Vocational Discernment

Invitation and response.

For those who ardently desire to follow the Lord’s will, it is easy to make discernment a stressful process. When someone loves greatly, they fear hurting the one they love or choosing wrongly. There are two pillars of good discernment:

First, recognize that vocation is a present-moment reality; by striving for a life of holiness now, we can be certain we will not “miss” the state in life to which we are called.

Second, discernment is between two good things, such as religious life and marriage, and the Lord will not withdraw his love no matter which is chosen.

To discern, the first step is to grow in trust that God really and truly desires your greatest happiness. Those who set parameters around God often experience great frustration: “I’ve already determined I should marry, so I don’t know why God has not given me someone,” sounds very different from “Who is God calling me to grow in friendship with today? How is he inviting me to love?”

It is in the context of the second kind of question that we begin to see His invitations: our heart feels a thrill of hope and holy fear at the thought of wearing a religious veil; the man whom you’ve gotten to know by doing service is looking at you with a new kind of wonder; silence and aloneness-with-God begin to lay claim to your desires.

In these experiences that come by living our present-moment vocation well, we perceive God’s invitation. We are then free to respond “yes” or “no”. He will not love us the less either way. It is the full heart, and the unconditional “yes!” to our unique vocation, that wins the abundant “hundredfold” promised in the Gospel.

VOCATION RESOURCES (Fr. Ritter’s Email; Discernment Groups Flyers; etc.)

DATING RESOURCES (John and Shannon Rausch’s “Tips”; Emily Wilson’s App)