AUTOMATISM AND DEVOTION

We live in a world of great science and technology. There are machines everywhere. We often act as extensions of them and even talk to them. Everything happens at an accelerated and mechanical pace in such a way that our daily actions are rigid and repetitive. We wake up every day to do the same things. Many of us have already turned into human machines, living in the automatic, performing the same routines without thinking. How to express devotion to God in the midst of this context? 

Care must be taken into this process of acting as machines and not taking it into the life of devotion. It is not difficult to lose consciousness of ourselves and become religious automatons. Many people, for example, pray without the sense that they are talking to God the Creator. How many go to worship, sing, offer, listen to homily, but in the intimate, do not truly worship God? Without realizing it, our expressions of worship have already turned into mechanical routines of a dead religiosity. 

The call of the Gospel, however, is for a personal spirituality and not just formal. Many of us Christians, however, have lost personal awareness in the relationship with God. They express their devotion only in the sense of form, liturgy and solemnity. Of course, this dimension of spirituality has its value, but if it is not accompanied by an inner consciousness that we carry out liturgical acts because we love God and others and have an intimate relationship with Him, everything will be "...only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal" and worthless (1Corinthians 13:1-3). 

Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin who specializes in scripture: "very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again" (John3:3). Although he was recognized for his religiosity, Jesus warned him of the need for him to be born to God, to be born of the Spirit. But how does that happen? Paul, writing to the Romans, said, "if you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (10:9). The attitude of faith in Christ's sacrifice produces, in our hearts, the miracle of our adoption as children of God. In the same letter, the Apostle says, "The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship...  The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children" (8:15).  

The awareness that we are children of God makes us immune to this process of acting as machines and allows us to live in the dignity of human being "to the praise of his glory" (Ephesians1:6,12,14). Like Paul, Jesus also taught this feeling that we must have of affiliation with God. He said, "When you pray, say, Father..." (Luke 11:2). This relationship of intimacy with the Lord is that it delivers us from religious automation and allows us to express a living and sincere devotion to God, marked by reflection in his Word, by the life of deep prayer, the search for holiness, for communion with others , for worship in the community of faith…

Antônio Maia - M. Div.

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