Welcome to the Devotion Training Ground!

For all who want to know and love God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit ever more fully, through the grace of God, the intercession of the saints, and our mutual encouragement: Salvete! Welcome!

I am glad you are here.

This blog is being born as the fruit of an inspiration a few months ago to write about how I have tried and how I intend to grow closer to God. Being named Timothy Paul, I was reading Paul's first letter to Timothy not long ago, and I discovered in chapter four the verse at the heading of this blog: "Train yourself for devotion, for, while physical training is of limited value, devotion is valuable in every respect, since it holds a promise of life both for the present and for the future." I have tried to take much of Paul's writing to Timothy to heart, and I figured I could be more diligent in practicing Godly devotion by writing about it and soliticing the insights of others. God willing, many of you and your friends will also be inspired to live more devout lives.

Of particular interest to me is devotion to God through prayer. I am discerning a call to a life of much prayer, and yet have had very little formal instruction in how to pray (I think back to very basic instructions given to my primary school classmates and me, and maybe a few courses taken during Confirmation preparation). Sure, as the late Pope John Paul II has written and others have said, there are innumerable ways to pray. But we are instructed to train or exercise ourselves in prayer and devotion, and real prayer is this fallen world is not effortless. So the question becomes not just, How do we devote ourselves to God? but also, How do we devote ourselves to God well?

We must not forget the first part of 1 Tim 4:7, either: Avoid profane and silly myths. Lies upon lies are heaped upon us from all sides, which makes the devotion training ground difficult and sometimes treacherous. Just because we believe we have found a path to God does not mean it is a surefire means to knowledge of Him. We must be ever vigilant against a kind of Pelagianism that would treat God's grace as a good to be willed rather than a gift to be treasured.

Still, there are ways of devotion that have been tested and are true. The Mass, I was told by my pastor in fourth grade, is the greatest prayer. Eucharistic adoration opens us up in special way to the Eucharist, the "source and summit of the Christian life." Saying the Divine Office is one way to honor the gift of our days. The Catholic Church has been blessed with unfathomable treasures in the devotions her faithful servants have practiced over the many centuries.

So consider this blog a call to deepen your relationship with the living God. Let any discussions that follow not so much address "what worked for me" but rather the insights gained from devotions practiced ever more faithfully. Let's proclaim to each other how unimaginably rich a life with Christ can be.

After all, let's face it: we simply do not talk about our interior lives of devotion nearly as much as we could. I believe Cardinal Newman once said the devil wants us to be silent about our interior joys and sorrows. At least he benefits from any encouragement that we fail to give each other on our journeys through this life. Remember that we are in this world to prepare for the next. We are after that "promise of life both for the present and for the future."

A final note: while I am happily Roman Catholic, and will naturally attempt to delve into devotions and teachings as an orthodox Catholic. But I hope that all Christians will consider contributing to the disscussions on this blog. The body of Christ is sadly not one, but this all the more reason to witness to each other. Of course, I hope all discourse is characterized by the utmost civility and charity.