Discernment: Day to Day and Lifelong
Discernment is a prayerful process by which we come to understand God’s will in our lives for a particular decision. This blogcast explores “Discernment: Day to Day and Lifelong" from the Ad Infinitum blog, written by Christian Bordak-Roseman and read by Meg Ferguson.
The popularity of the word discernment seems to have skyrocketed in Catholic circles in recent years. Discernment has always been linked to discerning one’s lifelong vocation to married, single, or religious life. Discernment has also been linked—especially recently—to more short-term decisions such as what to study in college, what job to accept, and even more mundane choices within one’s daily life. Many times, young people—myself included for many years in the past—want to tackle the question of lifelong discernment head on, determining their vocation as quickly as possible. This, however, cuts off the central aspect of discernment which is a long-term personal relationship with God. Instead of looking at discernment from the top down, one must examine their daily life, decisions, and prayer life to allow God to show them the path to their lifelong vocation.
When I was in college, I was racked by pressure to determine my lifelong vocation to either married, single, or religious life. At the time, I understood that the heart of discernment was taking decisions to God in my prayer life, but all I could focus on was finding the result. In reality, the way to go about discernment is to maintain constant communication with God, to consistently acknowledge His Holy Presence in your life and bring your day-to-day life into your prayers. God presents Himself to us through innumerable ways on any given day, and a cornerstone of prayer is noticing Him there. If, however, you were like me in college worrying about the final result instead of an actionable next step, it is easy to miss God and lose out on quality discernment.
It is only through regular prayer that God can reveal Himself clearly to us. Prayer has the power to make sense of the chaos that rules our lives in the twenty-first century. A meditation or Examen in the morning or evening can lead one to see God’s personal actions daily and enable us to bring God into our lives more actively. Retreats—whether a day-long, weekend long, or self-paced at-home retreats—can allow us to break down longer stints of our lives, see God’s presence, and reorient us for larger decisions that might be facing us.
Once I realized that my larger vocation questions were not going to be answered unless I discerned daily, it allowed me to become more attuned with God and deepen my prayer life. I began to see how God was strengthening me as a boyfriend, fiancé, and now husband to support and be supported by my now wife. Additionally, by focusing my prayer on the daily actions of my studying and student-teaching internships and being the best teacher I could be, I was able to see how God works in and through me in my career. This realization enabled me to be confident in a career decision that was not something I would have considered when I was beginning my undergraduate experience. As many have said before, God rarely comes to us in beatific visions with clear instructions on how to live our lives for Him. Instead, Jesus comes to us through people and events around us, hoping to guide us along the way of life. Discernment is looking for trail markers that Jesus leaves for us; we are looking to understand the roadmap He laid out for us.
Author:
Christian Bordak-Roseman serves as a Religion Teacher at St. John's College High School in Washington DC. He received his Bachelor of Arts in History, minoring in Theology, and a Master of Arts in Secondary Education at The Catholic University of America. Informed by the Lasallian charism of St. John's and the Pallottine charism of the Catholic Apostolate Center, Christian works to witness Christ's mission of love by living as an apostle at school as a teacher and at home as a husband.
Resources:
Listen to On Mission: Discernment
On Mission: Spiritual Growth During Collegiate Years
Read the Ad Infinitum blog
Discernment Resources
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