seated in the shadow of death; whether it be in a humble workshop, a noisy factory, a poor hut, there to gain, in the sweat of one’s brow, daily bread for a whole family, and to edify the world by tireless labor and the integrity of an irreproachable life.
To be devoted is to give one’s youth, health, time and possessions to solace the miserable, instruct the ignorant, care for the sick, aid the poor, rehabilitate the victims of vice, assist the orphans, and apply remedies to the innumerable ills of humanity.
To be devoted is to extend in this world the reign of the true, the good, the beautiful; it is to seek to establish the dominion of charity and mutual goodwill among nations; it is to bring about a union of hearts in order to unite all peoples in Jesus Christ; it is to diffuse in society notions of justice and righteousness; it is to combat error under whatever form it disguises itself.
To be devoted is to be interested in the lot of the disinherited classes, to contribute to the amelioration of their material, intellectual and moral misery. It is to take part in work for the relief of the laboring classes, to strive to dispel the hatred which divides the rich from the poor, the employer from the employee.
Finally, to be devoted is to be always in the breach, according to one’s vocation and one’s means, to advance the reign of good, to combat error and vice, to unite men in charity, and to bring all under the yoke of truth, to cast all at the feet of their only Master, Jesus, King of Ages.
What a field of action for a loving soul! What an ideal for a loving heart!
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This article is taken from a chapter in The Gift of Oneself from the French of The Reverend Joseph Schryvers, C.SS.R. which is available from TAN Books.
