Discerning Life's Path

Yesterday kicked off the first day of my "first full year" of being campus minister. While it was a success, I am reminded of how blessed I am to have this opportunity. Thanks to my many years of being a parish ministry volunteer, and exposure to the diocesan seminary, I've made acquaintances and friends with a number of priests and seminarians here in my diocese. It's through those relationships that I am able to bring in the "big guns" when needed.

Yesterday was one of those days. I brought in our local diocesan vocation director. Now you might be thinking why would I do that, and then again you might not. I brought him in to focus my students, student leaders, and faculty/staff about the process of discerning one's call (vocation) and the process of discernment and that by going through this process one can discover what God has in store for them. While we only touched the tip of the iceberg yesterday more conversations like it are needed and in the works for our campus ministry program.

Vocation is such an interesting word. I've heard the word many times but never really knew it's definition. So I turned to the Internet and the handy website dictionary.com to find out what the word actually means.

Dictionary.com defines vocation a number of ways: the first being, a particular occupation, business, or profession; calling. Okay, that makes sense. The second a strong impulse or inclination to follow a particular activity or career. So basically the reason we choose the fields that we do. The third a divine call to God's service or to the Christian life. Wow. Divine call, that's some pretty heady stuff. The fourth and final one a function or station in life to which one is called by God: (IE: the religious vocation; the vocation of marriage.) In essence priesthood or religious life. Still with me? 

Let's break down parts three and four of that definition, the parts about the divine call to God's service, and the function or station in life. Father shared with my students a few great examples. The first being the sacrament of Baptism. Through Baptism we are called to vocation. Not following me? Baptism is our divine call or vocation, it's God's way of telling us He wants us to be of service to him and the Christian life. We are called at our Baptism to go out and share the Good News, share God with others. This is our first vocation. The next example that Father gave to my students was that of ordinary people. He showed pictures of some of our popular and well known biblical characters. Let's use one or two as an example. The two that he gave that I particularly liked was that of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Dismas. 

Let's start by looking at Mary. Mary was a girl between the ages of 13-15. A baby by today's standards, yet she was already engaged to a much older man, and then she finds out that she has been chosen by God for a vocation that far surpasses any she could of possibly imagined. He chose her, of all the other girls in the world to be a mother to His Son. Can you imagine what was going through her head? I am sure some of the arguments we would give in today's day and age. I'm too young. I want to do more, I am not ready for this, I am not even married yet. What will everyone say? What will my parents say? What will Joseph say? All completely normal questions and thoughts. The one thing about it though that stuck with me through that explanation was how Mary answered. God told Mary he wanted her to be of service to Him. She said Yes to that call and in the end gave birth to a Savior. Talk about divine will!

Next lets take a look at St. Dismas. Now, this is a guy who I knew nothing about. I didn't even know who he really was. I had heard his name in passing but never really explored it. St. Dismas was one of the thieves that was crucified alongside Jesus. He was the one that Jesus promised would be with Him in heaven. Talk about mind blowing. Here is a guy that obviously committed such horrible crimes that he was put to death by being tied to a cross stuck in the ground. Yet what happened? He was called to vocation by God. He was called to believe. Belief that Jesus really was who He said He was and that as long as Dismas believed that he would have eternal life. Not much is said about St. Dismas after that, but I know for me I couldn't even imagine what was going through his head or his heart upon hearing those words. Ironically, I find a bit of comfort in those words that Jesus spoke on the cross to Dismas. 

Basically the Christian life is believing in God, and allowing Him to work in your life so that you can live out the so called "plans" or vocation He has for you. Here's where the discernment piece fits.

Now I know you're going to ask me what's discernment? And how do I do it? Simply discernment is a process of prayer. Prayer that takes on five stages. I got these five stages from a different talk I heard my diocesan vocation director give, and they stuck with me. They stuck so good in fact, that I wrote them down and have them on my desk at work and refer to them pretty regularly for situations in my own life.

Father said that the five stages of discernment consist of attraction, latency, response, decision, and engagement. It's my hope that my understanding of them helps you to understand how this process works. Let's look at stage one. Attraction. Attraction is where God comes in and interrupts our thoughts, ideas, and plans with a new idea. A new possibility. How many times have we been attracted to things, drawn to things, attracted to a new thought or idea and then all of the sudden, BOOM, a new thought or idea pops into our heads. For example, relationships. How many times have we been attracted to a new relationship? Now I'm not necessarily referring to a serious relationship, but that could be an example, I want to look at the example of a friendship. 

Everyone needs and wants friends. And there are all kinds of friends in this world. There are friends who we are attracted to because they look a certain way, there are friends we are attracted to because we have mutual interests, there are friends we are attracted to because of their popularity, there are friends we are attracted to because we know they will be with us for the long haul when things in life get tough. We've all been attracted to those various kinds of friends, I know I have. At different stages of my own life I found myself getting "attracted" to all of those kinds of friends. But God had a different plan. He lead me to a group of friends that are exactly what I need, what He desires me to have. Friends who will be there when things get tough, friends who challenge me every single day of my Christian life to be the Christian I am supposed to be. Friends who will drop to their knees and pray right alongside me when I do or when I need to. Friends who lift me up, and don't tear me down, friends who are genuine in their love for Christ just as I am. Friends who help me to become the holy person I am meant to be and hopefully lead me to the ultimate vocation God wants me to have.

You are probably wondering how I got to this point of understanding and realizing what my true vocation actually is. Well let me tell you, it didn't happen overnight. It's been a very long process. At least a lifetime of experiences both good and bad, and sometimes awful. As well as a long period of discernment and prayer. Anyways, back to discernment.

Let's move on to the second stage. Latency. Latency is an idea that just won't die, it won't go away as much as you and I would want it to. It sits with you, it gnaws at you, you keep coming back to the same idea over and over and over again to the point that it's almost annoying. Trust me I've been there it's not a fun stage. I sat in this stage for a very long time before moving on to the others. This is the stage where no matter how many times I prayed about my personal vocation, there was always that one thought and idea that wouldn't go away, no matter how hard I wished it would.

Moving right along on this path of discernment is stage three response. This one I think is pretty self explanatory. Response is talking to someone. Talking to God, talking to a close friend or confidant, a spiritual director, a priest, a sister, a family member someone who has your best interests at heart. I can't tell you how many times I turned to friends, my priest friends, and my spiritual director about this. I think it got to the point that they all wanted me to just stop talking about it. I think God might of even got tired of me talking about it but He always let me bring it to Him and tell Him about it in my prayer. Those prayers in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep and was so confused about things going on in the various situations of my life, those prayers as I sat before Him in adoration just begging Him to help me figure this out, take away this fear, this helplessness, this longing, this desire, this attraction and latency.

Stage four is the decision stage. It's the stage where you start to move exclusively to that original idea or thought. The stage where you know what you have to do, you've pretty much made the choice as to what you are going to do and want to do about it, but need to gather the courage to move to the last stage. Stage four is where I presently sit, it's the stage where I sit and pray for the wisdom, the words and the courage to put the decision I've made into action.

The last stage being engagement. This is the pretty serious stage. Engagement is the stage where you take action, you're aware of the situation, you understand it, now you need to take action. It's only when you take action that the discernment process is complete and you can move on and forward from the idea.

It's kind of funny how I came to the conclusion of my decision. It only just occurred yesterday through a short and random conversation I was having with the vocation director as we walked back to his car outside my office. His simple statement of "you're not quiet there yet," made me realize I need to get out of my "decision stage comfort zone." I need to take action and follow to where I know God is ultimately leading. Now it's time to pray for the courage, and the words to take action and make that decision come to play.

Know that I am praying right alongside all of you who read this. I am praying for you, with you and through you, that we all have the courage, to follow and discern the vocation God has for each and everyone of us.

May God Bless you Always in All Ways.

Ministry Morsel

So back in 2011 I had an idea.

One of my many personal ministries in life is to minister to young adults and think I have been pretty successful so far. Granted, I'm not perfect, and neither is my ministering.

However, since 2008 I have been active in the St. Charles Borromeo Young Adult Ministry, both as a participant and the last few years as a leader. Those of us involved in the leadership decided we wanted to reach out in a different way to our members and the community.

This is where my idea comes into play. I came up with the idea that each of us in a leadership role could once a month reflect on either things in our personal lives, our prayer lives or things going on in the ministry or anything really...anyways the idea was born and since 2011 each month one of the leaders has written a reflection.

Now that I'm campus minister I thought it would be neat to share my reflections from that ministry with my college students as well. So, here's my ministry morsel for the month of September. I know I'm a few weeks early but  I feel what I needed to say was relevant, and if it helps someone in the process along the way even better.

It’s hard to believe that summer is over and we are thinking about Fall, going back to school and that the winter months are just around the corner. It is my hope that everyone had a restful, fun and productive summer. I know mine was. As I was reflecting on what important lesson I learned this summer I realized I couldn’t just take away one. There were two major lessons I learned or needed to be reminded about. The first being that it’s okay to be broken. Now I don’t mean physically broken, but spiritually, mentally and emotionally broken. How many times have we found ourselves (at least I know I have many times) feeling lost, confused, hurt, angry and just not understanding what is going on in our world, in our lives, and in our relationships. Do we in those times suffer silently or do we seek out help? For me it wasn’t just one thing that caused this brokenness, it was a number of things, but thankfully through lots of personal prayer and the prayers, love and support of family and great friends I overcame the brokenness that I was experiencing. The second lesson that seems to resonate with me was that it was time to really take a look at my life as a Christian/Catholic and reevaluate. Was I really walking the walk or just talking the talk? I did a lot of reevaluating this summer and realized I didn’t like the person I was. I needed to “die to self ” the attached link explains it so much better then I ever could (listen to the July 7 homily here: http://www.umdcatholic.org/homiliesmain) Just as the flowers and grass die, we need to die. Now this is a lesson that had been taught to me for years. I just didn’t get it's full meaning. I would do okay for a little while and then it was right back to doing the same old things I used to do. The bad habits, the cycles, the routines. I wasn’t dying to self. I was making everything about me. We find ourselves getting so wrapped up in our daily lives, our own problems, or own wants, needs and desires at times we don’t look to what is going on with others. Others in our lives, others in our workplaces, our classrooms, our church, our world or our local communities. How did I “die to self”? I started praying even harder and listening even more. I turned to what has become one of my favorite prayers called the Litany of Humility. It’s a prayer that every time I take it out and pray it brings me to my knees, both literally and figuratively. It reminds me that I need to humble myself. It’s not me that needs the accolades, or the praise or the pat on the back. I need to want those things for others so that I can become the holy and better person that God wants me to be. I admit I’ve got a long way to go and am still a work in progress. The one thing however, that gives me comfort is that I am not alone. In my struggles, in my pain, in my problems, in my life God is right there with me, with us and He wants and desires great things for me, and for all of us. So look for the Litany of Humility next time you need a place to find comfort or need to reevaluate, or need to "die to self." It’s only in the loving arms of our God that peace can be found, our brokenness can be healed and we can truly die to self. Know that I am praying for each one of you. God Bless. ~ Carol