Discernment The Three Wise-Men The three Magi, are three men in discernment, who are reading events and signs. We need to learn from these wise-men and ask ourselves: - What is My star? - What lead me to this point in my life? - What are the events of my life telling me about God’s will for my life? God is speaking to us through our history and we must analyze this in order to see where our events are pointing. But what if the star disappears momentarily, as it did with the Magi? What if we can’t see our star due to things in our life such as sadness, anxiety, pain, impulses, etc, etc. If this happens then we have to rely on the prophecy. What is this prophecy? Our HISTORY!!! We have to constantly remember who we are, where we have been, and to trust where God has already been leading us. The star does not disappear only to be found in someplace completely new. When our impulses arise, does this mean that everything we knew to be true a few seconds earlier was all a lie? We must be mindful of our “memorial” ... We need to know ourselves. How? With these two criteria: 1) What are my deep inclinations? - We need someone in our lives to help us to think in a proper way to be able to recognize these inclinations; these inclinations were created in us by God to be fulfilled. 2) What gives me the deep “peace” in the dependency of God? - This peace is not happy or joyful feelings necessarily, but a peace that springs from the interior knowledge that you’re in the presence of God’s will despite whether it makes you emotionally hyper. The environment When we talk about discernment, we are talking in the context of creation and history. There is no change in vocation after creation; as if there would be a new arrangement of God’s intentions. When God pronounced my name and brought me into being, in that moment he gave me everything that I need to be as He pictured me in His heart. In some way it is possible to affirm that to be faithful to myself means to be faithful to God’s call (my vocation). Often we experience difficulty in understanding our deepest personality; the one that God has created. This happens because of the corruption of our human nature, the darkness of our personal sins, and the problems found within our psychological history and our sociological conditioning. To be open to a relationship with God, and to remain in His light, requests a lot of strength and even sometimes a little violence to ourselves so that we may win over our limits, dependencies, ideas, etc. In discerning, man experiences his identity as its own person, and in communicating himself he creates history. The division in between believing and loving is the consequence of sin. We have learned how to “believe” in God as an idea but we did not learn that to believe in Him is to LOVE Him. When Mary asked the Angel how she would bear a son, she explained “I do not know man”. This concept of to know is very intimate. Therefore we are called to know God in a very intimate union. So, discernment is the spiritual art where I understand how God is communicating Himself to me, and at the same time is in the art of recognizing the illusion, the temptation, that Satan is trying to use to seduce me. St. Anthony tells us to recognize the “smell” of God, which depends on a deep relationship with Him. That way when we are outside of God’s will, we will be able to perceive it. How DOES God talk to me? • Through my thoughts • Through my emotions • Through the events of my history Discernment is always in between two good things, and the challenge is to find the best fit for me; the only one that is for me. The teachers of spirituality, indicate two steps of discernment: 1) Purification – we need to learn to see ourselves through the eyes of God 2) Habitus – we need to discern everyday; we need to realize that everything is happening for a reason within the will of God’s plan. We are called to a life of discernment; your obedience to God has to be renewed every moment. Our deepest experience of God’s will and love, where there are no doubts or illusions, is found in the forgiveness of our sins. We have to recognize ourselves as sinners. The memory of my forgiveness will be the strength for me to achieve my vocation. This is not a simple memory of sin, but rather a liturgical memory of forgiveness. It is interesting that the ancient fathers of spirituality didn’t write any rules regarding discernment, because for them discernment was inside to spiritual direction. In our time that is full of technology and rationalism, there is the possibility that we may understand discernment as a technique, or a method, to understand God. Two examples of discernment 1) “To repeat” – since the time of the Desert Fathers, this technique was very common not only in discernment, but even in the understanding of the Bible. The candidate would repeat a sentence from the Gospel, or a prayer, until the words became meaningful. If I repeat in my heart certain thoughts, or desires, soon I will experience a reaction to that sentence or emotion…if my heart gets warm and peaceful, then this is a positive reaction and it becomes engrained into my very person. But if this repeating produces only indifference, or starts to get boring, then this subject may not be in God’s will for your life. 2) “Talk to your emotions” – the monks of the desert were very suspicious of emotional thoughts. Therefore, they suggest that you question these kind of thoughts by talking to them and asking such questions as: • Where do you come from? • Are you coming from my heart, where the Lord lives? Or did someone bring you here from the outside? • What do you want? • I will talk with you later… Once you pose a question to yourself you create a new energy or force. If not, you become a constant river without borders or barriers. Thoughts with words like “you must…” or “you have to…” may have had the image of religious thoughts, but they are coming from impulsivity because the Holy Spirit does not talk this way with such imperatives. When we don’t pay attention to these type of thoughts they disappear. Satan cannot accept when we don’t pay attention to him. Thoughts inspired by the Holy Spirit, however, return with new strength and power. They are persistent, attractive, and they fit perfectly with my history. God only does new things to bring you back to the original. It is in the heart that we build our own reality. When the heart accepts the temptation, that is sin, in that moment I start to be mastered by the memory of this sin. In that moment images, memories, impressions, and thoughts of sin become to appear like they belong to the heart itself.
I did my part,
may the Lord teach you yours...