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Discernment, the process by which one finally decides
whether one is called to religious life in a particular congregation, is a
word that is overused and probably often misused today. Some times
'discernment' is used to justify doing or not doing what a person has
decided to do or avoid well before beginning to discern. Nevertheless,
genuine discernment is an absolutely necessary process if a person is to
arrive at a life choice of enormous importance, such as commitment in
religious life.
When it bears upon vocation, discernment is a process of
coming to an informed decision before God of what I should do here and
now. First, it is a process. It is not an impulse, an infatuation, or a
conclusion one jump to. This is why the church and religious congregations
insist that a person thinking about religious life spend a very long time,
up to nine years in many institutes, exploring, testing, studying,
praying, discussing, and experimenting before she or he makes a definitive
commitment. It also means that the period of formation and progressive
incorporation is necessarily one of probation as well. The candidate is
testing her fit into the congregation and its ministry, the community, and
religious life, and the congregation is testing the candidate's
suitability for the life.
Second, it is a process of coming to an informed decision
about whether or not one is called to this life. Informed takes in a great
deal. It must include, to the best of one's knowledge, everything relevant
to the decision that can be investigated in a reasonable span of time. For
a person considering religious life this will include theology of church,
Christ, sacraments, ministry, and religious life, as well as psychological
assessment, experience in community and ministry, and the study of the
congregation's history and charism. Candidates, especially those who are
older and more experienced when they apply, sometimes resist the formation
agenda or even the very notion of formation. They have, after all, an
education and often a profession, considerable experience of managing
their own affairs, and a developed personality and spirituality when they
arrive, and they are not formless spiritual protoplasm to be molded from
the outside into some kind of standard product. But the fact is that one
who has not lived religious life, no matter what other forms of life she
or he may have experienced, cannot know first hand much of what needs to
be taken into account if one is to make a genuinely informed decision.
Formation is not about molding automatons but about enabling inner freedom
by providing the necessary intellectual, religious, spiritual, and
experiential resources.
(Extract taken from Sandra Schneiders (2002) in
Horizon, Spring 2002. Pg.23. Issues that need to be explored during
vocation discernment.)_______________________________________________
The formation/probation experience of
discernment is meant to lead to an informed decisions. It is possible to
drift into decisions without actually making them. Inertia, the desire for
security, lack of courage, laziness, comfort seeking, avoidance of
responsibility, and camaraderie can lead a person to try to decide by not
deciding. Every congregation has members who simply never decided to leave
and somehow kept in keeping on through reception and profession, hanging
around while keeping an eye out for something more attractive, which never
came along. Becoming a religious involves making a serious decision for or
against a particular life commitment. At some point that decision needs to
be made. This presents a greater challenge today, for many reasons, than
it did in the past, and we will deal with this issue later. But the fruit
of good vocational discernment is decision.
Third, the decision to
which one comes through discernment is made before God. It is not a matter
of deciding whether one likes the community or enjoys the ministry or sees
nothing preferable on the horizon. It is a matter of what God is calling
one to do with one's life. For this reason the development and deepening
of a life of personal prayer not only before entrance but especially
during formation/probation is absolutely crucial. In prayer the person
relates, one-to-one, in prolonged intimacy with the One with whom she is
planning to spend her life in exclusive self-donation. It is analogous to
the time engaged people spend together, getting to know each other in a
qualitatively different way than they did when marriage was not an issue.
The candidates will be taking part in community life, perhaps in some of
the ministries of the congregation, and studying its history and spirit.
But no amount of success, excitement, or enjoyment of these dimensions of
the life unless the deepening relationship with Christ is suggesting from
within that consecrated celibacy, the total, exclusive, and lifelong
self-gift to Jesus, is ultimately meaningful for her.
Finally, the
decision that one comes to before God is a decision about what I should do
here and now. This is the point at which the process becomes utterly
personal and concrete. I am not trying to decide whether, in theory,
religious life is valid, good, or even the best form of Christian life. I
am trying to decide whether I am called by God to this life. And it is not
a decision about the vague future. No one knows whether she will live
another day or year or half century, no matter how young or vigorous she
may be when she makes profession. We cannot know who will remain in the
congregation or whether the congregation itself is viable. The Catholic
Church will undoubtably undergo significant changes, maybe for the better
but maybe for the worse, in one's lifetime, if that is at all extended.
The world itself may explode into total war or implode
environmentally. The choice one makes about religious life has
to make sense now, in the present, in this concrete place, with
these real people, in this actual church and world. The
commitment one makes must have the depth and power to enable one
to deal with the challenges of the present, be the best decision
one can make here and now, in the faith that one will be able to
face from within the framework of this commitment whatever the
future brings.
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