This chapter is called "Devotion is suitable to every Vocation and Profession:"
WHEN God created the world He commanded each tree to bear fruit after its kind; [8] and even so He bids Christians,–the living trees of His Church,–to bring forth fruits of devotion, each one according to his kind and vocation. A different exercise of devotion is required of each–the noble, the artisan, the servant, the prince, the maiden and the wife; and furthermore such practice must be modified according to the strength, the calling, and the duties of each individual. I ask you, my child, would it be fitting
- that a Bishop should seek to lead the solitary life of a Carthusian?
- And if the father of a family were as regardless in making provision for the future as a Capucin,
- if the artisan spent the day in church like a Religious,
- if the Religious involved himself in all manner of business on his neighbour's behalf as a Bishop is called upon to do,
would not such a devotion be ridiculous, ill-regulated, and intolerable?
Nevertheless such a mistake is often made, and the world, which cannot or will not discriminate between real devotion and the indiscretion of those who fancy themselves devout, grumbles and finds fault with devotion, which is really nowise concerned in these errors.
I think we've all heard this argument before, though perhaps not so bluntly stated. Devotion requires discretion; "those who fancy themselves devout" commonly commit the indiscretion of attempting methods of devotion that are not suitable for their station in life.
I find this to be tougher to work out than it sounds. From time to time, for example, I've tried to steadily pray the Liturgy of the Hours — usually just one or two offices — as a personal devotion. Now, let me stress that the LOTH appeals to me personally a great deal. love coming to know the psalms. I love knowing that I'm praying the "prayer of the whole church" right along with the whole church. I love having a big fat worn dog-eared book with slips of paper and Post-it notes stuck in it, and praying intensely while flipping the pages back and forth from this section to that, like an engineering student taking an open-book thermodynamics exam. It suits me.
It takes concentration, I find, to really "do." And concentration is something of which I don't have enough on the regular basis that LOTH demands as a steady devotion. I tried, because it seemed that I should be able to make room for this prayer that I like so much. But it rarely works out. Either it's early in the morning or late at night and I'm too tired, or the children interrupt me. It seems I can only use this as an occasional treat, not my daily bread.
(Demand your daily prayer! Every mom needs it! Train the children not to interrupt you! Sure, that works if all the children are over the age of four. I am not there yet. And remember what I've been writing, about suspecting that I need to be more interrupt-ible, not less? I am beginning to suspect that refusing to allow children to interrupt me during time I owe to them, even for prayer, would be one of those false devotions that St. Francis is writing about. I'm thinking I need to work with what works, not with what's not working.)
So how to figure out what does work? It seems that St. Francis, too, thinks that if a method grates against the duties of one's vocation, then it's not the right method, and to keep trying to practice it would be a false devotion:
No indeed, my child, the devotion which is true hinders nothing, but on the contrary it perfects everything; and that which runs counter to the rightful vocation of any one is, you may be sure, a spurious devotion. …[T]rue devotion…not only hinders no manner of vocation or duty, but, contrariwise, it adorns and beautifies all.
….[E]verybody fulfils his special calling better when subject to the influence of devotion:–family duties are lighter, married love truer, service to our King more faithful, every kind of occupation more acceptable and better performed where that is the guide.
It is an error, nay more, a very heresy, to seek to banish the devout life from the soldier's guardroom, the mechanic's workshop, the prince's court, or the domestic hearth. Of course a purely contemplative devotion, such as is specially proper to the religious and monastic life, cannot be practised in these outer vocations, but there are various other kinds of devotion well-suited to lead those whose calling is secular, along the paths of perfection.
The Old Testament furnishes us examples in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, David, Job, Tobias, Sarah, Rebecca and Judith; and in the New Testament we read of St. Joseph, Lydia and Crispus, who led a perfectly devout life in their trades:–we have S. Anne, Martha, S. Monica, Aquila and Priscilla, as examples of household devotion, Cornelius, S. Sebastian, and S. Maurice among soldiers;–Constantine, S. Helena, S. Louis, the Blessed Amadaeus, [9] and S. Edward on the throne.
Did you notice that Martha is an example of household devotion?
And as for the excuse that "I can't get enough time alone to practice my devotion, poor me, I give up:"
And we even find instances of some who fell away in solitude,–usually so helpful to perfection,–some who had led a higher life in the world, which seems so antagonistic to it. S. Gregory dwells on how Lot, who had kept himself pure in the city, fell in his mountain solitude. Be sure that wheresoever our lot is cast we may and must aim at the perfect life.
Trying and trying to stick with a devotion that doesn't mesh well with our life is a recipe for failure: an excuse to fail at prayer (when life activities suit us more) or to fail at our duties (when prayer suits us more). We have to do both.
bearing blog 