Fr. Jim Tucker with a very good response to a recent US Catholic article on devotions

The article raises the usual flags: but will they distract from the Mass? Fr. Jim’s answer is on-point. People who are devoted to one devotion or the other are, as a matter of fact, the same people who are the most faithful Mass-goers. Not to speak of the most faithful presence at the St. Vincent de Paul Society, helping out the needy.

Balance is necessary, and that’s the role that the institutional church is here to play. But, as Fr. Tucker says:

Almost all of the devotions I can think of embody some aspect of the Christian faith and give the people an opportunity to concentrate themselves for a while upon that aspect. No one expects a devotion to contain every element of our religion. No devotion could. Likewise, it’s inevitable that there be a certain particularity to a given devotion’s appeal, inasmuch as we are particular persons and not just an iteration of an abstract form called "Catholic Christian." We all have to go to Mass, and so the Mass is more general and universal. But I don’t have to like your devotions, and you don’t have to like mine. If I want to go to the St Anthony devotions at St Matthew’s Cathedral on a Tuesday evening, great. If you don’t want to come, fine. If Joe says three rosaries a day, good on him. If Teresa doesn’t say any, that doesn’t make her a bad Catholic. Frank goes to charismatic prayer meetings each week because that’s what suits his personal spirituality, while Marie sews clothes for the Infant of Prague. It’s all good. It’s all decentralized. And it recognizes the fact that we’re all different, and that’s fine.