When we hear of children killed unrepentantly, for example, human rights routinely denied, the cooking of the world locked in, and nations entrusting power to wilful children.

How do you deal with such a dark vision?

After the ABC's of self-care have failed us, we may have tried the D's - denial, despair, disengagement, drink, or determined getting on with it. (The last, though commonly written off, is often surprisingly effective).

Some of these approaches involve shutting our eyes, some going around the abyss, some sinking into it, and others marching through it.

Another path is discernment.

It encourages us to stay with the pain of those suffering unjustly and with the recognition of all our own evasions and illusions until we hit the bottom, and there, perhaps find possibility.

It is summed up in a line from a play by Samuel Beckett, the master navigator of despair: ‘I'm still alive. That may come in useful'.

Once we have opened ourselves to bear the weight of the world and have recognised our own posturing and insignificance, we are open to wry laughter and to look for angles.

That kind of discernment, of course, has roots in Christian faith.

It takes us through the tragedy of Jesus' execution that cancelled all hopes invested in him, invites us into the divine comedy of his Resurrection, and offers a path to follow of compassion for Beckett's vagrants.

For Beckett, Christian faith was a step too far. His gift was to explore faith's lack. But his compassionate entry into the depths of human darkness in search of a glimmer of light offers a way for all of us to consider. What do you think?

• Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street, and writer at Jesuit Social Services.
• First published in Eureka Street. Republished with the author's permission.

It is very easy for us to believe that our desires and opinions are inspired by the Spirit and that everyone else is wrong.

Dialogue becomes that much more difficult when you feel that God is on your side.

Francis, as a Jesuit and spiritual director, knows this.

He, therefore insists that prayer, spiritual conversation and especially listening are essential to the synodal process.

We must approach discernment with humility; recognizing our biases can easily taint the discernment process.

St Ignatius, the great teacher of discernment, notes how we must approach discernment with "indifference," a readiness to accept God's will whatever it may be.

Personal life discernment

My own life is filled with discernments that were wrong.

In my 20s, I was convinced God was calling me to go to El Salvador for regency, the two- to three-year period of ministry in Jesuit formation before studying theology.

My provincial said no, which may have saved me from getting killed with the Jesuits at the Jesuit university in San Salvador.

Later, I was convinced God wanted me to run the Jesuit social justice office in Washington.

The search committee disagreed, which made me available to work at America magazine.

Then, in the mid-1980s, I was convinced I should be editor of America.

Again, the search committee said no, which freed me up to write a series of books on the politics and organization of the church before I eventually became editor.

St Ignatius and discernment

Even St Ignatius failed to get it right all the time.

Most notably, he was convinced God wanted him to go to Jerusalem to spend his life begging and preaching the gospel.

When he finally got there, the Franciscans, who were in charge of the Catholic presence in the Holy Land, took one look at him and told him to go home.

Thank God the Franciscans had more sense than Ignatius; otherwise, there would be no Society of Jesus today.

Ignatius' most documented discernment was over the practice of poverty in the Jesuits.

He resolved that it should be very strict, that Jesuit houses should depend on begging and that our schools should not charge tuition or have endowments.

Needless to say, that proved unrealistic in the real world.

My discernments and Ignatius' desire to live in the Holy Land were countered by religious authorities who told us we were mistaken.

In each case, something better resulted than what we had originally hoped for.

As Isaiah told us in the first Scripture reading last Sunday, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord."

Religious authority and practical reality can sometimes show us that even when we think we know God's will, we may need to reflect again.

I am not denying that religious authority can sometimes get in the way of the Spirit, but it can also sometimes save us from ourselves.

Life has taught me that I am not a very good discerner, but it has also taught me that often, things turn out better when I don't get what I want.

I have learned the importance of consulting others before making a decision.

Listening to others is an important way of listening to the Spirit.

During the synod next month, we will all need patience and humility as the delegates try to discern in what direction the Spirit is calling us to travel.

It will take prayer, spiritual conversation and listening to hear the Spirit.

Consensus, let alone unanimity, will not come easily.

There is always the danger that the most opinionated and most vocal will overwhelm the less vocal, which is why votes may be required to test the views of the entire body.

Sometimes, the Spirit shows itself in voting during synods, as happens also in ecumenical councils and conclaves.

Francis is calling the church to a synodal process, a communal discernment process.

This will not be easy.

People will hear the Spirit saying different things.

Mistakes will be made.

But we must have faith that the Spirit is working in the church.

We must have hope based on this faith. And we must have love for everyone, even those who hear the Spirit saying something different from what we hear.

• Thomas Reese SJ is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

The richness of such an experience can be life-changing.

The would-be teacher becomes a learner as an understanding of God grows beyond cultural boundaries.

I've learned that other cultures do not have a different understanding of God: they simply use different parables, to express God-given wisdom.

On a Native American reservation near the Mexican border, I was introduced to some wise words that were instantly familiar.

Why were they familiar?

Because they described for me Jesus' life and teaching.

I'd like to share those words with you.

When we have a problem, it is sometimes good to be like a stone, saying nothing, doing nothing.

Sometimes we need to be like a tree, standing tall, looking all ways at once.

Sometimes we have to be the mountain lion, fierce and ready to fight for what is right.

Sometimes it is best to be an eagle. When the eagle flies high, it sees how small a problem is, and it laughs and laughs.

So when was Jesus like a stone, saying nothing, doing nothing?

When he was in front of his accusers, knowing he had to fulfil what had been "written" for him.

When was Jesus like a tall tree, looking everywhere at once?

That describes the times when he was far beyond the disciples in his long-range spiritual vision. He knew the condition of human hearts, and he could see words before they were spoken.

Was Jesus ever like the mountain lion?

Yes, he was. When he saw the poor made the victims of those who had power and greed, his words were fierce, even though he knew this put him in danger.

He had to fight for what was right.

And the eagle? What about flying high like the eagle?

I'm sure there were times when his spirit soared high and saw adults as mere children.

But for me, his big "eagle" moment was on the Mount of Transfiguration.

That was when Jesus knew exactly who he was and what the world was.

But while I reflect on the stone, the tree, the lion and the eagle in my own life, I realise the importance of discernment.

To react with the wrong one, can cause evil.

It may be right to be a stone to gossip and thoughtless criticism. But to deliberately ignore someone in need is a different matter.

If I'm in the position of the tall tree and use the gifts of seeing for selfish competition, I am less than a blade of grass.

And how often have I been a mountain lion when I should have been a stone?

Discernment is so necessary.

But I find this true. When the old eagle spreads its wings in the sky and looks down at its youth, it sees anxiety, error, tears, guilt, fear, and rejection as part of learning to fly.

And it laughs and laughs.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

The other news: the second undersecretary named, Augustinian Fr. Luis Marín de San Martín, will become a bishop.

The more things change. …

Still, it is important to have a woman's voice near the top, and the fact that Sr. Becquart will likely have a vote makes an important statement about the role of the nonordained.

Trusting the pandemic will end by then, Pope Francis is calling a synod for October 2022 to discuss synodality.

To discuss what?

Synodality.

Essentially, it means moving along together.

The concept revolves around the way the church has — or seems to have — made decisions over the centuries.

So, while no one knows exactly who will be called to Rome, we can be assured it will be bishops.

Judging from the experience of the most recent synod —an extraordinary synod that considered the church in the Pan-Amazon Region —women may be called as well. Whether they will have a vote remains to be seen.

The theme for October 2022 is "For a synodal Church: communion, participation and mission."

The synod members' task, be they male or female, religious or secular, clerical or lay is to enter into a serious discernment about how the church (communion) — that would be the whole church (participation) — can move along (mission) in the light of the Spirit.

The keyword here is discernment.

So, a synod on synodality is not so much to make decisions as to take decisions about how the church can make decisions and eventually take decisions.

Sound confusing?

Of course.

Church is a messy business, and if it were not of divine origin it would have gone the way of hundreds of bankrupt corporations throughout the ages.

And the key word, as I said, is discernment.

Francis often speaks about the genuine need for discernment as the church continues to move, grow and develop.

When the International Theological Commission published its long exegesis on discernment in March 2018, it buried the lede in its Paragraph 114:

Discernment must be carried out in a space of prayer, meditation, reflection and study, which we need to hear the voice of the Spirit; by means of sincere, serene and objective dialogue with our brothers and sisters; by paying attention to the real experiences and challenges of every community and every situation; in the exchange of gifts and in the convergence of all energies in view of building up the Body of Christ and proclaiming the Gospel; in the melting-pot of feelings and thoughts that enable us to understand the Lord's will; by searching to be set free by the Gospel from any obstacle that might weaken our openness to the Spirit.

So, discernment is the key, not law.

Discernment is the process, not parliamentary procedure.

Discernment is the means, not power trades.

Coupled with a genuine understanding of discernment, the interrelated words in the coming synod's theme — communion, participation and mission — present an exciting possibility for the post-Vatican II church led by Francis.

They also present attractive targets for the church's hardliners.

Without doubt, the ecclesial alt-right is often directly tethered to the political alt-right, and not only in the United States.

Watch the infighting in Germany.

See the ecclesial-political scramble in Poland. Compare the weak U.S. bishops' conference response to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection with their outright attack on President Joe Biden.

Add to the mix the church's growing lunatic fringe — the priest-bloggers, amateur exorcists and nasty "Catholic" media in the U.S. and elsewhere — and the prospect of synodality seems dim indeed.

Will the fringe get a hearing?

In fact, genuine discernment requires attention to all voices, even those of cacophony.

What do they want?

Where do they come from?

Sometimes the screech means the car is going off the road. And sometimes it means it is being driven off the road on purpose. Which is it?

Catholicism has always had a very big tent. Continue reading

Young people have lessons they could teach the Church about synodality, Pope Francis says.

"They have asked us in a thousand ways to walk alongside them — not behind them or ahead of them, but at their side. Not over them or under them, but on their level."

Francis made the comment in the introduction to a new Italian book of essays about youth ministry.

"Around the Living Fire of the Synod: Educating for the Good Life of the Gospel," was written by Fr Rossano Sala, a Salesian priest.

Sala was one of the special secretaries of the 2018 Synod of Bishops on young people.

"Discernment" was one of the key topics at the synod. It was also a key focus in "Christus Vivit," Francis' 2019 post-synod apostolic exhortation.

In his comment in Sala's book, Francis says he is not trying "to transform every member of the people of God into a Jesuit."

The Jesuit order specialises in teaching spiritual discernment or prayerfully reading the signs of the times and seeking to know how God wants individuals and the church to respond.

Some people think "the pressing call to discernment is a fad of this pontificate and it is destined to pass quickly," Francis says.

However, in his view the spiritual practice is essential today when things are changing quickly. Many people are struggling and many need to hear the Gospel, he says.

To achieve spiritual discernment, listening and dialogue are key first steps, Francis wrote.

"It is more necessary than ever today to enter into an honest listening to the joys and struggles of every member of the people of God, and especially of every young person.

"The church as a whole still has a lot of work to do" in learning to listen "because too often, instead of being 'experts in humanity,' we end up being considered rigid and incapable of listening."

The Gospel shows us that listening was the first attitude of Jesus. It should be our first response to encountering another person made in God's image and loved by God, Francis explained.

Dialogue is the natural second step, he continued.

"It is born from the conviction that in the other, the one who is before us, there are always the resources of nature and grace.

"Dialogue is the style that exalts the generosity of God because it recognizes his presence in everything and, therefore, one must find him in every person and be courageous enough to let him speak," he wrote.

There are many signals showing the church it must change. These include the digital revolution, the climate crisis, migration and "the plague of abuse" and the COVID-19 pandemic, Francis wrote. These are "transforming everyone's existence and we don't know where it will lead."

Francis says the choice to focus on "synodality" at the next general assembly of the Synod of Bishops, in 2022, is a natural outcome of the synod on young people.

BSource

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Vatican News

The question of addressing a priest shortage in the Amazon by ordaining older, mature and married men (viri probati) from local communities was one of the issues raised at the 2019 Synod of Bishops on the Amazon.

The Synod's primary purpose was to discuss pastoral strategies for evangelization, catechesis, and pastoral care in the region, which spans several South American countries, and is beset by social, economic, and environmental challenges.

Notes from the pope that were included in an article published last week reveal his thinking about married priests.

"There was a discussion ... a rich discussion ... a well-founded discussion, but no discernment, which is something different than just arriving at a good and justified consensus or at a relative majority," Francis said.

Francis said prayerful discernment became impossible because debate became a parliamentary-style battle between different sides.

Synods of bishops should be opportunities for prayerful reflection, not parliamentary lobbying, he said.

A synod is a "spiritual exercise," a period for discernment of how the Holy Spirit is speaking, and for self-examination regarding the motive beyond positions.

"Walking together means dedicating time to honest listening, capable of making us reveal and unmask (or at least to be sincere) the apparent purity of our positions and to help us discern the wheat that - up to the Parousia - always grows among the weeds."

"Whoever has not realized this evangelical vision of reality exposes themselves to useless bitterness. Sincere and prayerful listening shows us the 'hidden agendas' called to conversion."

After the synod, Francis published his response, in the form of an apostolic exhortation titled Querida Amazonia.

In this, he avoided any reference to married priests. However, he called for missionary clergy to be sent to the Amazon, and for bishops to promote prayers for priestly vocations.

He endorsed the bishops' final document where 128 voted in favour of ordaining married deacons in remote regions, and 41 voted against. It meant that while married priests are off the table in the short term, it remains a live possibility.

"I like to think that, in a certain sense, the synod is not over. This time of welcoming the whole process that we have lived challenges us to continue walking together and to put this experience into practice."

These and other comments suggest the door is not closed on future reforms.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• The Tablet
• Image: TerryIvy.com

Through the sacraments, gospels and prayer, Jesus helps me to discern what is more life-giving and what is less life-giving.

Ignatius of Loyola saw discernment as very important in spiritual life, and he talked about the need to discern between two things that both appear good.

So, what do we discern and how?

Here's my list. Perhaps you can add to it to make it yours.

Discern what comes from faith and what comes from politics

Politics is not a bad word. It means of or for the people. In the church, it is part of the structure that contains faith, a container that holds valuable content. I respect the container, but if I worship it, I'm missing what it's all about. To mix metaphors further, I'm staying with the menu and not eating the meal.

I would say that having fish on Friday was good political instruction. It helped impoverished Mediterranean fishermen. But I know people who saw it as a serious article of faith.

Discerning our place of journey with Christ Jesus

What is essential? What is important? What is superficial or peripheral?

What is essential in our faith, is not likely to change.

What is important will probably change as we move to a new stage of formation.

We respect what is superficial or peripheral, because that may be important to someone else, but we find peace in holding it in an open hand.

Discerning what comes from love and what comes from fear

Jesus preached from a love-filled life. Now his love fills us in whatever capacity we have, to receive it. The only enemy love has is fear.

Fear is part of our animal nature. It is attached to our instinct for survival on this planet. We all know how fear works, yet it is never about something actual. Fear is always about what might happen. Sometimes a choice may seem good when in reality, it comes from fear. How do we discern this? We let Jesus' love be our guide.

Discerning the movements of the heart

We talk about the heart as the spiritual centre, but in this reflection, we are looking at movement in the body. How does the body feel when we are doing something that nurtures us, something that makes us happy? How does the body react when we are in an uncomfortable situation?

What aspects of faith nourish us? Do we feel we are like a great open door to the mystery of the sacraments? Does the heart swell with love for our community? Do we feel the sacred presence in scripture, music, silence?

And where else do we find God? Family? Poetry? Art? Sport? Nature? Being with children? We discern what feeds the heart with spacious love, and we make that a part of our prayer habit.

Discernment is seeing and hearing with the eyes and ears of the heart.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

Veterinarian, scientist, and doctor are also frequently mentioned.

Asking questions about why you're here and what will make you happy is too often neglected. When planning for the future, there can be significant pressure to obtain the highest paying job or get into the most prestigious school.

The result is that we forget to examine why we want to pursue these options in the first place and never ask the most important questions.

Will being a lawyer make me happy, or should I be a stay-at-home father instead?

Is it worth it to go to Yale if the love of my life, the person I hope to marry, cannot go there with me and our relationship comes to an end?

Failing to consider our purpose in life isn't a new problem. As a young man 500 years ago, St. Ignatius of Loyola never took the time to consider his future.

Instead, he spent his time chasing women and obsessing over fancy clothes. He also loved the bravado of shiny swords and military exploits.

Eventually his way of life caught up with him when he was seriously injured by a cannonball during a battle. While in bed healing, he had time to think about his life and discover his purpose: to begin a new religious order. From that moment on he was a different man.

In hopes that it would help guide others, Ignatius wrote down some of the steps he took to discover his purpose in life. Here is some of his advice based on a chapter titled "Making a Good Election," from his book of Spiritual Exercises. Continue reading

Sources

• Aleteia article by Fr. Michael Rennier, who graduated from Yale Divinity School and lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his wife and 5 children.
• Image: Jesuits

The 325-paragraph document, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), draws together almost three years of consultation with Catholics around the world, including synods in 2014 and 2015.

Among the many topics addressed in the document, the Pope sets out a vision for how the Church should prepare people for marriage.

This will involve trained lay people, a "missionary conversion" of parishes to offer advice and guidance to couples, especially in the early years of their marriage, as well as changes to seminary formation and a host of other areas.

Elsewhere, Francis offered a frank criticism of what he sees as the Church's failures to challenge young people to embrace marriage, taking refuge in dogmatism and abstraction and offering an "excessive idealisation" of marriage.

Francis criticised presentations of marriage in which its unitive meaning is overshadowed by "an almost exclusive insistence on the duty of procreation".

Writing of those who do not meet the ideal of Church teaching on marriage, the Pope wrote that "the degree of responsibility is not equal in all cases, the consequences or effects of a rule need not necessarily always be the same".

"It can no longer simply be said that all those in any 'irregular' situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace," he wrote.

He emphasised the importance of personal and pastoral discernment.

Francis also wrote: "Because of forms of conditioning and mitigating factors, it is possible that in an objective situation of sin - which may not be subjectively culpable, or fully such - a person can be living in God's grace, can love and can also grow in the life of grace and charity, while receiving the Church's help to this end."

In what is being seen as a noteworthy footnote (351) he stated that: "In certain cases, this can include the help of the sacraments."

"Discernment must help to find possible ways of responding to God and growing in the midst of limits," the Pope added in the next sentence in the main text.

Chapter 8 of the document, titled "Guiding, discerning, and integrating weakness", has sections on the need for gradualness in pastoral care, the importance of discernment, norms and mitigating circumstances in pastoral discernment, and the "logic of pastoral mercy".

But Pope Francis added: "To show understanding in the face of exceptional situations never implies dimming the light of the fuller ideal, or proposing less than what Jesus offers to the human being."

"Today, more important than the pastoral care of failures is the pastoral effort to strengthen marriages and thus to prevent their breakdown."

Sources

• Amoris Laetitia
• Vatican Radio (summary)
• Crux Now
• The Tablet
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Irish Catholic Bishops Conference

Forty-five women chose to pursue their vocations last year, the highest number since the 1980s.

The number for 2014 was up from 30 the previous year.

The figures, released by the National Office for Vocation in England and Wales, showed that 18 women entered enclosed orders and 27 entered apostolic ones last year.

Sr Cathy Jones, the Religious Life Promoter at the NOV, attributed the rise to an increase in discernment groups, as well as taster weekends at convents and outreach on the Internet.

She also pointed to increased self-confidence among apostolic orders linked to positive publicity around their work with vulnerable people such as trafficked women.

"The Church is trying to help people neutrally to discover God's call - and it's about God, not about this order surviving, not about our agenda," she said.

She said that the number of women entering religious life would never reach the level of 40 years ago.

But the Assumption sister predicted steady growth as the Church increased opportunities for discernment, either in groups or with a spiritual director.

"Some have done what they were always expected to - they've got their job in the city, a nice flat, car, boyfriend - and it's not enough.

"They're not saying, as they might have 50 years ago, that religious life is a better way to get to God.

"They're saying: ‘I'm not quite sure why, and I think I'm completely not worthy, but it seems that God's calling me to this'."

NOV director Fr Christopher Jamison said the Church had moved from treating vocations as "recruitment to discernment".

He said that young people "value their freedom, and don't like to feel they are being dragooned".

The low point for women entries to religious life was 2004, when there were only seven in England and Wales.

The number of men entering religious life in 2014 dropped from 22 the previous year to 18.

Sources

• The Tablet
• Catholic Herald
• Image: The Telegraph

The Pope was speaking to a conference of religious formation directors in Rome on Saturday.

He told the 1200 directors that they must be "gravely attentive" to those they are guiding.

This is so that "the eventual crisis of quantity does not result in a much graver crisis of quality".

"Vocational discernment is important," Francis said, according to an article in the National Catholic Reporter.

He continued: "All the people who know the human personality - may they be psychologists, spiritual fathers, spiritual mothers - tell us that young people who unconsciously feel they have something unbalanced or some problem of mental imbalance or deviation unconsciously seek strong structures that protect them, to protect themselves."

"There is the discernment: to know to say no," said the Pope, referring to formation directors who tell young people that religious life may not be for them.

But Francis also encouraged the directors not to "chase away" such young people.

"Like you accompany the entry, accompany also the exit, so that he or she finds their way in life, with the needed help," he said.

Pope Francis said it is sad when a young person who has been considering religious life chooses another path, and "this is hard."

"But it is also your martyrdom," he told the directors.

"And the failures, these failures from the point of view of the formation director, can foster the continuing path of formation in the director."

"Some say that the consecrated life is paradise on Earth," the Pope joked.

"No. If anything, [it is] the purgatory! But go forward with joy, go forward with joy."

In a report last year, the Vatican stated that the higher numbers of people in religious life in the United States in the 1960s was an historical aberration.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Washburn Chamber