If it is that I hardly dare to speak anymore…
You are right: “the fear of God is the principle of wisdom.” And in the process it leaves me calmer.
To achieve true spiritual discernment it is necessary to have 1.–Humility, and 2.–Abnegation of one’s own will. But there are also other necessary conditions and other reliable signs:
3.–peace. The tender mercy of our God always guides our steps along the path of peace (Lk 1:78-79). And this is because our “God is not a God of confusion, but of peace” (1 Cor 14:33). Christ “is our peace” (Eph 2:14). That is why everything that is done in Christ and with Christ, under the impulse of his grace, is done with peace. It is done with joy or with pain, but always with peace. On the contrary, when the Christian, acting from himself, even with the best intention, does more or less or something different from what God wants to do with him, he is not working with Christ, he does not allow the Holy Spirit to work, and he necessarily sees his peace diminished or lost. That’s why, Christian spirituality has always considered peace as one of the main criteria for discernment.
This is how Saint Teresa understands it: «His yoke is easy, and it is a great matter not to drag the soul along, but to lead it with His gentleness for its greater profit” (Life 11,17). And Saint John of the Cross: “it is not God’s will that the soul be troubled by anything or suffer hardship” (Sayings 56). Understand here by hardships those efforts made by the will of man without the assistance of the grace of God. Peace is, then, in that pure synergy of grace and freedom. But let’s analyze this delicate point a little more.
4.–The conscience. To explain this very important topic well, I will first remember an already classic distinction about grace. The Christian is continually under the action of Christ, his holy Head. But just as “God does many good things in man that man does not [operative grace], on the other hand, man does no good that God does not allow man to do [cooperative grace]» (Orange II, 529, c. 20: Denz 390).
Well then, when God’s cooperative grace moves a person to a good work, inclines it, acting in different ways in his understanding, will and feeling: –illuminates its understanding sometimes very clearly, and on other occasions not, although always clearly enough for the person to know the good that God wants to grant him to do; –always move your willpower with internal impulse, and this is the decisive fact to which conscience must adhere; –and in short, it does not always stimulate the inclination of your feeling; sometimes yes, but sometimes no.
According to this, when the testimony of conscience tells us that divine grace impels our will to a good work, we must do it without any doubt, whether our understanding understands it clearly or obscurely, and our feelings feel joy or pain in it; it is the same. On the contrary, when, before attempting a work, or taught by the experience of its exercise, the testimony of conscience tells us that grace does not assist our will to carry it out, we must stop it or not try it, whether our understanding sees what it sees, and our feeling feels pain or joy in it; it is the same. Saint Teresa, always harmonious in uniting grace and freedom, illustrates these principles to us with some of her biographical testimonies, which I choose from among those referring to prayer.
–When there is awareness that grace moves us to a good work, it must be done even if the feeling suffers agony.. «Very often, some years, I had more consideration [in prayer] on wishing for the end of the hour that I had to be there, and listening when the clock struck, than on other good things; and many times I do not know what serious penance was placed before me that I would not undertake more willingly than to retire to prayer. And it is true that the force that the devil exerted on me, or my base habit of not going to prayer, and the sadness that I felt when entering the oratory was so unbearable, that it was necessary to help myself with all my spirit (which they say is not small) to force myself, and in the end the Lord helped me. And after he had given me this strength, I found myself with more stillness and gift than sometimes when I had the desire to pray” (Life 8,7). Some call these very painful cooperations of the free will with grace expirations. We find another similar example when Saint Teresa went to the monastery: “I don’t think the feeling will be any more when I die” (4,1-2). God illuminated his understanding so that he knew that this was the divine will, and moved his will to it; but it left the feeling in absolute desolation.
–On the contrary, a good work should not be done when conscience tells us that grace does not assist our will to do it., because that indicates that it is not the will of God. Suppose that “the master who teaches [prayer] insists that it be without reading; If without this help they make him spend a long time in prayer, it will be impossible to last long in it, and it will harm his health if he persists, because it is a very painful thing. [I] unless I had just finished communion, I never dared begin to have prayer without a book, and with this I began to collect the lost thoughts, and as a compliment he carried his soul. And many times when opening the book, nothing more was necessary; Others I read little, others a lot, according to the grace that the Lord gave me» (Life 4,9). And sometimes, neither with a book nor without a book. So, “I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try [to have prayer] and be careful before God, but that if you couldn’t have even a good thought, don’t kill each other. We are unprofitable servants, What do we think we can? (22,11). Only for teachings like these – which we do not find so clear in any saint – does it deserve to be Doctor of the Church.
5.–Discretion. There is discretion in everything. When the intention to do something comes from God, “it brings with it light, and discretion, and measure. This is an important point for many things, such as shortening the time of prayer – no matter how enjoyable it may be – when one sees one’s bodily strength running out or one’s head hurting. Discretion is very necessary in everything» (Perfect Way. 19,13).
A certain impotence to pray, p. For example, at least in good Christians, “very often it comes [only] from a physical indisposition. Understand that you are sick; let the hour of prayer be changed, pass through this exile as best you can. With discretion, because sometime the devil will do it; and so it’s good that, not always let prayer when there is great distraction and confusion, nor always torment the soul what it cannot. There are other external things, such as works of charity and reading, although sometimes he won’t even be there for that. Let no one be pressed or distressed. It is clear that if the well does not flow, we cannot supply the water. It is true that we must not be careless, so that when there is, we can remove it” (Life 11,16-18).
6.–Quantity of action. Spiritual discernment should never be carried out in a purely quantitative way.. Error very typical of voluntarism. For example, “since prayer is so good, the more time spent on it, the better.” The quantitative criterion, being in a certain way automatic, eliminates discernment, it is always in-discreet. If we want to move under the motion of God, discretion is necessary in everything. Let us do everything, only and that which God wants to work in us and with us; no more, no less, no more. When God wants to give us a hour of daily prayer, it will be pride to do two, or laziness to do half. If they are done two hours of prayer, when God wants to give us one, the other hour does not come from the Spirit, but from the flesh. The Christian is not doing in that hour what God wanted to do in him and with him. Due to temperamental inclination, due to emulation, due to sensitive gratification, due to ideological fashion of the group, due to whatever it may be, the human will has deviated from the divine Will.
Saint John of the Cross warns this clearly: «Consider what God will want and do it, that there you will satisfy your heart better than with that to which you incline” (Sayings 72). «Do not think that pleasing God is so much in work a lot as in doing it with good will, without ownership”, without attachment (58).
7.–The Cross. In doubt, we must lean towards what unites us most to the cross of Christ. The Lord told us “the gate is narrow and the path that leads to life is narrow, and there are few who find it” (Mt 7:14). Thus, in doubt, we must incline “more to what is difficult than to what is easy, to what is rough than to what is smooth, and to what is difficult and tasteless in the work than to what is tasty and delightful about it, and not go around choosing what is less of a cross, since it is a light burden; and the more it carries, the lighter it is carried by God” (Four warnings 6; cf. Notices 162). It is the same thing that, for example, Saint Ignatius teaches in the Spiritual exercises, when describing the 3rd degree of humility: to the equal glory of God, or what is the same, in doubt, “I want and choose more poverty with the poor Christ than wealth, reproaches” etc. (167).
It is true that there is a agere against false and clumsy, with very bad effects: «he who is communicative, let him be silent; the withdrawn, let him speak”, etc. It is a criterion without discretion, indiscreet, based on the false principle “what is most difficult is what is most sanctifying.” But there is a agere against true and wise, because “the flesh has tendencies contrary to those of the spirit… both are opposed, and therefore do not do what you want” (Gal 5:17). If conscience tells us that it is God’s will for us to do something sensibly pleasing, let us do it immediately. But in doubt, I say in doubt, rather than the broad path that the old and carnal man desires, let us prefer the narrow path of the Cross. It is much more likely that we will get God’s will right. And if that were not the case, He would let us know.
Therefore We cannot find in the pleasant and the unpleasant a criterion of spiritual discernment. In that sense, Saint John of the Cross warns: “never abandon works because of the lack of taste or flavor that you find in them… nor do them just for the flavor or pleasure that they give you” (Cautions 16). Now, considering that we are sinners, and that our penitential atonement is usually shamefully insufficient, Let us try with love to participate more in the passion of the Lord for the redemption of men (Col 1:24); Let us recognize that, at least while we are still carnal, there is usually, although not always, more danger of disordered affection in what is attractive than in what is repulsive; Let us remember that Jesus preferred poverty to wealth, disgrace to worldly success and prestige… And so, for the love of the Crucified, when we are really presented with a doubt between two paths, one wide and the other narrow, let us prefer the narrow one. This love of the Cross is often key to true discernment.
Let us suppose the case of a novice who, being convinced of her vocation and it being real, goes through very serious hardships and suffering in her first years. This sometimes causes the Superior to send her home without discretion: “if she had a vocation, God would assist her with his grace, and she would not have such a bad time.” Very serious mistake. That is being ashamed of the cross of Christ. How many times does the Lord, like an architect, before building a very tall tower, begin by digging very deep foundations. Let’s see it in another similar case, of which I was a witness. The case of the novice who was alarmingly crucified at the beginning led the Superior to a contrary discernment: “the Lord is crucifying this daughter very much and very soon, who remains convinced of her vocation; Let him continue, then, with our help – and with our patience – and through the cross he will reach the light, through the pain to the joy of the resurrection. And so it was: today she lives in the monastery reborn, at peace, joyful in the Lord. How many other religious communities, being ashamed of the Cross of Christ, would not have tolerated it, and would have returned it to their home!
8.–obedience. The first monks, Saint Benedict, Saint Bernard, Saint Ignatius, all Christian spiritual teachers assure the same thing, whether they are religious or lay: The surest discernment is that which is aided by obedience.
–Saint Teresa of Jesus “I didn’t do anything other than with the opinion of learned men” (Life 36.5). She did not trust herself, and came to discern the will of God by consulting trustworthy people. Of a very pious woman, who did not want to be subject to a fixed confessor, he said: “I would rather see her obey a person than not so much communion” (Foundations 6,18); which is saying something. “There is no path that leads sooner to supreme perfection than that of obedience” (5:10). And he was not thinking only of the religious when teaching that truth. –Saint John of the Cross: God is “very fond of the government and treatment of man also being by another man like him” (2 Rise 22,9): father, spouse, parish priest, spiritual director. He was convinced that many Christians do not advance along the path of the Gospel “because they lack suitable and awake guides to guide them to the summit” (Prologue Rise 3). –Saint Francis de Sales: «Do you want to walk towards devotion more safely? Seek some virtuous man to train and guide you… You will never find the will of God so surely as by the path of this humble obedience” (Intro to the devoted life I, 4).
9.–Prayer of petition. And we return with this to the beginning, to the most important thing: “what should I do, Lord?” (Acts 22:10). Prayer of petition is the main key to discerning the concrete will of God in all the issues of our life –vocation, work, prayer, acceptance or rejection of an offer, etc.–. It is the most effective means to achieve the perfect synergy between grace and freedom. She must always be the bow of all our spiritual navigations. Lord, “give us light to know your will and the strength necessary to fulfill it” (sun.1, T. Ord.).
