Discernment - the Search for Joy

Continuing our month-long series of posts on discernment, Spectacle of Saints welcomes Brother Tom Wendorf, SM., who addresses discernment from a spiritual perspective. Brother Tom is past Director of Vocations for the Marianist Province of the U.S. and is presently a professor of English at the University of Dayton.

In the spiritual life, discernment means being attentive and listening to God, myself, and others—and making my life choices accordingly. It’s that simple, that complex, and that rich.

When I decided to apply for the Marianist Novitiate (the two-year program of study and prayer toward becoming a Marianist brother) during my senior year at The University of Dayton, I can recall practicing these three forms of attentiveness and listening.  I know that I prayed. Late-night vigils in solitude at the UD Chapel, Mass, prayer with the Marianist community and sodality group. Then I remember one day sitting on the front porch of the big yellow house at 1903 Trinity, the Marianist community where I lived

1903 Trinity Ave.

during my senior year, and asking God, should I go to the Novitiate to become a Marianist brother, or go to graduate school?  “Should” might have been a word in my prayer, but the question also had the flavor of a conversation I’d had with former Marianist brother Marty Herrick at the time. He’d asked me what would make me happy.  Would it would make me happy to go to the Novitiate the following fall? At first I thought it wasn’t an adequate question—it wasn’t all about me or my being happy.  But gradually I realized Marty had not meant a fleeting or selfish happy but something like joy-happy—the joy that is never meant to be far from us in the Christian life.  On the porch that morning, amid my usual doubts and questions, the answer I heard in myself and from God was yes.  I would go to the Novitiate.

Now before that day, I’d engaged in more conversations than I’d probably have energy for now at the age of 54, but at 21, I definitely needed the feedback of others who knew me and whom I trusted. Of course I had to make choices about whose advice I followed.  My dad would have steered me toward graduate school and away from religious life. Yet I realized that who I’d become during my years at UD was different from the me my dad thought I was or might become.  So in discerning next steps in life, we can’t listen to everyone’s advice—sometimes even some of those closest to us may not know us as well as others do and as God does.  I have no doubt that God is lovingly at work amid the conversations that help us to make decisions, and there’s a kind of discernment we have to make about those conversations, too.  If that complicates our decision-making, it can also bring the lines of discernment into clearer relief.

Knowing oneself is important in this process, and that happens in relationship with others and with God.  And we’re not finished becoming who we are until the day we pass on from this life to the rest—so don’t think that life discernment will end with this choice or that.  

God calls us to fullness of life in Christ, and that means something unique for every one of us.  What are my particular gifts? My weaknesses? My quirks? My areas of growth, of sinfulness, of aspiration and passion?  Each of us has something to give to a world in need of the Gospel. Each of us has the potential to be a particular saint.  I have to grow into the saint that’s in me, not the saint that someone else might be or have been. Sainthood really is the horizon of all vocational choices for the Christian.  That horizon is not meant to paralyze us as we face every life decision, but to free us. Unique as I am, how will I spend myself in love for God and the world? With what person, perhaps, or with what community will I ground myself and walk on this journey?  Jesus calls us to lay down our lives, but in discerning life choices, I’m pretty sure God doesn’t call me to things that go completely against the grain of my personality, not for the long haul at least.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t decisions that involve big leaps, stretches to my limits, and sacrifices.  When in 2010 I was asked by my Marianist Province leaders to move from teaching English at The University of Dayton to doing vocation ministry, it involved a certain rupture in my life—a physical move, a completely new way of living and serving. Probably more of a home-body than an adventurer, I nonetheless became a frequent traveler in this new ministry. If teaching had already drawn me out of my own

Brother Tom with his Novitiate class

introversion, vocation ministry in wider venues certainly did that even more. After seven years in grace-filled vocation ministry, I’ve now returned to The University of Dayton to teach English once again.  I’m getting back in a groove I stepped out of for long enough to lose some sharpness but also to gain some wisdom. There are always growth curves with every major decision and step in our lives, but I’ve found there’s grace there at every turn, even especially when I’m bewildered by everything new.

As Mike Bennett said well in his recent contribution to this PULSE blog, spiritual discernment doesn't mean discovering a ready-made blueprint for our lives that God has in hand. Our decisions, if guided by our relationship with God; some healthy self-knowledge; our relationships with others; and the call to share the Gospel, will be part of the ongoing discovery of our unique saintliness. God's call and guidance, in my experience, has unfolded organically, in the web of relationships and abilities and connections that already in some way exist in my life. I won't rule out the possibility of angelic encounters or mystical visions that come to people occasionally, but more often God's guidance is woven into the lives we're already living, so it's not usually necessary to look to a magic someplace-else. The guidance we crave is often close at hand.

Sharing my prayers for all those discerning,
Brother Tom