A New, Old-fashioned Take On Discernment

[bardegaulois]

Greetings.

I'm in a position where I'm advising several catechumens regarding their choice of a state of life. In this I'm foregoing a lot of the pop pastoral psychology floating around out there (which I've often found to be of dubious merit) and instead going right to the statements of the Holy See and of the better spiritual writers, like St. Francis de Sales and St. Alphonsus Liguori. No doubt, I'm also drawing on my own experience of this process as well.

In this I'm showing a strong preferment to religious life as objectively (if not subjectively) the highest and most pleasing sort of life in this world, the closest we can come on earth to our intended life in heaven. Any who lack impediments and wish to become more perfectly united to God ought (nay, have a grave responsibility) to consider that. Apt young men are, of course, advised regarding the religious priesthood.

If that is not possible, I'm counseling the young men to consider the secular priesthood. I strongly part from the status quo on this in that I'm following several documents from the time of St. Pius X in stressing that any physically able, moral, and sufficiently intelligent young man with a proper intention can be an aspirant to the priesthood. No inner illumination or supernatural prompting or anything of that sort ought to be required. Fitness of nature and grace and an intention to glorify God, to save souls, and in doing so to secure one's own salvation are all that are necessary.

 

If the discerner is not swayed by this point, then the secular lay life is presented. So often we hear about the vocation to marriage or the vocation to singleness, but it's almost unheard of to hear of someone discerning the secular lay life in general. And no doubt, its duties and responsibilities too must be presented and meditated upon. All too often, one will say that that doesn't sound great either. Thus, the process begins anew, and so it continues until a decision is come to, at least temporarily. I should note that I advise these folks that the discernment must continue until vows, ordination, or marriage, and that the discernment is much easier within the context of a novitiate or a seminary than it is while being bombarded with the enticements of the world. And one who has ever served as a novice or seminarian will forever be the richer for it.

I find myself somewhat concerned as it seems that we lose many good ecclesiastical vocations due to want in the generosity of spirit that would have one joyfully accept his divine destiny. Thus, I stress St Alphonsus's strong warning that depriving ourselves of the many graces and spiritual advantages offered by the objectively higher states of life, if we are capable of undertaking them, can but make our final salvation more difficult and our road to heaven thornier.

To your mind, it this a wise way to undertake this?

[thepiaheart]

Yes, I think so. Wasn't it Aquinas who wrote that a significant amount of people have religious vocations? In our culture, we are missing a significant number of those significant vocations, if he's right. :)

 

I think what the question is, always, is where to help someone to start--and I think there's very often something deficient in determining marriage or single life to be the status quo when they both are vocations as much as religious life is a vocation, and so to start someone with the vocation that has the greatest capacity, objectively, for making-in-holiness and glorifying God by a sort of self-effacement manifested in chastity, poverty, and obedience, I think is wise. It is easier, I think, to discern out of religious life to marriage than from out of marriage to religious life.

 

Beyond either of these vocations, though, I just encourage you to ever push your catechumens into a deeply personal, intimate, daily encounter with the living God in prayer--it is only there that they can truly experience, truly taste and know, him, and thus his will; we know his will when we know him.

Edited March 26, 2014 by thepiaheart

[marigold]

Yes, I think that anyone who has the basic requirements and wants to, should be allowed to try.

 

I know dozens of people who are either explicitly good candidates, or implicitly good ones. The first group fulfil all the basic requirements, know about the way of life, and have a certain draw towards it, but don't act on it. I often hear 'It's not for me', by which they usually mean 'I'm not for it' - they think it's out of their league. The second group may or may not even be in the Church, but react really strongly when they find out about these ways of life. The number of people who were shocked and disbelieving when I said I was going to a monastery, but after a while confessed that they were envious and found themselves wanting that life too! If I had a penny for each I would be rich! They simply had no idea it was even possible.

 

The solution to both seems to be to make religious/priestly life much more widely known. And yes I do agree with you that it's the 'highest' way, but I don't want to emphasise that to the point of scaring people off. Because at least in my experience that's a lot of what is holding people back. They think it's for some other kind of person.

 

(After that though, there is the problem of having a go but finding that you don't have the generosity to put up with all the struggle. But that is something that people have to face themselves. We can try to do things in our Churches to have a culture of self-sacrifice and service, but we can't make individual people do stuff they don't want to...)

 

Also! It doesn't have to be such a big deal when someone tries out these things. There HAS to be a way to both celebrate it, and also be like, 'This is a normal way of life which you are trying, and if you don't want to continue, that's ok.' Without all of the drama at both ends.

[NotreDame]

Greetings.

I'm in a position where I'm advising several catechumens regarding their choice of a state of life. In this I'm foregoing a lot of the pop pastoral psychology floating around out there (which I've often found to be of dubious merit) and instead going right to the statements of the Holy See and of the better spiritual writers, like St. Francis de Sales and St. Alphonsus Liguori. No doubt, I'm also drawing on my own experience of this process as well.

In this I'm showing a strong preferment to religious life as objectively (if not subjectively) the highest and most pleasing sort of life in this world, the closest we can come on earth to our intended life in heaven. Any who lack impediments and wish to become more perfectly united to God ought (nay, have a grave responsibility) to consider that. Apt young men are, of course, advised regarding the religious priesthood.

If that is not possible, I'm counseling the young men to consider the secular priesthood. I strongly part from the status quo on this in that I'm following several documents from the time of St. Pius X in stressing that any physically able, moral, and sufficiently intelligent young man with a proper intention can be an aspirant to the priesthood. No inner illumination or supernatural prompting or anything of that sort ought to be required. Fitness of nature and grace and an intention to glorify God, to save souls, and in doing so to secure one's own salvation are all that are necessary.

 

If the discerner is not swayed by this point, then the secular lay life is presented. So often we hear about the vocation to marriage or the vocation to singleness, but it's almost unheard of to hear of someone discerning the secular lay life in general. And no doubt, its duties and responsibilities too must be presented and meditated upon. All too often, one will say that that doesn't sound great either. Thus, the process begins anew, and so it continues until a decision is come to, at least temporarily. I should note that I advise these folks that the discernment must continue until vows, ordination, or marriage, and that the discernment is much easier within the context of a novitiate or a seminary than it is while being bombarded with the enticements of the world. And one who has ever served as a novice or seminarian will forever be the richer for it.

I find myself somewhat concerned as it seems that we lose many good ecclesiastical vocations due to want in the generosity of spirit that would have one joyfully accept his divine destiny. Thus, I stress St Alphonsus's strong warning that depriving ourselves of the many graces and spiritual advantages offered by the objectively higher states of life, if we are capable of undertaking them, can but make our final salvation more difficult and our road to heaven thornier.

To your mind, it this a wise way to undertake this?

 

I'm sympathetic to your viewpoint and you wrote quite a bit, so allow me to quickly reply with some thoughts to what stood out. 

 

The idea of having a vocation and calling often isn't discussed very often in your average catholic school or church, so young Catholics all too often don't even know they should be asking the question "What is my vocation?"  Then later, too many male orders and dioceses present the priesthood and religious life as any other "career decision", when obviously it's not.  They also rarely share and educate young men on prayerful approaches to discernment and finding the will of God. 

 

Vocations are a mystery and they aren't.  From what I've read (and this is quite explicit from Pope's regarding the priesthood, but it's also in some very good vocation books like Religious Vocation: An Unnecessary Mystery by Fr. Richard Butler, O.P.) a vocation does need to have some inner desire and that desire also needs to be discerned both with regard to the direction of the desire and where the desire is coming from. 

 

In that respect, I think the real unnecessary mystery today is discernment.  As I mentioned above, I had very few dioceses, orders, priests, or even spiritual directors that were both knowledgeable and willing to walk me through discernment, which can at a high level be a very simple, straightforward process. 

 

I personally found Ignatian discernment to be the most straightforward, but I have also just discovered that St Francis De Sales wrote on finding the will of God in Chapters 8 & 9 of "Treatise on the Will of God."  I really loved the practicality of his "Introduction to the Devout Life" so I'm eager to read this portion of his Treatise.  Was this is the writing from St Francis you were referring to? 

 

Going back to encouraging vocations.  I'd be careful here.  Religious life has the potential to be the most meritorious, but it's not guaranteed to be the most meritorious for every individual.  Also, if vocations are real callings from God, then if someone with a calling to marriage was pushed towards religious life, it could be harmful to them. 

 

The past few decades should teach us it's more important to have quality of quantity.  I personally don't think it's a lack of generosity on the part of young men that has resulted in the "lack" of vocations.  I think it's a lack of instruction and lack of capability on the Church.  Formation takes a lot of work and frankly, the church wasn't well equipped for the last few decades in many, many ways that we shouldn't go into here, but it' evidenced by how the church approached and "marketed" the priesthood and their lack of resources on discernment.  I believe this is improving, but we aren't out of the woods yet.

 

So I feel it is ok to encourage everyone to look at religious life, but telling people they should actually enter should come from a spiritual director and an Vocations director.

 

Yes, I think so. Wasn't it Aquinas who wrote that a significant amount of people have religious vocations? In our culture, we are missing a significant number of those significant vocations, if he's right. :)

 

I think Aquinas goes into why it's he most meritorious. It was Bosco who made some claim that 1/3 of mankind has a religious vocation.  Personally, I find Bosco's claim and other parts of his writings strange.

 

Yes, I think that anyone who has the basic requirements and wants to, should be allowed to try.

 

I personally agree with you that a well discerned desire is important.

[bardegaulois]

Thank you all for your replies. I'll address each individually, with general comments interspersed throughout.

 

Thepiaheart, I think you're very correct in saying that it's faulty to present the secular lay life as the status quo to young Catholics. Surely it's the most common state of life and one through which we're all destined to pass at least in our youth. However, in a sense I envy the Thais in this regard. They are Buddhists, and it is customary that all their capable young men (I'm not sure about women) live as a monk for a year while in their youths and use that period to discern their course in life. Anyone I know who's ever visited has told me that Thailand is certainly not lacking in monks, and this while the vast majority choose to go back to a secular career and marriage.

 

This brings me to Marigold's comment that anyone who can and wants to ought to be allowed to try. Postulancies, novitaites, even seminary studies and temporary vows do not bind one throughout life. A wise priest once told me that discernment only ends when you're "kissing the marble" (or making permanent vows, whether religious or matrimonial), i.e., when the vocation is sealed. You're very correct when you state that the biggest problem among our young is ignorance, and indeed, I believe that an ignorance that extends to an understanding of our ultimate destiny. You're also right when you say that the drama needs to be removed from discernment. All too often, I've met people who seem to believe that unless one has a Damascus-Road-style locution or something of the sort, then one has no vocation to anything other than the secular lay state. I don't believe that this has any precedent within our history. A sincere and honest desire to live the life coupled with the ability to do so is perhaps the surest sign of a vocation, or at least that a vocation should be explored. Better to enter the cloister to discern and explore further in that silent place where the promptings of the Holy Spirit can be heard much more clearly.

 

Notredame, as I indicated to Marigold, it's evident that ignorance is the real vocation-killer among many. Religion and the priesthood have never been presented to many, and thus many are simply unable to truly live according to their destinies in the world. Those having the cure of souls truly ought to reflect on how many souls are perhaps imperilled because of this. In my fouler moods, I'd say that what Leo the Iconoclast and Henry VIII and numerous other tyrants did to the religious life through violence, so many churchmen of the past half-century seem to be doing through apathy. I beg pardon if that comment seems uncharitable.

 

In any case, Butler is an excellent guide in this regard, as is Vocations Explained, credited anonymously to "A Vincentian Father." But one of your comments begs an additional clarification. I noted religious life as the most objectively meritorious form of life. This, however, doesn't hold true for each individual subject. If it did, then I'd have no problems with saying that the entire world ought to be a cloister. We know that won't happen until the New Jerusalem. Thus, spiritual direction is important both in the world and in religion, in order for souls to ascertain that they are imitating Christ as best they ought, and not withholding themselves from his higher service due to lack of charity.

[Maggyie]

I have a different perspective. After a decade or so of observing discernment culture (and participating in it for 5 years or so) I've come to very opposite conclusions. I don't think our vocations crisis relates to quantity but quality.

I think we have plenty of people trying religious life. The priesthood, less so. The drop out rate for those who enter communities is very high, almost to the point that leaving is as likely an outcome as staying when you enter. This has nothing to do with the candidates being inadequate in any way. It just means in most cases they haven't got a religious vocation, or in some cases, haven't found the right place yet.

The feeling among some vocations directors is that a pump and dump strategy works best. Pump lots of souls into formation and when the tide falls, more will be left, simply from a fractional perspective. I wish I could write a brochure on "How to Identify A VD/SD Who Really Doesn't Want To Help You Discern." These ideas (every person should at least enter, it's easiest to discern while inside the monastery, seminary is the default for a young man, etc, are prime indicators). All emphasizing herding as many people as possible into formation.

First, marriage is the natural vocation - the default. This isn't a modern perspective, it's always been the case and it's God's will, also, clearly expressed in scripture and in creation. Most Catholic men are not called to priesthood, for instance, and there's nothing wrong with that. However people who have not been given a balanced and positive education about vocations can suffer greatly when realizing they've "failed" at the higher calling. These attitudes directly result in people staying in formation who should not be there.

The reality is that we probably have the same percentage of authentic vocations that we had before, it's just that the pool of practicing, devout Catholics is shrinking. The cure for the vocations crisis is not herding in more and more of the shrinking pool, it's to evangelize! And to do that we don't need more religious, so much as we need GOOD religious and GOOD priests who are on fire and able to spread the fire to others.

[maximillion]

I agree with Marigold. To some degree it surprises me that we still find the same kind of fuss made over entrance to the RL as we did in the past, while so many other notions and traditions that were unhelpful have disappeared.

 

 

Leaving family especially when entry is to the cloister is not easy. All parties want to celebrate. All concerned want to mark the occasion. Candidates sincerely believe they will be there for life after entry. All need some sort of ritual that encompasses these aspects, a meaningful ritual. However, it is my contention that we need to de-mystify and concretise these rituals so that there is more emphasis on the early days as a try out.

Postulancy/candidacy/aspirancy exists because the community clearly recognises the need for a genuine try on of the RL in that particular community. I am not sure who it is that puts the emphasis on entry being a once for all time event. Maybe we need to re-evaluate it as not being so. Maybe we need to start promoting it as what it really is - a try out which can go either way. If we can do this then not only will it make it easier to leave if it turns out not to be the right choice (for whatever reason), but when the time comes for Clothing (always marked as the real start of RL by all communities) would be a much 'bigger' event.

It is my contention that entry needs to be downplayed and Clothing needs to take more centre stage.

Trying out with a community should be seen perhaps like having an internship in a job.......

 

While I celebrate and love the re-emergence of the holy habit as a symbol of all sorts of things, I do think that those communities who dress up their postulants in a semi-habit, especially if this includes a veil, actually further emphasises the permanent nature of what is going on,(when in fact it can be any thing but permanent) IMO. If postulants were told to bring a white blouse, calf length skirt in the community colour and simple cardigan etc, this would again make the try out less marked and the eventual move into the full habit much more important.

If I arrive somewhere and I am immediately dressed in a habit like garment and veil, this has an impact. IMO this impact is misplaced. We want the impact to be at the moment of joining the community, which happens later. I know I won't be popular in saying this but ritual has a huge emotional impact on us. We engage with ritual to make concrete our meaning and intention. If our intention is to try something on and see how it fits, why does our ritual emphasis permanence?

 

I have heard it said that of course candidates want to enter with the belief that they are giving themselves to God once and for all. Well, sorry folks, but they are not! If we were all being radically honest we would say this is the first step in one of many which will perhaps one day end in giving yourself entirely, through Vows, to God.

And I do recognise that those things are said, but almost all of the rituals accompanying entry are designed to emphasise the opposite. We need to look at what we are doing and see how it chines with what we are saying. Pointless saying 'this is a try out' if you have had to burn every bridge behind you on the way to the convent!

 

I liked Sr Faith's Carmelite (Notting Hill UK) community instantly when I discovered that in postulancy modest secular clothing is the norm.

I love the Nashies, but I think their entry rituals/outfit are OTT. Just my opinion.

 

As most of you know I entered many moons ago. To these who are discerning now, can I ask what sort of emphasis is put on entry? What kind of words are used by NM's? What are you told, and how is this reflected in the ritual of entry? How much advice on what to do with personal property, finances, bank accounts etc? You see, if those are all still in existence when a person enters, not only is it SO much easier to pick up the pieces if you discern out, but it also means all of that has to be done at Clothing - it further emphasises the point THEN.

How much information are you given on what will happen if you discern out? How will this be handled? Is it even discussed?

[petitpèlerin]

The cure for the vocations crisis is not herding in more and more of the shrinking pool, it's to evangelize! And to do that we don't need more religious, so much as we need GOOD religious and GOOD priests who are on fire and able to spread the fire to others.

 

I so wholeheartedly agree with this. It's the small handfew of good religious who have made me want what they have. "On fire" not in the sense that they necessarily evangelize loudly but that even if their witness appears very subtle they have a strong fire burning inside of them.

[Pia Jesu]

Bardegaulois' comment that "a wise priest once told me that discernment only ends when you're 'kissing the marble' (or making permanent vows, whether religious or matrimonial)," might well find a counterpoint in a statement by Br. Paul Quenon (a Gesthemani Trappist monk mentored by none other than Merton) that after 52+ years of vowed monastic life, he "hadn't arrived yet."  In a 2011

interview with PBS, he notes that although many candidates are still entering formation (at the abbey), few are willing to stay.  "I wish they would perceive the genuineness of the life" he adds, "a man has to have, you know, a home and a career, and these are ways of achieving identity.  Well, what we do, in a sense, is forsake our identity.  We give up our identity to get a new identity which

God formulates for us."  All of which, engenders the distinct possibility that we have both a vocation and an identity crisis (which is consistent with Maggie's observation that the problem is one of "quality

over quantity").  Having studied Erik Erikson's Eight Crisis Stages--from birth to death--ad nauseum in college, I'm wondering if the developmental psychologist might have something to say to us.  How many candidates (for religious life) may be said to have fully reached Erikson's "Identity Achievement" stage--the period of adulthood in which one is able to commit to a specific career path, etc.?  In an online blog (link provided below) that chronicles the formation of a cloistered nun from postulancy to first vows--and her community's high novitiate attrition rate--she writes, "A retreat of a few days, or even of a few weeks cannot give a true sense or feel for the life lived day in and day out, seven days a week, month after month.  I realized that not everyone is blessed with the 'safety net' [of a previous job being held open, a family home] that I had."  While just a single example, I agree with Maximillion that the aspirancy/postulancy of religious life should truly be an introduction--a type of "internship"-- and less what some communities term incorporation.  Reflecting back on the time I donned a novice's veil and wore a pair of sturdy shoes, it almost seems that I had entered a virtual Buberian world of the dialogic, the I--Thou and the I--It  type of experience in which persons (and identity) are being

conditioned.  Perhaps Br. Paul gives a nugget of truth when saying, "I'm not here, yet" after all those

years.

 

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2011/05/06/May-6-2011-brother-Paul/8764/

 

http://www.vistyr.org/heaven-on-earth-part-I

 

 

 

 

    

[bardegaulois]

Maggie, I certainly have an ear for your concerns. But one thing that we really have to ask is if anybody who has gone through a novitiate and then elected not to continue and to return to the secular world is spiritually any the worse for it. Yes, many will return to the secular world, with most likely to marry. However, I'd think they'd be much more of a leaven in the world due to their time in religious formation. Certainly, the secular lay life is the common vocation and marriage is normative to it. But even though it be common, I am of the mind that it is still something to be discerned, rather than merely presumed, as I've noted. I assert to those whom I advise that if they have the slightest inclination to religion or the priesthood, then the secular lay life has the burden of proof, not vice versa. Continue forging ahead until it is clear that you should not.

 

Maximillion, to present an analogy, we don't celebrate when a young person first goes to university, but when he receives his degree. To go to university is perceived as something of a normal step in life; why do we not perceive going off to a monastery in the same sense? Perhaps if we had more parents who spent some time in religious formation... But that gets back to my original assertion.

 

Pia Jesu, to my mind any post that references Martin Buber is an excellent post. And interestingly I live very near to the Visitation Monastery in Massachusetts you reference here. But you bring up the question of what our ultimate identity actually is, and what we must do to achieve it. I too am well aware of Erikson, occasionally teaching psychology at a community college, and explain his adolescence stage, usually to students in their late teens or early 20s, with the cliché that it's all about "finding oneself." By students easily understand this, but sometimes have some difficulty with my explanation of young adulthood as "getting over oneself." That cherished identity, often so necessary a defense to allow for growth in certain very personal and individual characteristics, can easily become a prison, not so much keeping others out, but keeping you in. Thus, Erikson stresses the need for intimacy to overcome this, as should we all. Thus, the loss of the self in the other, or otherwise a life of egoistic frustrations and stunted development. This is why I stress the religious life so strongly to young people; you will lose yourself in another eventually, so why not "The Other?" Why hold to those things that supposedly insulate you from the banal meaninglessness around you? They were necessary once, but now they are shielding you from taking a Kierkegaardian leap of faith, making the gift of yourself and receiving the gift of another Self.

 

And that is the point of our life here on earth, granted put in very philosophical terms. When the Other to Whom we give and from Whom we receive is infinite, we will never be there. And yet we shall always be nearer and nearer, transformed by a union that is not static, but very dynamic. If you're ever interested, Jean-Luc Marion, perhaps today's finest living philosopher deals with this extensively.

 

Thank you all for your replies.

[AugustineA]

What is this secular lay life you speak of? Is that like a consecrated secular? 

 

I am definitely interested in the idea. I can't see myself being a priest, mendicant or monk. Neither can I see myself married with a family. I want to live a simple life, probly move into a teaching position as a professor and dedicate most of my work to the Church and the poor. 

 

Would it be a good idea to speak with a spiritual advisor about consecrated secular life as well? If I take those vows I'm not going back. :)

[bardegaulois]

What is this secular lay life you speak of? Is that like a consecrated secular? 

 

I am definitely interested in the idea. I can't see myself being a priest, mendicant or monk. Neither can I see myself married with a family. I want to live a simple life, probly move into a teaching position as a professor and dedicate most of my work to the Church and the poor. 

 

Would it be a good idea to speak with a spiritual advisor about consecrated secular life as well? If I take those vows I'm not going back. :)

 

The secular lay state is the state of those who are neither religious nor clergy, i.e., most people.

[chrysostom]

you will lose yourself in another eventually, so why not "The Other?"

 

This is similar to what I was thinking the other day.  Every now and then in the past I would try to imagine the woman of my dreams, or think about whatever girl I had a crush on at the time.  A thought of the girl I most recently liked crossed my mind yesterday, but instead of dwelling on that I immediately turned to thoughts of the Blessed Virgin Mary...what if she were, as +Fulton Sheen said, "the woman I love"?  (I really ought to go ahead with Montfort's Total Consecration.  I've got sidetracked during the 33-day preparation before so I've never made to the consecration day!)

 

But yes, that "why not" is irresistible for me.  Why not give my life utterly over to Jesus through the evangelical counsels?  Why not throw myself into His arms, into his Mother's arms, through this way?  And if the way is ultimately barred for me for some reason, then I will not regret the attempt.

 

Maybe I'm just an overly optimistic neophyte, but I'm really entranced about the possibility of religious life for me.  It's so much more radical than anything I encountered in my Protestant upbringing.  What I really want (or at least, what I really want to want :pray:) is closeness to the Eucharistic Jesus.  Time stops when I see Him.  If He will give me the grace to make it through discernment, through profession of final vows, through the life afterwards...well I will be grateful.  :amen:

[arfink]

Maggie, I certainly have an ear for your concerns. But one thing that we really have to ask is if anybody who has gone through a novitiate and then elected not to continue and to return to the secular world is spiritually any the worse for it. Yes, many will return to the secular world, with most likely to marry. However, I'd think they'd be much more of a leaven in the world due to their time in religious formation. Certainly, the secular lay life is the common vocation and marriage is normative to it. But even though it be common, I am of the mind that it is still something to be discerned, rather than merely presumed, as I've noted. I assert to those whom I advise that if they have the slightest inclination to religion or the priesthood, then the secular lay life has the burden of proof, not vice versa. Continue forging ahead until it is clear that you should not.

 

Yep. It sure happened to me. I very nearly lost my faith over the whole thing, and the growth I have had spiritually of late has happened after many years of bitterness and the reversal of a strong spiritual hardening which happened to me during my days after leaving seminary.

[SilentJoy]

 (I really ought to go ahead with Montfort's Total Consecration.  I've got sidetracked during the 33-day preparation before so I've never made to the consecration day!)

 

 

You could try "33 Days to Morning Glory" if the other has proved difficult. Or do the one by Maximillion Kolbe, I think its only 9 days or something.