Discernment

Prayer is something that we often take for granted or misinterpret. Many think of prayer as saying “Hail Marys” or “Our Fathers,” but that’s not all there is to it. Those are prayers, but prayer itself is an act. It’s the act of deepening your relationship with God. When you pray, either by attending Mass, saying the Rosary, meditating on the Scriptures or just taking a moment to check in with God, you are building a relationship. And just like any relationship between two people, this relationship with God moves through several phases before it reaches its peak.

At first, prayer is about talking. Sharing your gratitude, love, concerns or even desires with the Lord. He loves you and is always willing to hear what you have to say, and prayer is the fastest, easiest way to talk to Him. But like any other conversation, prayer should be about more than talking. It should also be about listening.

When you talk to your friends, do you speak uninterrupted for the entirety of the conversation?  Part of the joy of conversation is hearing what other people have to say. This is no different with God, who is always trying to let you know His will. However, God is patient. He will only speak to you when you are done talking, and even then He may not choose to respond immediately.

For this reason, it is important to take your prayer life from speaking and listening to a point where you are regularly or even constantly thinking about God. Even when you aren’t in prayer, even when you’re nowhere near a church, you should be thinking about God. How would He want you to react to a situation? What would He say about whatever it is you’re thinking about? This doesn’t necessarily mean you should filter every action and decision through the Lord (He probably isn’t worried about what you’re having for lunch), but rather that you should be constantly aware of His presence and wishes, even when they aren’t part of the subject at hand.

The ultimate goal of your prayer life should go beyond just thinking about God. The ideal is a constant, unconscious relationship in which you share your life with God. He is everywhere at all times, but this can still be a difficult stage to reach. You must be aware that, even when you’re entirely alone, God is there. Maybe you’re just watching television or reading a book, but God is in the room with you. When you are comfortable in this relationship with God, you will have reached a point beyond talking, listening or even thinking where you and Him are simply sharing your life. Once you’ve reached this state, the Lord will reveal His wishes for you.

Not all prayer has to be done in quiet solitude. Attending Mass as often as you can, even every day if you can manage it, serves many purposes. First, the Liturgical Prayer is one of the cornerstones of both priesthood and the Catholic faith. This is an opportunity to observe priests at work and talk to them in person about what the priesthood is like. It can also help to be directed in prayer, and to celebrate with the community at large. Finally, it gives you a daily opportunity to receive the Eucharist, which is one of only two Sacraments that can be repeated.

Receiving the Sacraments is a vital part of the discerning process, because they fill you with Jesus’s sanctifying grace. This cleanses our souls and gives us His own divine life, clearing away the fog and distractions that can make it difficult to see His will. As mentioned above, it is ideal to receive the Eucharist every day. This is the most personal, intimate way to encounter Jesus, and its value cannot be overstated. It is also important to receive Confession often: every two weeks if possible, and certainly not less than once a month. This not only absolves your sins and gives you sanctifying grace, but also gives you a chance to get one-on-one direction from a priest. For this reason, it’s recommended that you have a regular confessor who knows you well and can offer more personalized guidance.

Once you have built this relationship, it’s also recommended that you attempt a General Confession. Unlike regular absolution, the goal of a General Confession is to go back through your life and confess as many sins as you can remember. The point isn’t to atone for those sins again or to make you feel bad about them, but to restate your commitment by letting go of the past and trusting Jesus more deeply than ever before. Since it covers a long period of time, it’s best to set this up in advance with your confessor. If you feel comfortable enough with him, this priest may even be a good choice as your spiritual director.

A spiritual director is not a formal title or a job description, but rather a role that could be played by anyone within your life. Ideally, the person to help you discern whether or not you’re meant to be a priest would be another priest; but any holy, trustworthy person whom you believe truly found what God wanted for them can help shed light on this process. A spiritual director isn’t there to tell you what to do or how to feel. Their job is to help create an environment within you that is receptive to God’s Voice and ready to accept His wishes.

Your home pastor probably knows you better than any other priest (unless you have a sibling or other relative in the priesthood). Try talking to him about your vocation; you might be surprised by the insights he has to offer. We may be priests, but we’re people, too. We live in this world, and we understand the distractions and fears that may be preventing you from fully opening yourself to the Word of God.

For more information on spiritual direction, click here.

By doing all of those things, you’ll be on the right path to discerning your vocation. Unfortunately, doing God’s will is never as simple as filling out a checklist. There will be obstacles on your path, and if you aren’t careful they can stop you from fulfilling the Lord’s wishes. The most prevalent and obvious of these obstacles is sin.

Sin is more than just breaking arbitrary rules. Sin is willfully turning away from God and His desires, and must always be seen as such. Just like in any other friendship, by ignoring or spiting God you can damage or even destroy your relationship with Him. During the process of discernment, sin is like mud that covers our spiritual eyes and ears, preventing us from seeing or hearing the Lord.

The best way to deal with sin is frequent confession. Through this Sacrament, you receive God’s forgiveness for all the times you turned away from Him.  If sin is mud covering our eyes, absolution is cleansing water that clears our eyes and allows us to see Him once again.

However, simply being free of serious or mortal sin is not enough. We still have the never-ending task of dealing with our venial sins and the attachment we have to them. Even when you don’t actually follow through on an act of sin, the intention can still be there. You must rid yourself of those intentions. St. Francis de Sales once likened our attachments to sin to the Israelites who sometimes longed for the comforts they had as slaves when things got too hard in the desert. They yearned for the meat and fruit that they had, even though they lived in fear of the lash every day. Spiritually, these attachments to sin are like those Israelites’ attachment to food. It keeps you in your place of slavery, and you can never be totally free until you deal with it.

So if you prevent sin from metaphorically covering your ears, does that mean you’re ready to hear the Lord’s call? The answer is yes and no. You will hear the Lord’s voice, but it may not necessarily be the only thing you hear.

The Four Voices of Discernment will all vie for your attention during this process. The first, and most important, is the Voice of the Lord. Every day, you can hear Him urging you to do good in your actions, to trust in Him and to sacrifice out of love. You can hear Him in Scripture, at Church or even from the world around you. Remember that discouragement and confusion are never the Voice of the Lord. Even when you sin, he still says “I love you, no matter what.” Still, His voice can challenge you to a deeper relationship with Him.

You can be certain that He is calling you to a specific vocation, which might be to join the priesthood. If you feel like that might be the case, know that God never lies and never plays games. Whatever He asks you to do, He will give you the grace and the confidence to do it. You might feel like He has asked you to live a life that you do not want or can’t live up to, but that’s never the case. Within His call lies the desire to answer, and the grace to make it possible.

During this process, you will also hear the Voice of Yourself. This voice speaks your desires, and is the only voice you have control over. Part of growing up is becoming aware of who you are and what you want. Hopefully, you want to be heroic, to change the world, and to love and serve the Lord in whatever you do. Sadly, it doesn’t always work that way. Our sinfulness and worldly attachments can compete with or even drown out the Voice of the Lord. Other times, it may just be that you’re choosing between two objectively good things. Maybe you want to be a priest, but you also want to be married and raise children.

No matter what, the desires of your deepest, truest self will agree with God’s wishes for you. The trick is to be able to look that far into yourself. One way to do so is to be aware of what you’re thinking about when your mind is free. Is there something that you think about whenever something else isn’t demanding your attention? This might be a sign from Jesus, so you should ask Him what those thoughts mean. Why do you have them? What is the meaning behind them? It can be difficult to reach far enough inside to reach this state because you have so many other desires that have been instilled in you by the world around you.

The Voice of the World is under the dominion of the devil, and can be considered an extension of his voice. That doesn’t mean everything in the world comes from the devil, nor does it mean you should ignore all worldly advice. Your friends, family, mentors or even total strangers might play a part in helping you to hear God’s call. No, the voice of the world refers to the desire to put your trust in the things of this world: money, prestige, fame and relationships. Dreams of big houses and expensive cars are not from Jesus, they were put in you by advertisements and celebrities. This voice calls you to ignore your salvation and reward in Heaven to focus on the here and now. Sometimes, those desires are so powerful that they can drown out even the Lord’s voice.

The final voice you might hear in this process is the Voice of the Devil. He is always trying to lead you away from Jesus, to doubt the Lord’s goodness and give up your trust in Him. This is the voice that tells you to ignore or reject Jesus. The most obvious example of the devil’s voice is the temptation to sin, but he can be very cunning. If he can’t get you to sin, he may still try to get you to turn from God’s plan by doing something that, while still good, isn’t what He wants for you. If he cannot turn you to evil, he will settle for a lesser good.

You will only be able to make progress toward finding your vocation when you’ve learned to distinguish between these four voices. By turning away from the voices of the world and the devil, you’ll finally achieve that heart-to-heart with God that is so beautiful and so necessary to this process.

True silence is one of the rarest and most valuable things in the world, and it is something that most people will never achieve. Look around you. How many things are there just in this room that are keeping you from truly being alone with God? A television, maybe, or music playing. Another Web site open behind this one. Someone on the phone, or chatting online. When is the last time it was truly just you and God having a conversation?

Only when you find that silence, when your voice and the Lord’s voice are the only two things you can hear, will you be ready to take the final step. If you find your voice is in conflict with the Lord’s, don’t worry. Maybe past hurts have made it hard for you to trust, or fear of losing something prevents you from giving yourself fully to the Lord. Whatever it is, He will help you overcome it. When you give yourself fully to God in love, He will take care of the rest.

One important thing to remember is that your vocation may not be revealed quickly or easily. It takes patience and perseverance to fully understand the will of the Lord, but only by continuing to pray and reflect can we come to know His wishes. Praying one “Hail Mary” every day, asking for Our Lady’s blessing and assistance, can be very helpful. It’s a small prayer, but it’s very powerful.