+DISCERNING THE MOVEMENTS OF GRACE IN OUR LIVES

The last time we were together we talked about spiritual direction, the role this plays in your lives as Lay Contemplatives. Today I would like to share with you something of the discernment process that goes on in Spiritual Direction, the tools that are used so as to more clearly understand the working of God's grace in our lives. St. Bernard has said on more than one occasion that we do not stand still in our lives as Christians or Monks but move forward in response to God's grace or backward in neglect of it. We are in a living and vital relationship with God and like any relationship worthy of the name, it develops or declines, depending on the give and take of those involved. God is calling each one of us gathered here into an ever deeper and thorough involvement with his own divine life.

I had been seeking how best to follow up on what we discussed last time when I went off to a convocation of people involved in vocation ministry up in New Jersey. There were some 540 vocational directors and ministers from all parts of the States and Canada. The main topic was bridging the gap between generations, especially between the aging members of our Communities and the younger people considering entry into religious life. There was talk of what is happening in the Church today, the tendency toward polarization where on one side you have a relativism (where the sacred and profane become blurred) and on the other a fundamentalism (where the sacred becomes so set in concrete that it loses its vitality). To make your way through these two extremes and not get caught in their seductions we need a middle path of discernment, a way of interpreting events around us that will keep us faithful to God in the midst of all that is going on. It was even suggested that we need to create a culture of discernment so that not only are religious not led astray but that we can help others to respond to all that Christ is asking of us today. For in whom alone will we find the real meaning of our Christian life.

Out of this I thought there was nothing better that I could share with you than some insights in what criteria one needs to use in order to discover and respond to the working of God's grace or Christ's presence in your lives. I think you have an advantage in this discernment process by the very fact that you are CLC members, persons who desire to take the Cistercian charism into the marketplace, to allow the contemplative consciousness of monks touch all the aspects of everyday life. As you are all too aware we are living in a fast moving world, where you are exposed to lots of voices, lots of influences. To feed your interior lives, to grow spiritually where there is so much to distract you from what is important for spiritual growth demands a sharpened sensitivity to the movements of grace and all that is contrary to them in your lives. Developing this sensitivity is what you and monks are trying to do all the time. I have shared with you in the past the Desert-father story where one of the early monks described the major work of the monk as standing at the door of his heart and watching his thoughts as they arise. There he will begin to recognize what comes from God, from himself or from the evil on. The monk's life deepens and matures as he learns to accept his own weakness and humanity, learns to struggle with what is evil and gradually to open himself to all that is of God. The key to all this is standing at the door of his/her own heart, becoming familiar enough with what is going on there so that he/she becomes truly discerning.

In your own lives, I don't know that you are any busier than monks but you are exposed to a diversity of influences and situations the monk is preserved from for the most part by being in the monastery. I am not saying these are either good or bad, only that I suspect you need to be even more discerning than the monk if you are going to keep your spiritual lives steadily on course. The added pace of communication today, the widening variety of interpretation of what is communicated makes it hard for us all to maintain our Christian focus so that it is in view of this urgent need I present some criteria for discernment of good and evil as these touch our lives.

Criteria of Discernment

First let me mention that I will be drawing heavily on a small book by Segundo Galilea, translated by Stephen-Joseph Ross called Temptation and Discernment. The page numbers indicated below are a reference to his book. Off and on in my study of Spiritual Direction and the spiritual life I have read material on discernment but his is certainly one of the most concise and uncluttered I have come across. What Segundo Galilea does is take a quick look at the role of temptation in our lives, present some criteria of discernment in regard to temptation and then through a description of concrete temptations show how these criteria of discernment apply. To situate what he is going to talk about he says this: Temptation is commonly related to sin and the tendency to oppose deliberately the will of God who is our true good and happiness. People with a dependable and stable spirituality generally overcome the temptation to intentional evil without great difficulty. they recognize where the evil lies and usually have enough spirit to reject it.

However, the invitation to a mediocre Christian life is also a temptation. This form of temptation is characteristic of people who are already spiritual. Mediocrity, tepidity, and stagnation are not necessarily tied to one particular sin or another, or to a deliberate consent to evil, although with time they can lead to this. Neither is temptation to mediocrity explicitly perceived. It is a subtle temptation. At first it does not look like temptation, but instead it appears neutral or even good. What the person does or doesn't do, the way it is done, and one's habitual attitudes appear normal and reasonable. Nevertheless, people who have fallen into the temptation of mediocrity, tepidity, and stagnation do not experience true Christian fervor or progress. Faith, hope, love for God, prayer, fraternal charity, and ministry have become set in mediocrity. (p.9)

When I raise the question of temptation to mediocrity here I want to be careful not to imply that this is any more likely in the world in which you live than in a monastery. Monks know all too well their inclination to laziness, toward settling-in and can become quite ingenuous at avoiding the real rub of their monastic life so what I say here is out of a sense that we are engaging a common enemy when we deal with mediocrity.

There is, Segundo Galilea reminds us: "a more specific form of discernment, particularly applicable to our concern here with the subtle, deceitful temptations that lead to mediocrity. Tradition calls it "discernment of spirits." Here it is not so much a matter of distinguishing the explicitly evil from the good, but of differentiating the good and what is temptation. Even with good will, the spiritual person easily confuses the two spirits. On this level, when we are dealing with spiritual people, the temptations are subtle; at first glance they do not seem bad and could even be taken as inspirations from God.

The discernment of spirits is much more complex than any other type of discernment. It requires experience, sound doctrine and counsel."(p.11)

This discernment has a long history, all the great mystics and spiritual masters speak of it. And what Galilea does is draw on texts from St Ignatius of Loyola and St. John of the Cross to present the criteria of just such a discernment. He points out a real difference in St. Ignatius' approach saying his discernment is directed primarily toward making a choice in how one is to serve Christ. The criteria that St John of the Cross presents on the other hand, are "toward purifying and bringing to maturity a choice already made."(p.12) Ignatius is much more into discernment in view of active ministry whereas John+ is dealing with persons already in the religious life who are seeking to live as authentically as possible. They are different but complementary. What both hope to accomplish is "a discernment of spirits that allows the soul to adopt attitudes and make decisions leading toward a greater surrender to God through love. Both ...present discernment as a process of illumination that purifies and confirms one's capacity for loving and serving God."(p.12) I see this as what your own lives are about, a desire to use your own gifts and capacities for loving and serving God to the full.

But let's talk about the criteria of discernment themselves. These criteria are lined up very clearly and concisely in the book I've mentioned:

1.

Both John+ and Ignatius "agree on a fundamental criterion: discerning the good spirit from the bad (temptation) requires a predisposition of interior freedom, a progressive interior liberation from sins and deliberate faults, from inordinate affection and attachments, and from passions and tendencies that generally obscure and condition discernment."

2.

They agree also on a second fundamental principle: "the most subtle and dangerous temptation in spiritual persons is that which occurs under the appearance of good." Here Segundo backs up his criteria with two quotes from Ignatius and John+. Ignatius writes: "It is a mark of the evil spirit to take on the appearance of an angel of light. He begins by suggesting thoughts that are suited to a devout soul... Afterwards, he will endeavor little by little to end by drawing the soul into his hidden snares and evil designs (The Spiritual Exercises, 332). John of the Cross says: "It should be noted that among the many wiles of the devil for deceiving spiritual persons, the most common is deceiving them under the appearance of good rather than of evil, for the devil already knows that they will scarcely choose a recognized evil" (Precautions, 10).

3.

"The criterion of "consolation-desolation" plays an eminent part in Ignatius' doctrine...The criterion is essentially this: What comes from God causes consolation in the soul; what comes from the evil spirit, from temptation, causes desolation. Consolation is peace, inspiration toward the good, intensity of faith, confidence in the love for God. These signs of consolation are not always accompanied by relief felt in the senses. What gives consolation is not necessarily what the person likes most. Interior aridity and sacrifice at times can accompany peace and inspiration toward the good. On the other hand, desolation is the condition contrary to consolation: confusion, anxiety, sadness, lukewarmness, etc. Likewise, sensory pleasure sometimes accompanies the signs of desolation. Desolation as well as consolation are experiences rooted in the depths of the soul, not in perceptions of the senses."

John of the Cross speaks of these same experiences in terms of "nights" and "the aridity and trials of the dark night of the soul...(For him), the night is essentially the presence of God's actions, a process in which the soul, in spite of everything, must keep itself faithful and at peace. (In this sense the night has affinities with Ignatian consolation and not with desolation.) The night is an experience of profound purification of spirit through aridity and trials. In his doctrine, the Carmelite saint seeks to help souls discern if this experience of the night is accomplishing the sanctifying end that God requires of it, or if the devil is taking advantage of aridity to make these persons believe they are evil because they do not "feel" the things of God, and thereby lead the soul to discouragement and mediocrity. John's goal is to discern if the night is rooted in consolation or moving toward desolation, to use Ignatian language. John of the Cross's criteria for discerning if one is in the night that comes from God or in the desolation of the evil spirit are twofold. In the night from God, one maintains the fundamental choice and faithfulness to God in all aspects of practicing the Christian life. In the desolation from the evil spirit, faithfulness progressively declines. In the night there is no sensible consolation, but there is fidelity. What is important is not what one feels, but what one does."

4.

Related to this, in those cases where the evil spirit disguises himself with consolation and by that means leads the soul to desolation, both Ignatius and John+ have a similar criterion of discernment: "The way to discern true or false consolation is by the fruits that ultimately prevail in the soul, and whether or not they belong to the spirit of God."
(Ref. see today's gospel--Lk 6:43-49)

5.

One final criterion on which they also both agree is this: "Because of the deceitful nature of temptation and our lack of interior freedom, personal discernment often runs the risk of error even in using the traditional criteria. Therefore, in the process of discerning matters of evident importance, one must consult with competent people and ask their advice." Quoting Ignatius to confirm this Segundo adds: "When the enemy of our human nature tempts a just soul with his wiles and seductions, he earnestly desires that they be received secretly and kept secret. But if one manifests them to a confessor, or to some other spiritual person who understands his deceits and malicious designs, the evil one is very much vexed. For he knows that he cannot succeed in his evil undertaking, once his evident deceits have been revealed
(Spiritual Exercises, 326). (pp.14-19)