Prelude: Ignatius' 3 Discernment tracks:
-Movement without doubt
-Movement through understanding experiences of consolation and desolation
-The soul is not agitated
Chapter 1
What conditions must be present in the issue, the person and the director for discernment of God's will to begin? (1:10a)
Always the choice is between good options, always the person is free to choose either, and always the choice is significant. (1:12a)
Person:
Is the person ready to discern? Ready psychologically and spiritually?
Director:
[much of this book assumes that the reader is Catholic]
Ignatian Prayer:
Meditation: Reflective capacity is the gateway.
Contemplation: Imagination is the gateway.
Review: During my prayer, what were my thoughts and feelings? (1:17d)
Repetition: Return to meditation or contemplation and pray again with those points in which we experienced consolation, desolation, appreciation. (1:17d)
Examen: grasp the consolations and desolations of the day, review that experience, ask forgiveness for any failure to accept God's leading or reject the enemy's temptations and desolations.
Discernment of God's Will (vs of spirits):
We seek God's will in choices we make.
Discernment of Spirits:
We seek to understand the movements of our hearts
Discernment of Spirits:
The first set of rules-how to deal with consolation and desolation; temptation.
Rules 1 and 2: The good spirit and the enemy working within the direction of one's spiritual life, either moving away from God or toward God.
Rules 3 and 4: The movements of consolation and desolation.
Rules 5-11: How to deal with desolation
Never make a change while in desolation.
Increase prayer and meditation and contemplation
God's grace is sufficient to resist temptation.
Consolation will return.
Explore what growth is occuring during desolation.
Prepare for future desolation during consolation.
Remain humble during desolation.
Rules 12-14: How to deal with temptation
Don't let temptation snowball.
Refuse to keep temptation secret.
Strengthen your weakest point.
The second set of rules- Rather than distract using desolation or temptation, the enemy disguises himself as an angel of light, who brings spiritual consolation with an attraction toward a good choice, but a choice different than that which God desires.
Chapter 2 - Laying the Foundation
The foundation means that the directee must stand in this place before beginning a discernment; as a director, it means that I should not try to come up with my own starting place. I pledge to enter any formal discernment with a directee by literally quoting from the Ignatian 'Principle and Foundation'.
The challenge will be to translate this into 21st century words, vs the words of the time of Ignatius.
Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.
Humans have as a primary purpose the love of God, who is incarnated as our neighbor, and so to love our neighbor is the ultimate meaning of life.
The other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him attain the end for which he is created.
All of the gifts that we are given, the whole of creation, are the resources by which we accomplish our purpose of loving each other. The places we live, the occupations we have, the beauty we create and appreciate, our relationships- these are the gifts we are to use for this purpose.
Consequently, man must use them inasmuch as they help him toward his end, and must rid himself of them inasmuch as they hinder him.
For those gifts that serve the loving purpose, we must unselfishly use them; but if the gifts cause us to resist the purpose, or tempt us to serve ourselves and not others, we should jetison our attachment to them.
We must make ourselves indifferent with regard to all created things in all that is allowed to the choice of our free will and not prohibited to it.
In order to make a decision with God's help we need to be indifferent to the creation that helps us achieve our purpose. We need to be open to whatever alternative God shows us is God's will.
Such that for our part we do not desire health more than illness, riches more than poverty, to be held in honor or dishonor, a long life more than a short life, and so with all the rest.
For example, and then Ignatius sets out some concrete examples of what he means by indifference, some of which are shocking and counter to our nature. Like Jesus would say - you must hate your father and mother.
Our one desire and choice should be what better leads us to the end for which we are created.
By embracing the indifference, we will then be free to see which choice better leads us to our purpose.
These are the foundations of discernment. Discernment should not proceed without a full understanding, with the help of a spiritual director, of these foundations.
Directors - keep this alive all during the discernment.
Polanco's outline:
1. We are created for this end, that we might praise and reverence our God, and by serving him be saved.
2. The other things were created on earth for our sake, to help us to the aforesaid end.
3. From this it follows that creatures are to be used or abstained from insofar as they help or hinder us toward our end.
4. As far as we are able, we ought to be indifferent toward all created things, and not seek health more than sickness, riches more than poverty, honor more than contempt, a long life more than a short one. Instead these things we ought to desire those more that lead us more to our end.
And finally, refer to the first appendix for the original text and Gallagher's modern words.
Chapter 3 - Removing Obstacles
"disposing the soul to rid itself of all disordered affections..."
DO- any attachment of the heart not 'purely and properly for the love of God'.
A failure to recognize and address such attachments before entering discernment proper will impair the entire process.
Start with the prayer for freedom.
Bring your brokenness and littleness to the love and mercy of Jesus.
A less threatening approach is to use scripture to show people confessing that they are sinners to Jesus.
The Process:
Prayer: Meditation (reflection) and Contemplation (imagination)
Journaling
Examen to note graces, resistances, deceptions, attractions
Chapter 4 - Forming the Disposition
Necessary Disposition:
Don't begin a discernment unless 'like at balance at equilibrium'
If there is an unbalanced attachment to one option, then ask the directee to desire the opposite inclination as an excercise to work on the inbalance.
"If you wish to straighten a slender green branch, you bend it in the opposite direction so that remaining midway between the two, it will be straight."
It's not just done by will, but also by asking God to help.
Helpful Disposition:
After the necessary disposition is achieved (balance), then it is helpful, but not necessary, to...
take on a positive inclination of the heart toward the poverty and humility of Christ.
Process: contemplation- enter the Gospel stories so that you might hang out with Christ and know him better. Then the 'inclination' will be stronger because you know Christ well.
Chapter 5 - Clarity beyond doubting
This is the first mode. God reveals Gods will with no doubt.
Diane's is first mode.
Three marks of first mode:
Something is shown
A strong and unifying act of will.
Cannot doubt.
Chapter 6 - An attraction of the heart 1
The second mode.
"The second is when sufficient clarity and understanding is received through experience of consolations and desolations, and through experience of discernment of different spirits." Ign
Experience of Consolations and Desolations
Consolation - an uplifting movement of the heart.
Directors must notice whether the consolations are spiritual or non spiritual.
Desolation - a discouraging movement of the heart
Discernment - The director and the directee observe whether the consolation moves the directee toward one of the options; likewise with desolations. If one option is attacked in the desolation, that may be the option that God wills.
Chapter 7 - An attraction of the heart 2
Practice of second mode.
Note, or journal times of consolation and desolation.
When in consolation, present the options. Does one option give more consolation, and is there a pattern of this. When in desolation, does the enemy work against one option harder than the other, giving confirmation that the one the enemy is against is the one God is for.
Another tact is to pretend that one has chosen one of the options, and see if consolation or desolation shows up. The present the other. Repeat.
Three ways:
Observe what happens, and note whether God favors one with consolation.
Present both options to God formally, and see if God favors one with consolation
Pick one option, live into it, and see if God favors. Then pick the other.
In the first set of rules, the good spirit and the bad spirit are acting contrarly, good uses consolation and bad uses desolation.
In the second set of rules, they use the same tactic. Both use consolation. Both draw toward a good and holy thing. But he enemy uses consolation for a good and holy thing that is not what God wants.
Second set is usually for mature spiritual seekers who are not prone to desolation, since the enemy is using deceptive spiritual consolation to guide away from the best option.
The test is to be patient with the directee- the lessor of the two goods will eventually fade in it's consolation. Watch the middle and the end, not the beginning.
Chapter 8 - A preponderance of reasons
Third Mode First Way
Use of our natural powers, e.g., reason, insight, imagination, memory and will.
Listing the reasons for and against an option, when the second mode has failed, leads to clarity, or at least the best that we can do as a last step in discernment.
Third mode has to be done in 'tranquil' time.
Better to delay and keep meditating and contemplating.
Begin by revisiting the foundation. We discern because we are fixed on serving God, and look to the resources around us to help us with that.
First Way:
1. See clearly the options in the choice.
2. The disposition necessary for choice is detachment, indifference. Use scripture. Name the factors that cause the directee not to be indifferent (or have the directee name them).
3. Ask God in prayer to move my will and place my soul in the choosing.
4. List and consider the reasons - advantages and disadvantages. 4 columns: advantages and disadvantages for each option. Consider the glory of God, but also the concrete reality for the person.
Reasons deriving from worldly concerns should be rejected.
5. Come to a decision. Which serves God's glory better? What list of reasons has the greater movement of reason?
6. Confirmation. Offer the choice to God. Evidence that confirm:
Spiritual consolation
New reasons
Greater strength in old reasons.
Stronger drawing of the will.
Readiness to act.
Peaceful assurance that the process was done well.
Signs of the good spirit are detected.
The choice weakens- might be a work of the enemy. Don't change in desolation.
Interior movements oppose the choice, and are from the good spirit. Redo the discernment.
Choice is confirmed, not through consolation but from the will remaining firm. God wanted a choice to be made using reasoning.
Chapter Nine - A preponderance of reasons
Third Mode Second Way
Second Way
First Rule : Disposition
What I choose is solely for the sake of God; indifference to all motives apart from love of God
Second Rule: Propose the choice to a person I don't know, desiring all perfection for them.
Third rule: At the point of death, what choice will I have wished to have made?
Fourth rule: At eternity, day of judgement, what will you wish to have chosen?
Then, seek confirmation.
