Devotion is linked to veneration.
Devotion is a concept that has its origin in a Latin word and is linked to the manifestation of a person's emotion regarding an ideology. It could be considered a synonym for love , fervor and veneration when linked to religion .
The term refers to the total surrender to a mystical experience, generally related to theistic faith, towards God . For example: "Popular devotion to the Virgin of Fátima knows no limits: people make long pilgrimages in order to reach her hermitage" , "In this town there is a great devotion to Saint Paul the Apostle" .
religious devotion
When a person devotes himself constantly and irrevocably to some cult or work related to religious life, he is said to be a devout individual. A person who has faith and entrusts himself to a saint, praying to him routinely and going to visit the Church of which he is the patron, for example, is a devotee of said saint: "My mother is devoted to Saint Joseph," "Hundreds "Of devotees gathered in the parish to thank the saint."
The origin of this concept is related to the culture of Ancient Greece . So, devotion was a form of piety directed toward parents : children should respect and love their parents and try to take care of them when they were old. Over time, by extension of this meaning, the concept began to be used in a religious sense and also to refer to those practices of non-obligatory pious faith .
In other religions such as evangelism, the concept of devotion is related to the study and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures.
When someone entrusts himself to a divinity, it is said that he has devotion.
Book of Christian liturgy
Another concept related to the one we are defining is that of a prayer book , which refers to a book created and printed by the Catholic Church where it includes the structure and content that liturgical prayers should have.
This book is divided into several parts which are:
- General devotions and ordinary acts (introduction to prayers, daily mass, examination of conscience and other ordinary prayers)
- Special devotions and extraordinary acts (special, expiatory prayers and liturgical stages such as Holy Week, Pentecost or Epiphany)
- Liturgical times and festivals of the Christian year (explanation of what each stage of the liturgy consists of and prayers to pray during that time)
- Novenas (Special prayers to various devotions such as the Sacred Heart, the Assumption of the Virgin and Saint Anthony of Padua)
- Months (prayers to offer to a certain figure throughout the month dedicated to her, for example for the month dedicated to the Child Jesus, to the Sorrows and Solitude of the Virgin or the month of the Rosary).
By following the devotional, believers can pray the appropriate prayers for each moment and demonstrate their devotion to the church.
More uses of the notion of devotion
Currently, the notion of devotion also serves to refer to someone's special inclination and fondness towards a certain activity or person. In this case, it is about the attraction that a person or an idea exerts on a subject: «Marta has a devotion to Radiohead: she already told me that she will spend all her savings on tickets for the next concert» , «The young actor generates devotion among teenage girls, who will do anything to have him close .
Finally, the expression "to be at the devotion" of someone means to be voluntarily subject to obedience to another person. An example of this use could be the following phrase: "I don't understand why Marcos is devoted to Ariel."