Discernment: Pay Attention, Listen, and Come to the Lord

Discernment: God says to us in Isaiah 55: 3-5:  “Pay attention, come to me; listen, and you will live. I shall make an everlasting covenant with you in fulfillment of favors promised to David.  Look I have made him a witness to peoples, a leader and lawgiver to peoples. Look, you will summon a nation unknown to you, a nation unknown to you will hurry to you for the sake of Yahweh your God, because the Holy One of Israel has glorified you.”

Obviously, three essential principles of discernment are: 1) Paying attention,  2) Coming to the Lord and 3) Listening!  If you are going to pay attention to the Lord in terms of which vocation God is calling you to embrace or which decision to make concerning how to thrive in your vocation be that single, married, religious life or the priesthood, you need to set technology aside for part of each day and pay attention to the quiet voice of God speaking in the core of your being and in the depths of others,  as well!   In the stillness, what are you hearing?

 

In order to listen, one needs to come to stillness, quiet one’s emotions and one’s thoughts to hear God’s whispers or to hear concerns/truths spoken by others.  How do you quiet strong emotions? Find alone time, for one.  Second,   journal: “I am feeling……………………………………because/when   ………….What I need is……………………………..   If I you are dealing with an unresolved problem, ask yourself how you have contributed to that problem and what you need to do to arrive at a solution (not what does the other person need to do).  Record your answers in writing!  Then choose a time to apply the solution that will bring peace to you and others.

When you assume responsibility for a problem, when you take leadership in resolving a problem, when you listen, when you pay attention and come to the Lord, seeking His help and applying that help, “the Holy One of Israel has glorified you.”

Discernment: Paying Attention

In the Gospel of today’s liturgy,  John 21: 1-14, Peter and his friends go fishing and catch nothing.  Jesus is on the shore watching them. He says: “Children, have you caught anything?” To which, they say “no.” “Cast your nets on the right side of the boat.” They do so and bring in 153 large fish.

An essential apart of discernment is paying attention. God is the Director of our lives. He is always standing on the shore watching us and sending us directions, giving suggestions, challenging us.  Many times we do not experience any fruit to our labors. “We have fished all night and caught nothing.” Jesus, concerned, asked: “Did you catch anything?”  Are we humble enough to acknowledge the truth? Moreover, are we humble enough to switch directions, to try something  that was not part of our plan? Religious life? “You got to be kidding, Lord!” “That marriage partner? Really, Lord, we’d we good together? He’s not a wealthy man? He’s not cute. I want someone who makes lots of money. I want someone who is dashingly handsome!”  “That career?  This other career path promises lots of money, Lord. I want to be rich.” “No, my child! I have other plans for you.”

Are we willing to follow God’s plans or will we stubbornly and proudly stick to our own?

Discernment: Paying attention as Moses did

Discernment:  In today’s first reading, Ex 3: 1-6, 9-12, God revealed his mission for Moses to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt.  This plan is revealed in an unusual way.  Moses notices a burning bush but it is not being consumed by the fire.  So he decides to examine it.  God sees Moses approaching and calls his name: “Moses, Moses!”  Moses answers: “Here I am!”  God then reveals the mission of Moses leading the people out of Egypt, where they have become Pharaoh’s slaves.  Moses objects, saying: “Who am I to lead the people out of Egypt?”  God replies: “I will go with you.”

This story of salvation contains some elements of how we discover God’s plan for us: 1) God takes the initiative; God does the calling 2) God enters the ordinary circumstances of our daily lives—Moses is simply attending his father-in-law’s flock, and 3) our past, no matter how bad it might have been, is not something God holds against us.  These three elements are very important for us to realize. God is in charge. We belong to God!  Secondly, we are servants to one another and need to be going about our ordinary jobs, being responsible and dependable in carrying out our ordinary duties as servants.  Thirdly, our past is not a deterrent on God’s part and we needs to let go of the past and not use it as an excuse for doing what God calls us to do in fulfilling our role in salvation history.

Furthermore, Moses teaches us that discernment includes 1) paying attention, 2) examining the events around us—God may be trying to get our attention in those events, 3) being honest with God, and 4) seeking clarification from God, and 5) listening.

Discernment: What St. Paul Teaches Us

Discernment: What St. Paul teaches us

 Throughout this week’s liturgical readings we spend time with St. Paul.  Hints of discernment skills exist in many of the accounts of his missionary work to the Gentiles. In Acts 16: 11-15, for instance, he states that he and his companion “spend some time,” in Philippi and that, on the sabbath, they “went outside the city gate along  the river where [they] thought there would be a place of prayer.”  There they entered into conversation with Lydia, with whom they shared their faith.  “The Lord open her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying.

Several element of discernment surface:

·         The necessity of spending time in the “Philippi’s” of our lives to get to know the territory

·         The importance of going outside the busyness of the “Philippi’s” in order to quiet our minds

·         The need to look for a place to pray, to commune with our God in the quiet of our hearts

·         The realization that it is God who opens our hearts (a grace for which to pray)

·         The significance of paying attention to another’s beliefs following our openness about our own

·         The need to ask to be “baptized,” that is to die and rise with Christ to a new way of thinking, to new perceptions, perhaps