Question About Asking For Signs...

[Gabriela]

Signs are way overblown. Jason Evert has a great story concerning "signs":

 

In college, I did a novena to St. Raphael the Archangel for discernment on a relationship. At the time, I was in school in Austria and my girlfriend was back in school in Ohio. I really wanted to marry her, and on the ninth day of the novena, as I said the word "Amen," the phone rang and it was her, just saying hi. I went through the roof, seeing this as divine providence . . . and she's now happily married to a friend of mine. So, while novenas can be a great spiritual gift, we can often misinterpret them to see what we're hoping for.

 

What do you mean "in college"? Aren't you 16?

[Dr. Bombay]

He's obviously immensely precocious. God bless his soul.

[Gabriela]

Annie: As most people around here know, I interviewed 35 nuns about how they discerned their religious vocations. Pretty much everything they said could be construed as a "sign". If you're looking for God's will, anything that indicates to you what His will might be could be considered a "sign". Got a strong longing to enter religious life? That's a "sign". Keep running into nuns everywhere? That's a "sign". Did the sky open up and a voice say to you, "I want you to be a nun"? That's a "sign". But that small, soft voice inside you that just won't let nunhood off your mind—that is also a "sign".

 

The problem with "signs" is that everything is a sign. We just don't know it till we notice them and give them significance. To me, what makes the difference between a meaningful sign and one that you "looked for" is that, when a meaningful sign pops up, you get a feeling inside you immediately that it's somehow significant. You might not know how in the moment, but you'll have a feeling that "someone's saying something to you", that this is meaningful. If you have to read meaning into a thing, if you have to try, if you have to force it, so to speak—then you made a "sign" out of something that God may not have intended as one.

 

The difficult part of discerning signs is that, when you want something really bad, you look for signs. And then you will find them. Even if God didn't send them.

 

That being my experience of signs, I take issue with people who say that you ought to ignore signs. I agree that you ought not ask for them outright, or look for them. But, honestly, what it is we're all doing when we ask God "Please reveal your will to me?" How do we expect Him to do that if not through some kind of sign? If the small, still voice in you and the nagging longing and the strange attraction to x, y, or z doesn't count as a "sign", then I don't know what does. I consider all those things "signs" (because the sisters did).

 

I think that Jesus' condemnation of "this generation's" hunger for signs was not for the kind of signs a person is looking for when she asks God to reveal His will to her (via signs, because... what else?). They were asking for Him to perform miracles. So don't ask for a miracle. Just ask Him to show you His will. Don't look for it, don't try too hard for it, get yourself into a state in which you can accept and embrace and love whatever He sends (yes, I know that is HARD), and then kick back and let Him show you what He wants in the way He wants.

 

I assure you, it will come through a "sign"—broadly construed.

 

One sign won't be enough, I expect. Unless it's really big and obvious. (I know one sister who immediately knew God wasn't calling her to a certain community because she got rear-ended on the highway on her way to visit the place.) Most times we build a "cumulative case" for God's will. Many small, subtle signs that just seem to grow the feeling in us that... "Hmm... Yeah... I think God's telling me this." If that's all you're talking about, God bless you. I hope you have many signs.

[Gabriela]

He's obviously immensely precocious. God bless his soul.

 

That is most certainly true. But college in Austria at 15?

[Dr. Bombay]

That is most certainly true. But college in Austria at 15?

 

Maybe he got tired of all the American girls chasing after his stunning good looks and decided to give the European ladies a chance.

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jne9t8sHpUc

[PhuturePriest]

What do you mean "in college"? Aren't you 16?

 

Perhaps it might be prudent to read the post a little more closely:

 

 

Signs are way overblown. Jason Evert has a great story concerning "signs":

[Annie12]

Perhaps it might be prudent to read the post a little more closely:

 

Hahahahahaha!!!! :lol3:

Good one!

[Gabriela]

Perhaps it might be prudent to read the post a little more closely:

 

Oops. Missed the colon hidden under the quotation mark!