 In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, we thank You for this weekend, this great and powerful opportunity to be present, to receive Your power and realize the power of Your Holy Spirit through the certain purpose that You have for us that we would be able to discern the one thing that You have for us. This one meant to be in Your presence, to abide in Your presence. And we believe, Lord, that as James wrote in his letter, As for wisdom, if any of you lacks wisdom, let them ask God, Who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given. But let him ask in faith with no doubting, For he who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind, For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man, Unstable in all his ways, will receive an agent's name from the Lord. But we ask You, Father, with confidence, full wisdom, for that gift. We ask for the Holy Spirit to guide us in our discernment, to drive us in our discernment. That we would see Your will and have the courage to do it. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Alright, so Holy Spirit is definitely moving as a big crowd here. It's a great thing. I'll give you a seat for a little while. So my name is Father Vetsier. I just really bring the address last time to Super Super short. So I'm one of the friars here at Franciscan. I've been here for two years. And I've been great. I've served as a vocation graduate for the friars, And then also again as minister. So kind of a wide range of opportunity to ministry. But before that, I studied engineering before becoming a friars. Now my degrees are done two jobs. And joined up with the friars. The TR, through to the regular Franciscans. So I've been here for nine years. And I've been increasing now for two and a half. And the Lord has been good. The Lord has been good. So I grew up in Catholic home, Central Pennsylvania. About two and a half hours east of here. I have six sisters. My grandparents are Catholic. My great-grandparents are Catholic. And it goes back all the way. And we'll get a little bit more into my discernment of How do I get from studying engineering to becoming a friars? I'll come later. It's about discernment. So we'll get there. So today though, because I'm the vocation director, Maybe you're afraid it's only about discerning the priesthood With the disciple. It's bigger than that. It's much bigger than that. And what we want to get at is there are really kind of two types. And Paul, in the first letter to the Corinthians, Speaks about discernment. And he speaks about the unspiritual man Does not receive the gifts of the spirit of God, For they are folly to him. And he is not able to understand them Because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man judges all things, But is himself to be judged by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, So has to instruct them. But we have the mind of Christ. And so we look at this natural discernment As ordinary groups. It's kind of logic, walking through it. Perhaps over cautious, perhaps. But then we have the spiritual discernment, Which is driven by the Holy Spirit. Sometimes unexpected. At the same time, on the outside, I want to preface and say, Okay, we also want to be careful That we remain within the heart of the church. Because it's really, really easy to say, Well, I'm led by the spirit to go off the rails. It doesn't matter all along. Because it's easy for me to get confused, I'm sure for each of us, To get off track to be sucked aside. And we'll get into some pitfalls at the end. Before the question and answer session. So the first thing, The obvious indicator of what the Lord's will is for us Is holiness. Church lays it out. It's really clear. And that's really kind of a part Of what we're talking about this weekend With this one thing from the Psalms. Where it's to be with the Lord. To be with the Lord is to get there. To be whole. That's how we approach that. It's a relationship with the Lord. And so we can approach discernment from that angle. Where it's okay, if this leads me towards holiness, That's a good first step. Very practical, very basic. And it's outside of my mind. I don't have to think about it. So the tradition, The wonderful tradition of the Catholic Church Has laid this out for us. And the Holy Spirit is a part of it. So we place our trust there. And then the last aspect of it is We're charity. So holiness leads and is integrated And all connected with charity. So if you don't have charity, As Paul says, it's all a wash. That's a paraphrase. But the idea is that if it's something That seems like by the Spirit, But it doesn't lead to charity, Well, it's wrong in here. So we did something, So as a Franciscan, Very near and dear to my heart, I was engaged at times. I was like, okay, how am I on the right path Of holiness? Am I really doing it? Am I often? Am I wrong? Am I failing? Because we can feel really self-conscious sometimes About these things. I don't want to say I'm holy, But am I? I don't know. So the Spirit's direction is good for that. The Highest Council is good for that. But there's some faith in us. So Francis is easy. He has this letter to the faith. And that's really the earliest rule Of the Pyrrhodo-Regular Franciscan. So myself and Father Jonathan, back here in the back, We've seen him around. He speaks of five keys That we can measure, Engage where we are On our path to the Lord. And so one is Wabogat, Second's love of neighbor. Third is hatred of sin. And then the reception of the sacraments is the fourth. And I'll repeat this because And then the fifth is the fruits of the penance. Which is Works of mercy, spiritual corporal works of mercy. So love of God Love of neighbor. Hatred of sin. Reception of sacraments. Especially the Eucharist. And fruits of penance. And so whenever we have those things At the base of our life We're probably in a pretty good place. Because in that Whenever we have this foundation Of holiness, it becomes much easier To discern where the Lord is leading. I think that leads to The second part. Eventualization. So the church exists For the purpose of mission. Because if the Lord has led us To that relationship with him Then he's obviously guiding us To share that with others Because liking Is to share that life with us. And then he commissions And he says from Matthew chapter 28 Go therefore And they disciples of all nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father And of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Deaging them to observe all that I have commanded you And lo I am with you always To the close of the age. So discernment, then we'll get into The practical details here in a moment It has to do We understand the first part Holiness It's laid out as in the Catechism. We can see it. But the more practical aspects Of what that looks like for me Each one of us falls under this category How am I to serve How am I to give of myself To give a mission to evangelize To reach out Is he calling you to go and become a missionary Is he calling you to be an animal To be a family To be part of the family To work a regular job To support a little parish Religious life, single life Married life, ordained ministry Whatever So that's what we're getting into So I'll use these terms a little bit Is that it helps categorize A big V vocation Is kind of this more permanent state Obviously things can change Like if you marry your spouse can value Things can change But the big V vocation Is this more permanent, stable aspect Of our life and we're rooted in our identity And that's perfect. And then the second is a sort of Small V vocation Which is more of Small Or directive, more transitory Sense of mission and maybe the Lord is calling You to be a local state That could be a small one But it's a purpose. They can call other people. We heard last night Peter was talking about Leading that group and having The guy come in And it only takes a year But that Was mission, that was A small V vocation Because that time Has changed, he's doing different things now But it's the Lord's will So this is where we're going So some general principles God first, be second Every time, all the time No matter what So when what I mean by that Is God's divinely revealed Will When we have received Through the Holy Spirit Through the church, that's first And then If I don't like that, that's on me I have to change I have to allow the Lord to in To change my heart so that I can then Be converted And desire what the Lord desires That's a good general principle Because if we don't have that straight What's the point of anything That's the relationship And under God is the idea that God loves You And he has a plan And he wants you to know it So you can do it And he can rejoice in it It's not that we're trying to earn his love But his love is first And it's out of that love As we can receive it more and more deeply Then we're able to live We're able to follow And that fruit comes from it And the love first are response It's back and forth always So Peter last night again spoke of His worship Worship That's our response From that he guides us Into these more practical things What we'll cover is largely found In Father Mike's scandals What does God want The book he wrote Basic practical tips on discernment And I'm going to flesh it out But that's in the book, sir, if you want to go for it So what we'll do at the moment Is to pause Close our hearts Close our... Sorry, we don't want to tell you that Close our eyes If you feel comfortable doing so And open our hearts And ask the Lord What it is he desires You To bring to discernment What he desires you to Bring to him And to receive diets on So that as we walk through this You can have something to ponder So Lord we offer you this time And we pray for your wisdom Your insight, you can see What it is you desire us to bring To discern with you To see through the Lord So now we bring that to the Lord So If you can't read it because of the distance I'll read it out, don't worry It's really, really important As we have these five principles So one is informity to God's will I'll be rotating these throughout So you'll hear it again and again and again So informity to God's will Inversion of heart Consistency How God's work in the past Confirmation By others And or signs And a conviction of heart So these five keys It's important that we pay attention to the order At which we see this Now you're not going to come in chronological order all the time No way to that But it's important as we Keep the rank and priority Because as I said earlier It's easy to get off the rails If we focus too much on Our own interior experience Then we forget To have a teaching from the church And it's a rough day But if we keep these things In priority Then we have this Reassurance that the obedience Of the church has got to guide us Protect us and help us to truly Find the Lord as well So to do this I'm going to use an analogy or case study And should I have a cheeseburger It seems kind of dumb It's a little ridiculous I know But it makes it kind of vivid And memorable and it's really easy to make practical So as we walk through Let's have a taste on the cheeseburger So the first one is conformity So as I said earlier This is God's divinely revealed public revelation The big stuff Scripture, tradition Magisterium That's the gift from the Holy Spirit We have acts of the apostles Holy Spirit comes in Pentecost Peter preaches Great And the tradition of the apostles Having walked with Jesus To rely on that So this may seem At first a little bit rule based But it's actually how The spirit works But it's not an actual human wisdom Near the spiritualism Because then we can walk down We can trust it At first it's not a question of Should I, should I We look at something as objectively as we can So it's a question of good versus bad Or something that's good That's not mine to have So an example would be sex outside of marriage Okay, obviously not the good thing Right? Church teaches that We can believe that Emotions run high I hear confessions, but it happens And if we lose track And we think about it only from Our personal, interior experience Oh, that's great, it feels great Okay So we can put this conformity to God's will To protect against that type of mistake So the cheeseburger Okay, so a cheeseburger is not Against the Lord as well Unless of course it's actually a good fry That's a pilsen So that's the first test So the scriptural example We have King Saul Okay, so conformity to God's will So he does some really good stuff He goes to battle against the pilsenes He has David Go on against Elias But he also doesn't love that stuff Solved himself He went against the Lord's Divinely revealed will That came through the prophets And he did not destroy the Amalekites And then he did pretty well He got rid of most of the witches Most of the wizards and mediums But then whenever he made those Mistakes despair He turned to the wrong source He went to the witch and then So that's this image This song before the witch and then to where He says, okay well He really screwed up this time And he says the next day You and your sons are going to be dead So Conversion Conformity with God's will Solved an example of what not to do The next steps So phase two Is conversion of hearts And this is So as a regular writer This is again near to our hearts And the way it is turning to the Lord Always turning back Growing and holding this day by day Step by step Little by little And it comes down to it does it pass Step one, yes it do Is it going to help me grow And hold this Will it help me fulfill my responsibilities Better My relationship to other people My relationship to the Lord And So cheeseburger Maybe we could sell out a cheeseburger If I haven't had three already And then that's love name So we can move on to that So an example, a scriptural example Is King David King David likes song Has some good and bad More good than bad by and large Because he was brought out of the Lord And you've had this repentance In his heart And that's ultimately what carried him through And he played his mistakes His repentance brought him back So he loved the Lord Tremendous and he did all sorts of things Poor the Lord And he went and he fought in battles That the Lord directed him to fight And he used victorious And he decided to build a temple And work great through Even though the Lord said You can't do it, it's all you can do But he also did some battle So we know in 2nd Samuel 11 David As the passage goes When kings go off to battle Decided to stay in Jerusalem But he wasn't fulfilling his duties And then became an occasion of sin And we know how the rest goes So this conversion of heart He wasn't attentive to that Again, later, 2nd Samuel 24 He had this census Of Israel taken And that's this tension back and forth Of pride and the ability to conquer To know how many soldiers were in the army The Lord had proclaimed He can't do that No census, because you have to trust The Lord, so it's this idea that If the Lord guided him To go to battle, it didn't matter How many soldiers we had It shouldn't have mattered, but he wanted to know And that it was the plague The fall And then at the end of his life We have neglected his family So 2nd Samuel 15 He had capsule on working in the background His son usurping the kingdom from underneath So it's this conversion of heart He was abandoning those duties He was kind of Living in his own little hell Not being attentive And it caused a whole lot of Trouble and turmoil At the end of his son, Absalom He tried to get off the bell Take over the kingdom But ended up dying in battle And just tore him apart And at the end of his repentance And his love for the Lord Allowed for that conversion To take place Another spiritual example, Jesus Which is always a good gift And this is where This title, where this top comes from So spirit driven discernment So Jesus in Mark 1 After his baptism At once the spirit drove him out Into the desert To be tempted And so this is a really important Point for us Because with discernment Sometimes it's easy to think Oh, it's hard Where it's difficult, where it's a temptation Now we obviously There's different types of temptation But if the Lord Guides us into a difficult situation It doesn't mean that it's not the Lord's will Sometimes he cooks us Allows those situations So that we can grow That we can be stronger So Jesus himself Is facing Satan And this images him on a parapet of the temple And through that Through that temptation He's accomplishing his mission So any mission that's worthwhile Is going to be tough Mary life, it's tough There are various points, there's a lot of lessons But it's hard, it's hard religiously It's hard, it's hard Faithful Catholic life is hard So the third one Is consistency With how God has led before So he looked at this To see what Are the circumstances Of this prompt Because these, so it's important to recognize These promptings can come in all different formats They can come In interior dispositions In prayer, they can come In opportunities outside of us Maybe a job offer Maybe an invitation to ministry It can come in all forms So to look at these What are the circumstances How has it worked before And how does it fit with how God has worked In my life before Now these are key points The first time the Lord speaks It's going to be weird potentially So I'll use First Samuel 3 And the Lord called Samuel again The third time And he like received that the Lord was calling the boy Therefore, he like said to Samuel Go, lie down, and if he calls you You just say, speak Lord For your servant hears, and so Samuel went And lay down in his place And then the Lord appeared to him again So in those situations If the Lord hasn't Acted in this way before The seat counts To seek the example of the saints To seek the scriptures To seek the teaching of the church To see if this is reasonable Or if it's bigger than my imagination So we have The catechist laying this out Number 236 Disturbing the Lord's presence At a perfect Is seeing how his actions Reveal his inner life So is this consistent with how the Lord has worked In general Is this the way that the Lord has spoken To others Or is this kind of weird If it is, okay, let's reassess Just take it slow So we have the cheaper Back to the cheaper Have I eaten one on a previous occasion? How did it go? Maybe I'm like this totally Not a good choice Maybe I'm allergic to beef But if it's not like a no And it's not Necessarily clear We can probably proceed full So the scriptural example That we use is the Holy Family So we have our Lady In the Annunciation And we have St. Joseph So Matthew 1 and 2 Nothing like that had ever happened before Not exactly Another has been Women who have had children Announced by angels So our Lady had that through life And then she also Had this confirmation from the Angel So there would have been a Very weird experience Where she was not sure But in the ancient And she's the writer herself too To the work of the Holy Spirit And so we have our salvation So it was Sometimes the Lord works in midwigs Likewise we have St. Joseph So he has three Four adventures So he has Where he's considering divorce and marriage And the angel speaks And so A person named Joseph having dreams Is not a good thing in the scriptures It goes back to Bill Teston Also Jacob before that So the Lord speaking through dreams Was not unknown So that he could rely on that And then it was Did it fall over under conformity to God's will? Probably Because it wasn't against Directly against the Lord as well And did it bring about conversion Oh you bet There would have been potentially a great challenge for you Then he did it So taking her into the home Flight into Egypt to return from Egypt And then moving to Nazareth So after a dream number one Okay everything goes well Well a dream two, three and four It was perhaps a little bit easier to say Okay that's the Lord So number four Is confirmation By others and or signs It moves from Much of experience External to us To internal experiences So I'll say for Even myself This was a lot of confirmation Happened internally It wasn't necessarily an external miraculous sign Or anything like that As far as I'm concerned But it was an internal experience And then some conversations with others So it's this At this point Between How much should I rely on others And how much should I rely On myself and the Lord speaking to me Because it's Because it's really easy to over-emphasize Our dependence on other people To rely on the decisions of others Ultimately Our life is our responsibility We can't pass that off We can't shut it off We have to take responsibility And act accordingly But we can look Towards these miracles, these signs, these wonders Maybe the ordinary Or perhaps extraordinary circumstances And allow that to be an occasion For the Lord to call this thing to mind This path, this option, this direction So from my own discernment experience It started ordinarily So I was a senior in college Worked studying as an engineer Things were going really well I was dating a girl And she grew up with me I was convinced I was going to be married I'm going to be married I'm going to be married next week My life planned out Looks a little different now But it was going to look different So I said to the Lord I'll look at it But it was the circumstance That was the confirmation to begin The circumstance was I got broken up with him I was a mess And I gave the Lord a shot To show me that path Other people have different experiences Some have miraculous moments Asking to rest for a rose Is a fairly popular thing But that's fine There's all these different things Very intense things for their intercession Some sort of indicator Some sort of interior movement of the heart And the Lord can work through that To get our attention But going back to the beginning The key principles Is we have to be attentive That this doesn't take priority For the teachings of the Church Otherwise we end up in hearsay Not interested So we can look to Acts of the apostles Acts 1 and the selection of the files The Judas had committed suicide They needed 12 They didn't have to give the Holy Spirit That way And so Peter It's okay I'm up to They don't want to be biased So they offer it to the Lord By casting mods now I'm not recommending you go get dice Not a good choice I'm going to straw this There's a history to this That the calling of the High Priest And who was going to serve as the High Priest Came by casting mods There was a history In the scriptures So we can look to that But then It comes to a cooler Sense of discernment But to know this Is that the Lord Works through these circumstances Whether it's a confirmation of the positive Or a confirmation of the negative That we shouldn't do So we can look towards Opportunities that open up Kind of random Or a plan Perhaps, but it's like Maybe I'll take this job And then you get about offered Like okay, well that's confirmation At least take the next step Now, by way of example Sometimes the Lord invites us To persistence To keep trying As if they keep seeking And then there's a point where that Is the Lord saying okay, like pull off Back off So an example, if you ask someone to go on a date And they refuse to grab it a couple of times If you persist, that's both fine You're probably not called the American Not to that person So that's just By way of recognizing in a practical sense That the Holy Spirit can prompt us So it's keeping all these things In context Informing to the Lord And version of part For confirmation So the cheeseburger, back to the cheeseburger So if there are no cheeseburgers available I don't know what they have in the tent It's probably a confirmation You're not called the cheeseburger Okay, context But if someone invites you To get a five guys We can get a cheeseburger But the opportunity is there To take the next step in discernment Now, shouldn't you discern about eating A cheeseburger or not? That's not the point The point is to make it memorable And categorically In a good sense So a spiritual example of Of this Of confirmation is Moses and the Israelites in the desert So in Numbers, chapter 9 The Israelites have just let Egypt Just built The tabernacle All the various portions Of things for the sacrifices And the Lord comes down In the cloud And the fire by night Chapter 9, verse 15 to 23 On that day the tabernacle is set up The cloud covered the tabernacle And the tent and the testimony And in the evening it was over So the tabernacle made the appearance It was over the tabernacle until the appearance Like the appearance of fire until morning So it was continually The cloud covered it by day And the appearance of fire by night And whenever the cloud was taken up From over the tent After that, the people of Israel sat out And in the place where the cloud Was settled down, there the people Of Israel were in the camp As command of the Lord The people of Israel sat out And at the command of the Lord They encamped The people of Israel remained in the camp Even when the cloud continued Over the tabernacle many days The people of Israel kept the charge Of the Lord and did not set out So the point that we can take from this Is when we have clear direction To move And when it's not so clear The whole course Another example, Judges Chapter 6, verse 8 Is Gideon So Gideon is called by the Lord And the Lord calls on Gideon's little Apprentice He hasn't been in battles He hasn't been a leader And yet the Lord has called him So he wants to be sure because They've been under persecution From the Gideonites for quite some time And Gideon said to God If Thou wilt deliver Israel By my hand as Thou has said Behold, I am laying a fleece rule On a threshing floor If there is doom on a fleece alone On all the ground And I shall know That Thou wilt deliver Israel By my hand as Thou has said Never so When ye rose the next morning And squeezed the fleece He rung it up due from the fleece To fill old water Then Gideon said to God Let not thy anger burn against me Let me speak about this once Pray let me make this trial Only this once with the fleece God did so that night Where it was dry on the place Only on the ground where it was due Now if you go by fleece And start to do this It's available as to whether God the Lord Would actually act in this way But the idea is That we can ask the Lord For guidance Especially if we're asked to do a big thing Leading the nation into battle Against their persecutors That's a big thing So the fifth is conviction of art Do I believe it's morally right Do I believe If it's the other criteria And I want to do it So those pertain to conscience There's moral conviction Of this And action being good Being inspired by the spirit And knowing this is the Lord's plan And it's building it up We can see this As our conscience so we can look at it And we want to reference that catechism from 778 Where we can look towards these first three steps So conformity to God's will Inversion of art And consistency Those are what Form and guide our conscience Over time Even rooted in those things We can place our trust That the Lord is allowing the Lord to Form us the guidance So let me have to paste the question Of am I afraid As if we're ready to go If we've done 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 It's like yes, do it Go for it Eat that cheeseburger Okay, but if there's a hesitation If there's a fearfulness Then we have to ask further questions We have to consider, okay Why am I afraid? Because simply God has prompted me to do something difficult Or rather, is it something That the Lord is saying This isn't what I want you to do The way we can get into that Is if it's attached to any old Experiences, any old wounds Any old injuries Any ways that we fail Or have something that's not true Spoken in our life And then we can seek Little word Seek healing on that And then uncertainty is the other part So how strong is it? Is it just like, I don't really know The Lord of the Holy Spirit has prompted me Okay Maybe pray for courage But if it's not that If it's more serious Then we can go back We can go back to the questions Again, reconsider it So cheeseburger Is a pitiful sandwich Or if I had A multi bypass on her Probably not your choice But If it's reasonable, I'm pretty healthy Enjoy it Not a big deal So if it's not important So if we're trying to discern something That doesn't have strong influence In our life Then some of these are a little bit I wish you watched it It's not really stuff that we have to take In this level of intensity But for bigger things Buying yourself a home Moving somewhere else Taking on ministry Taking care of your family Your kids, parents Whatever it is These are things that we have to consider So we look towards So I look towards my own story My own location And call towards priesthood and religious life And it took time So at the beginning, the Lord caught my attention With Confirmation So with certain circumstances And that was confirmation fall It was a couple of communities It was a really good fit And I had gotten to know the friars for a while And I had to get in on my come and see it I was like, okay, maybe we're on call Then I went And it was Just this profound sense Of the home Peacefulness And this is where I would be I don't believe This is a great meeting And yet I was a month out from graduation At a job Two job offers Graduating a month Graduating sort of top of my class And I was like, okay, I want to play So I went, she want to wait a year Maybe work As far as I still be there So As an engineering background I'm usually pretty logical Pretty systematic And so it's seen outside of my character Yeah, we'll go to this Unusual guidance from the Holy Spirit Seemed out of place My parents were concerned That's a very point I was like, okay, right, at least so They had my idea From my interior experience And yet The Lord had So profoundly moved In a clear way That fit with his will That was calling me to conversion It was consistent I had conviction of heart I had no qualms about walking away from the job Losing the payment Just No qualms Otherwise I'm in a Here So we have another example, scriptural example Of this conviction of heart Knowing that it's got will Persevering that Even though it's difficult So at St. Paul In Acts 19 He was prevented So he was prevented from going into Bethany on the preach By the Spirit of Jesus You don't know what that means exactly But he was prevented So it's the guidance of the Holy Spirit But then He was told to go to Jerusalem And at the same time he was told When he went to Jerusalem He was going to be bound He was going to be imprisoned And other people knew it Because they would hear the prophecy Being spoken in these various towns And they say, Paul, don't go, don't go You're going to die But then he says Acts 21 For I am ready not only to be imprisoned But even to die at Jerusalem For the name of the Lord Jesus And when he would not be persuaded He seized and said, the will of the Lord Be done So this is this conviction of heart This is what carries us through the worship So we can seek that from the Lord Especially when we know it's a difficult mission Okay, so that's the last and key points Of Father Mike Scanlon's Five C's How to discern them But so we have these weird Weird problems in the Holy Spirit Sometimes Because most of the time it's pretty normal Sometimes it's not And so we look at Philip In the Ethiopian Union So Philip This crazy story doesn't even make sense In my head how it works But he's going along And the Spirit says, okay, rise And the angel says, rise, go to the south And goes along, he comes from This Ethiopian Union Who has been to the central portion So it's like talking up to the vice president And asking him to get into his limbo Okay, that's what we're talking about Philip does And he is talking And eventually it's like he baptized And then Philip disappears Physically just like, oh Mike Why does it disappear and show up In his room? Like that's what we're talking about The Holy Spirit does weird stuff I haven't seen that myself thankfully But it's hard to say what the Lord's going to do But we can look to that And say, okay That's not the Holy Spirit That walks It might be something Normal from our own experience But it doesn't mean it's not the Lord's will Likewise Peter In Acts 10 to 11 He has, so Cornelius Has an angel show up in his house He's a Roman centurion The angel shows up Peter has this dream He's miles away And the Holy Spirit says There's we guys, they're waiting downstairs They've got the engine to take you to a Roman's house And the Lord is working in their life Peter's obviously a little hesitant He doesn't think it's within the Lord's will Because of the kosher of us He couldn't enter into the home It's a gentile So he's resisting So he has like The sheen being let down with all the animals on it That's a representation And the Holy Spirit says, go Go So he goes But then he's even still hesitant But he begins to preach And the Holy Spirit follows Says a confirmation Follows Because sometimes we don't have that Until after we've acted But we can always gauge that So Key Highlights So we want to rely on the stable Principles of discernment first And the exceptions second If we make our life based off of the exceptions And entirely the end of the Christmas But if we make the decisions based off of the stable Principles of first and then exceptions Charity always dispersed And obedience to the church That'll protect us That'll guide us So that scripture tradition The magisterium To know what's true Outside of our own personal Subjectives And explanations Keep praying, keep praying, keep praying Pray again Because it's a relationship Where we find the Lord It's a relationship As we grow a holiness that we have That clarity Another something that oftentimes gets missed Is fasting Your fasting is an Incredibly deep gift That We don't like because it's a covered It's hard It's hard to do But fasting So it's kind of like we're looking for the soul So we take So that's like you go into a jungle Downstairs you can't get in it But the idea is you lift weights You lift what you can That's difficult So that you get stronger So that when you're going to move your couch You don't hurt yourself So the idea here is with fasting We take on this activity That we know is not going to kill us And it shouldn't hurt us either But it's going to stretch us It's going to be uncomfortable And through that Then when the difficulty comes Or in this case with discernment Whenever we may have personal information One way or the other We're more able to set that aside To truly seek what God's will is And follow And then again the same thing Is responsibility Each of us is responsible For our whole life For our decisions, our own choices, our own actions We're in relationship So that was the goal But we give the ones who are called To follow the Lord And help others find them So we can look for the fruits And the spirit We can look, as James says In chapter 3 verse 17 What we wisdom from above Is first cure Peaceable, gentle Opens a reason, pull of mercy For our purpose Without uncertainty Or insincerity So if it falls Things that we want to avoid So lack of proof So this is Assuming The most difficult thing is God's will Because it's the most difficult That's masochistic, not a good choice Another one is group text So that's when we take scripture Out of this context It's very possible So the gospel from today That's straight up out of it Jesus never said that that woman was going to be a leader Didn't say it But he did say that she gave more So the Lord's going to look on that And bless her, but it's not necessarily In this life He himself was poor He himself wandered about This immediate haul risk For all poor, like there's a trend here Because when we can look In the context of the scriptures To see it and the tradition To see how we should understand the scriptures Now, what proof text means is not So we can look towards Grants of Seizing So this example where he is trying to discern His life, how is the Lord calling And he opens the Bible to the gospel Three times randomly And the first thing he happens upon When he prayed for wisdom, he prayed for guidance And then he does this And it was consistency The same basic that he has this life Probably this epistemic mission This evangelical mission So I'm not saying we should do that all the time But in those key moments That's the way we can pray Is it called upon the Lord To call upon the Holy Spirit to guide us To show us So another direction That fall Is to be crippled by fear And that can be caused by Providing too much on our own natural discernment Not letting the Holy Spirit drive us Because if Jesus went by natural discernment He might not have gone to the desert There wasn't going to be a fucked time He might not have gone to the cross In the sense of Natural discernment Is falling Paul speaks about that In the case amongst the Greeks The cross is falling But for us There's no salvation So we can't avoid difficult things Because they're difficult But we can place our hope in the Lord That he calls us to difficult things So he'll give us the power and strength to do it And then the other part of the year Is about finding too heavily on others To direct and decide for us We can ask for wisdom We can ask for counsel But in the end we have to do it And then the last two things Are psychological conditions So for the audience The Catholic Church teaches that That involves every brain And sometimes things get a little dull Maybe just depression Maybe more serious And it's hard for us in those situations To make objective decisions At times If you know that's something that we struggle with To know that the Lord calls us And that he still wants to speak to us He still wants to guide us He still wants to give us That plan before us That we can serve and glorify and love it But we just have to be a little cautious And then I have all of the little influence Okay so Paul says first Corinthians chapter 11 And no wonder for him and Satan Disguises himself as an angel of light Because it is not strange if his servants Also disguise themselves as servants Of righteousness So we have Deception So that's where we get into the church And wise counsel will protect us Not to freak out We're praying for protection Receiving the sacrament Seeking to live a faithful Catholic life The Lord will preserve us Let's know that there can't be Diffusion So if we receive something Interiorly From someone else And it's against teaching the church Walk away Do not need to see It's a code to the Lord Did summary God wants us to know His will for us He has revealed it and will continue And our response So his love first, our response And that grace is how it goes He'll be in you He'll be in you It's the only way And that charity is the test You shall love the Lord, your God With all your heart, your soul All your mind and your neighbor So now that we have Any questions? First of all God's voice in my life And then I Searched your participation in studies in our parish With the great adult education program I realized that There have been times That I've been asked to do something And my immediate response was Oh, not me, Mr. God You couldn't possibly be Just to do this But It's trying to be more open I've encountered in my life That It's very hard to give them help For this I was being asked To do something in the church Where I was, no, you can't do Me, I don't have to I don't have the gifts for this And then it was Michelle, I want you to do this That's nice, Mr. God It's like, you know I really have no idea At all about this And then it got to the point where Okay, I'll talk to you And I spoke to Heritage Priest I spoke to one of our meetings I spoke to my husband I spoke to some other people You know that's really You're done today You're done here You need a box here And finally I got to the point Where I said, well, let me see If there's some place available to do it Let me see if there's any Finally Turned around and got it And said, yes I had it last That's exactly the point So if you walk through the process You begin to see Is this insistent And then I Confirmation came up And you saw that it was a great experience Here's how Great stuff What happens if you are discerning something With another person That might impact both of you Have a different idea Yeah, that's a good question So if you are discerning Something that directly impacts Both of you, then you have to give conclusions Of what you did So if it's your wife You say you're okay here If it's your wife You say you're okay here If it's your wife So it's You have to go back to the process From the beginning How it becomes a different point of view And then the other part Is looking at it to see if there's a creative way To come to A tie them both together So an example here would be If we don't If we can't see it from the right angle We just have to come out of the different angles Of asking for maybe someone else's perspective Not necessarily seeking to follow their end But not So by the way, the case study Mary and Catholic men Feels altered as priesthood A lot of them are married So Or Eastern So the idea is Well the words probably not Calling quite to that But to assume that maybe my perspective Is a little bit off Maybe I'm called to be a deeper Maybe I'm called to embrace the Grease the nature of a husband Or a fault you get in the home Something like that It's partially there That's not completely there So, thank you First of all, very thoughtful talk And I appreciate the cheeseburger Now look at it You had a mention of A popular student So if there's no cheeseburger at the 10th, then how do we get them cheeseburgers? Sometimes the question that Follows up is What if there's no cheeseburger at the 10th? You still have to call it a cheeseburger So now it becomes a question Of resistance It's probably going to be for me To get out of there But I appreciate your talk Definitely So the other question Follows is am I called to create That opportunity? Perhaps or to look Maybe look elsewhere So it's whether An opportunity is readily present Or maybe a call of Persevering for a time And then reassessing The situation It's kind of a difficult thing Outside of concrete situations Other questions? Yeah, so Another question So you're discerning And you're praying about it And you're still unsure about doing it But then you just say Jesus, I trust in you And you do it anyway Is it proper? So in some situations So in my own For example, in my own situation It didn't make sense Necessarily Unless the Lord overrides it Through the experience And that's If there are other confirming factors So like if there's been Confirmation Confirmation Confirmation 이런 confirming factors So if there's been good fruit Sometimes there's things that you can't really tell Until you take asce So I wouldn't recommend you marry Until you know It's summer And if it's less permanent It gives you The new experience Something you could try And then see Maybe it's someone who is in a new ministry and you're just have no experience and it's unsettling and maybe it's uncomfortable because it involves you speaking in front of those people or something like that. Okay Jesus, trust me, I'm going to try. I'm going to give you the way you go. Is that fair for that? Sure, yeah. Okay, we've got time for one more. Okay, my question is, well, I'm not going to answer this camera. But how do you discern when you don't have an option? Or you don't know what your options are. So you're starting to understand what you need to think. But just like trying to get to the, like, do you wait for an invitation? Or like what is the starting point? And you're like, it's not the two things, it's everything. Or you know, it's whatever direction, but I don't even know what the opportunities could be. Okay, so discerning before you know what the opportunity starts here, you're looking at a blank map and you don't want to go. Okay, so it's, depending on how big you're looking, is to start to, like, research. See what options are available. See what, and to look back, so this is the other part, is each of us baptized each of us has an individual call. And so to look at our life and see where has the Lord born the most fruit? Where has the most fruit been in my life, where I've experienced these opportunities where I've been able to give up myself generously to serve the Lord, and that has been good. And then to say, okay, how can I move in a way, live in a way, that maybe follows that track? So maybe I've enjoyed talking to friends, like I've had a couple of experiences talking to friends and been able to support them in difficult times. And then maybe your skill set is like nursing. Like, ah, but I don't really feel called a nursing animal. Maybe a hospital checklist. There's kind of creative ways that the Holy Spirit may prompt you to ask the Lord for the other moments as opportunities, but to not be afraid to look yourself to ask people what they see there. Okay, we're going to have to wrap up. So just a little quick prayer. Amen. I want to give you thanks all for your praise for guiding us today. We ask for your presence. Continue with us on the weekend that we may see your will and do it. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.