Discernment and Pentecost

A young woman that I know is discerning her path in life.  She feels that she needs to “take the next step” on her vocation path, but she doesn’t know what that next step is.   So about ten days ago she began a time of more intense prayer and reflection on her options, leading up to Pentecost.  Perhaps you could do the same?

The gifts of the Holy Spirit have already been given to us at our Baptism and Confirmation, and one of those gifts is the gift of knowledge.*  This is not any scientific or academic knowlege, but knowledge of God and the things of God, including knowledge of God’s path in life for us. 

As we celebrate the feast of Pentecost next Sunday, we “remember” the first coming of the Holy Spirit on the disciples, and also on us when we received the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation.  Our liturgical “remembering” means that we celebrate the memory of those events in such a way that we make the grace of those events effectively present, here and now, and can enter anew into them.

If you are discerning your path in life, why not spend the days between now and Pentecost asking particularly for a special release of that gift of knowledge which is already in your heart, to show you which path to follow?  Take some extra time for prayer.  Quieten down, shut out other voices.  Open yourself trustfully to God.  And God will hear and answer your prayer (though maybe in an unexpected way).

When he was Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Martini guided many young people through a year-long discerment programme about their vocation in life.  Two things he asked them to do were (1) to cut out watching TV for the year – its voice is a cluttering, unhelpful voice, and switching it off gives greater opportunity for hearing the voice of God; and (2) to have no worry, but to trust firmly that God would answer their prayer. 
Even if you are giving yourself to a discernment time of much shorter duration, those are good principles to apply: make space to hear God, and be confident that the way forward will be made clear by the God who loves us.

And in these days coming up to Pentecost, let those of us who are not at such a discernment point in our lives support those who are, by our encouragement and especially by our prayer.

*The “gifts of the Holy Spirit” are traditionally named as wisdom, understanding, right judgment (or counsel), courage (or fortitude), knowledge, reverence (or piety) and fear of the Lord.