Integral to the spiritual life is the process of becoming who we are created to become and growing in awareness of God’s call to us for the benefit of the world. In discernment we seek to know our deepest, truest self. In this core place we discover God present and active. Discernment is a seeking of God’s presence and invitation, a seeking to be in harmony with the goodness and power of God.
St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, is considered the Father of Discernment. His ability to name his experiences of discernment and the movement of the Spirit as he experienced them in his own life led him to articulate patterns that have been used in discernment for hundreds of years.
The Consciousness Examen, Ignatius prayerful reflection on each day, is a simple and very helpful tool for discernment. Everyone can use this tool as it takes only a few moments each day. In the Examen Ignatius invites us to review the day with an eye to noticing when we moved with or toward God and also to notice when we moved away from or against God. Through the Examen we are invited to look for the experience of God’s presence or seeming absence in each day.
Ignatius, who also wrote the Spiritual Exercises, offers us many techniques for working with discernment in our own time. For Ignatius, all of life is revelatory, there is nowhere God is not. Ignatius teaches us that God speaks to us in all events and through all things.
Discernment then is an ongoing process in which we use all our abilities: sensing, intuition, thinking, paying attention both within and outside ourselves, and to our experiences in prayer in order to grow in awareness of God’s movement within and among us. Learning to notice is an important skill in discernment. Noticing what Ignatius calls “inner movements” as they occur in body, mind, heart and soul help us to sense and name God’s invitations.
Once God’s invitation seems clear it will be time to “try it out” or “try it on”. The invitation is God’s, the choice to respond is ours.
As we anticipate being together for this day of retreat on discernment let us pray for one another using the poetry of J. Philip Newell in the Sounds of the Eternal:
Thanks be to you, O God
Thanks be to you, O God
For the stirrings of new life in me this day,
For rising from the dreams of the night
To a fresh flowing of energy,
For the vitality that awakened my body
And the desires that stir my soul.
Let me know the power for life that is in me,
The life-force that is in my senses
And the might that is in my heart.
Let me know you as the source of such force
And be wise to its true streams and false currents.
Let me serve love with my strength this day,
Let me serve love with my strength.
In heart and mind and body this day
Let me serve love.
Wishing you all peace this day and an ongoing noticing of the movement of God within and around you,
Andree Grafstein
St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, is considered the Father of Discernment. His ability to name his experiences of discernment and the movement of the Spirit as he experienced them in his own life led him to articulate patterns that have been used in discernment for hundreds of years.
The Consciousness Examen, Ignatius prayerful reflection on each day, is a simple and very helpful tool for discernment. Everyone can use this tool as it takes only a few moments each day. In the Examen Ignatius invites us to review the day with an eye to noticing when we moved with or toward God and also to notice when we moved away from or against God. Through the Examen we are invited to look for the experience of God’s presence or seeming absence in each day.
Ignatius, who also wrote the Spiritual Exercises, offers us many techniques for working with discernment in our own time. For Ignatius, all of life is revelatory, there is nowhere God is not. Ignatius teaches us that God speaks to us in all events and through all things.
Discernment then is an ongoing process in which we use all our abilities: sensing, intuition, thinking, paying attention both within and outside ourselves, and to our experiences in prayer in order to grow in awareness of God’s movement within and among us. Learning to notice is an important skill in discernment. Noticing what Ignatius calls “inner movements” as they occur in body, mind, heart and soul help us to sense and name God’s invitations.
Once God’s invitation seems clear it will be time to “try it out” or “try it on”. The invitation is God’s, the choice to respond is ours.
As we anticipate being together for this day of retreat on discernment let us pray for one another using the poetry of J. Philip Newell in the Sounds of the Eternal:
Thanks be to you, O God
Thanks be to you, O God
For the stirrings of new life in me this day,
For rising from the dreams of the night
To a fresh flowing of energy,
For the vitality that awakened my body
And the desires that stir my soul.
Let me know the power for life that is in me,
The life-force that is in my senses
And the might that is in my heart.
Let me know you as the source of such force
And be wise to its true streams and false currents.
Let me serve love with my strength this day,
Let me serve love with my strength.
In heart and mind and body this day
Let me serve love.
Wishing you all peace this day and an ongoing noticing of the movement of God within and around you,
Andree Grafstein
Spiritual Life Center
