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The
Key to Successful Discernment
Discernment will be truly successful if we find out what God wants of
us, and then go do it. So much is obvious. It is not difficult to see
how pointless it would be to search for our vocation if we are not
willing to follow it.
What some might find surprising is that our willingness to follow our
vocation is a major factor in our willingness to accept it, and our
willingness to accept it is a major factor in our ability to discover
it. Discovery is acceptance on an intellectual level that the vocation
is there, acceptance is to admit it is something that should be acted
upon, and action is the crown of the whole process - it is love made
practice.
We cannot help but approach discernment with a certain number of
prejudices and biases, be they positive or negative. Indifference in
this matter is not part of our nature. The sacrifices we know are
entailed in following a vocation do color our willingness to accept
its existence. Often, like a border guard faced with a person of
questionable origin, we can question the vocation to death, playing it
all by the book, prudently.
So the real challenge for a person considering a vocation is to be
willing to follow it if he has one. The real problem is to acquire
this disposition of willingness, unconditional openness. And this,
rather than mere discernment, should be our concern.
Openness and its Rivals
Often we understand by openness that we accept intellectually the fact
that conceivably God could call us. There is a more useful form of
openness. It consists in the ability to say to God, and mean it,
'whatever you want of me I will do.'
It is therefore a fruit of prayer, and is expressed in prayer that is
more offering than petition. This kind of openness faces significant
obstacles, most of them at work inside us. The parable of the sower
can help us understand some of these. (cf. Luke 8; 4-15)
The devil comes and takes the word out of their hearts. Because we
haven't invited him, we practically never consider the tempter as an
active participant in our vocational discernment. But he gatecrashes
anyway. Remember Peter? As long as he followed the Holy Spirit he
could see ('discern') that Jesus was the Messiah; but when he
thought 'as men did' he was unable to accept Christ's passion and
death, and Christ had to call him a 'satan' for the one he was
following.
In struggling to open ourselves to a vocation we are trying to open
our minds and, more difficultly, our hearts to God. But the Enemy, the
father of lies, is doing all he can to cloud our judgment and harden
our heart. At times the chilling indifference with which we stand on
the sidelines while our brothers and sisters suffer need, and die of
hunger and thirst for the truth, is due to this action of the evil
spirit. And when we go through our difficulties and trials we often
forget that they are not in themselves indicators of God's will, but
may also be the action of the same evil spirit, allowed by God for our
purification.
Emotions. 'They are enthusiastic for a while but then they fall away
in times of trial.' The ups and downs of our emotions often affect
our openness. One day we are, and another we aren't. One day we
would give our lives for Christ, and another we say we do not know
him. At one moment we want to know what he would have us do, and the
next we walk away sad at what he asks. To be truly open we have to
overcome the instability of our emotions. Our Christian life must not
be a matter of emotions but of convictions and love.
The attraction of the world. Many things pull at our heart and mind.
We have instincts and passions which have their place in God's plan
but are not the final arbiters of truth nor of God's will. Further,
it is still an understatement to say that the 'worries and riches
and pleasures' of this life exert an enormous attraction on us
through these same instincts and passions. There is a real battle to
be fought at the very core of what we are, flesh and spirit, at the
encounter of these two elements.
Jesus' words here put us on guard against thinking that just because
we have not out and out rejected God's will, we are necessarily
following it. The seed is not lost, it does not die for lack of
moisture, but still it does not bear fruit - other things get in the
way and do not let it grow. Perhaps a common fate for many a possible
vocation. We don't dare say no to it outright, but we do put it off,
occupy our minds and engage our energies in activities and projects
that take us away from it, and so let other things displace it. The
result is the same: no fruit.
Good
soil. Jesus gives here a wonderful description of the person who is
truly open to his vocation, he is of 'noble and generous heart, who
hears the word and takes it to himself, and yields fruit through
perseverance.' Shouldn't that be the description of each one of
us? Isn't that what attracts us about the saints, the living ones we
see and those we read about?
How much richer we all are for the good soil God's word found in the
heart of a Pope John Paul or a Mother Teresa, and what wonderful fruit
they have brought forth in their perseverance - a perseverance by
which they withstood temptation, let the Word go deep into their lives
and make extraordinary demands of them, and cleansed their hearts of
any attachment or ambition that might smother that seed.
Christ here opens an invitation to each and everyone of us. He
describes his dream for us. He tell us that this is what we can be
with his grace.
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