Popular Devotions and the Mass

Popular Devotions

Growing up in a small town inhabited by European immigrants, I was immersed in the rituals of popular devotions. As a young child, I participated in Stations of the Cross, Forty Hour Devotions and  “never-fail-novena” prayers, where (I thought) I was promised whatever I wanted just for showing up nine Tuesdays in a row. So I asked for a horse! I loved horses and thought this was the way to get one. After all, there was a contract involved, and I held up my end of the bargain. I never did get a horse, but, what I did get was a sense for different forms of worship outside Mass.

What are popular devotions?

Unlike Sacraments, popular devotions can’t be traced back to the Scriptures. Most developed gradually over centuries as people in different cultures looked for different ways to pray their faith. Some examples are: pilgrimages, novenas, processions, the veneration of relics, the Stations of the Cross, the rosary and celebrations in honor of Mary, the blessing of medals, scapulars, statues, sacred pictures and Advent wreaths.

There are as many reasons why devotions came to be as there are devotions themselves. Some have their roots in the Middle Ages and the Baroque period. Others came to be as a result of changes that took place within the culture and within the church.

Eucharistic devotions, such as the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, for example, are rooted in the Middle Ages. By the 9th Century, people were speaking their native languages, and it became less common for them to speak or understand Latin, but the Mass was still prayed in Latin. As a result, communal participation in the Mass declined. People stopped going to communion because they believed the priest received for them. At the same time, it became popular to elevate the host during Mass, both just before communion and after the words of consecration. Looking at the host gave people a moment to adore and acknowledge the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. And because many were no longer going to communion, looking replaced eating and drinking. This led to a change in the way people understood Eucharist. Without sharing in the meal, more and more people began to see the Eucharist as a devotional object, something to be looked at and adored. Because people were encouraged to look and adore during the Mass, they started to do the same thing outside of Mass. 

Pilgrimages were another way our Christian ancestors expressed their faith. They traveled to holy places for a variety of reasons, to seek a cure from an illness or simply to get closer to God. Early pilgrims sought to see the places where Jesus and the apostles lived, which meant journeys to the Holy Land and retracting the final steps of Jesus toward Calvary. These pilgrims often came home wanting to recreate their experience for those unable to travel to the Holy Land. This practice eventually took the form of the fourteen stations that are found today in nearly every Catholic church.

What is the relationship between popular devotions and the liturgy?

Devotions are still a part of the faith life of many Catholics, but they aren’t as popular as they were before the Second Vatican Council. The Second Vatican Council reminded us of the central  role of the liturgy.

Every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the Priest and of his Body, the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others; no other action of the Church can equal its effectiveness by the same title and to the same degree. Sacrosanctum Concilium 7.

Devotions should “harmonize with the liturgical seasons.”  They should flow from and lead back to a fuller participation in the liturgy.

Devotions, like the liturgy, are seen not as the end, but as the means to an end--a means to conversion of heart and a greater practice of charity.  When devotions truly flow from the liturgy, they prevent us from turning in on ourselves in an exclusive private way, but, rather move us outside of ourselves to be in a new and deeper relation with Christ and others.

Then, they will lead us back to the liturgy--especially in the Eucharist--back to an intimate union with God, with our brothers and sisters and the new life which that union brings.