Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Finding Peace in Discernment
By Esmeralda Lopez
Discerning the source of inspiration means that we question its source. Is it the fruit of our imagination? Is it wishful thinking? Could it be a temptation or is it the Holy Spirit? We are called to acquire a spiritual sense, which is an interior action. It is developed by experience and improves over time. We have to be patient, especially with ourselves. I love what Fr. Philippe says, "It facilitated our distinguishing the voice of the spouse within a chorus of sound that greet our ears." The Holy Spirit uses this tone of voice that is distinct for each of us and we recognize it over time because it becomes familiar to us. It’s like Jesus as the Good Shepherd; the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
The third chapter of In the School of the Holy Spirit discusses the criteria confirming that an inspiration comes from God. There are two major criteria: External and Internal. We know that in the external level, God doesn't contradict himself. He is always consistent in his will for us. We have to see things begin to line up: the Word of God, the teaching of the Church and the demands of our vocation.
To have consistency with Holy Scripture, a divine inspiration cannot ask us to do something that contradicts what the Word of God says. We know that Holy Scripture is transmitted and explained by the teaching authority of the Church, not by our wishful thinking, individual fantasy or interpretation, which seems to be kind of the norm these days. True inspirations go in the direction of the spirit of obedience to the Church. St. Francis de Sales said, "When God puts inspirations into a heart, first he gives is obedience."
Inspirations will also always be consistent with our vocation. Each of us has a vocation and in those vocations there are certain demands from our situation. Inspirations cannot ask us to contradict something that is a duty of our state. Inspirations will always go in the same direction as our duties of the state; they don't divert us from them, but rather help us to fulfill them.
Internal criterion
Now we are going to address the internal criterion. A tree is known by its fruit, and we know Godly inspirations will bear fruits – fruits of peace, joy, charity, communion and humility. Conversely, an inspiration from our flesh or the devil will be sterile and it bears negative fruits of sadness, bitterness, pride, etc. The only bad thing about this is that we can only apply it in retrospect, so we need to gain experience and then certain fruits become apparent such as peace and joy.
In building up our experience of discerning inspirations, we know that sometimes we are going to make mistakes. Our pride may be hurt and we have to understand that trial and error, successes and failures, are what is going to help us reach holiness. Our goal is to learn lessons with humility and not get discouraged.
There are some simple discernments that can help us on this journey. The marks of good and evil have unmistakable signs in themselves. The devil is incapable of producing good fruit in a lasting way. We may think, "Oh, I thought that was from the Lord!" But the Holy Spirit cannot be the source of trouble and sadness. There is a sadness that holy inspirations can cause, but it is very short-lived because it leads us to repentance and quickly turns to joy. The most characteristic mark of the Holy Spirit is peace and the mark of the devil is agitation.
In more complex discernment, some inspirations from the Lord will cause turbulence in our lives because we resist the temptation. Once we stop resisting, our hearts will settle in peace. Some inspirations do arouse fear because we have attachments to bad habits. Fr. Philippe gives an example of a whirlpool created in a tranquil river. We have to silence our fears and consent fully to God's inspirations. Fr. Philippe says we will still have worries and questions, but just go with it. An inspiration from the devil or from our own selfishness never leaves our hearts in total peace but results in disturbance.
Finding peace in discernment
Let's look at the complementary signs with constancy and humility. God's spirit, we see on one side, is stable and constant. Our flesh, or the evil spirit, is unstable and changing. God's spirit gives us a deep sense of humility, knowing that good is from God, whereas our flesh, or the evil spirit, is presumptuous, self-satisfying or vain. In God's spirit, again we have obedience. Conversely, with the flesh or evil spirit, we have rebellion. So divine inspirations establish in us peace, are not changeable and impress on us a sense of humility.
Is God's choice always the most difficult? Sometimes God's will goes in the opposite direction from our immediate tendencies because we have a desire for selfish comfort, ease, and laziness. We have to be careful not to go into false or exaggerated voluntarism because that has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit. The devil may suggest that God is always asking of us what is most difficult. He does that to discourage us. We don't want to listen to that. Be careful not to impose your own burdens on yourself, which God is not asking of you. God invites us to give him everything. He still gives us our free choice. We are called to grow in love and his aim is to make our lives simpler. Docility to God sets our hearts free and expands them. I love this little saying that Fr. Philippe says in the book, "God's will is where there is the maximum of love, not necessarily where there is the maximum of suffering."
We have different reactions depending on the importance of the inspirations. Do your best not to neglect a single one of God's inspirations. What may seem insignificant may be more important that we imagine. A small act of obedience to God guides us to make more progress spiritually than years of effort according to our own plan. We have to have fidelity to the small graces to draw down the bigger ones. We have to make rapid evaluations of ideas that are not part of our normal activity.
When we consent to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, we feel at peace. If we are wrong we realize, by the movement of vainglory, presumptuousness, etc., that it was an idea of our own; and should become useful for our spiritual education. When we have to make serious questions about our vocation or choices, it is essential not to decide anything without first submitting to a spiritual director or superior. Scripture says: follow the advice of one to two persons. It is better to do that than to do something on your own, first reflecting for a long period of time. It's better to go on the advice of one or two persons that your trust.
Responding to an inspiration
Several years ago, when my sons were preschoolers, I received an inspiration from the Lord. It's one of those that you just kind of get and I could have ignored it easily. It was a time where I felt the Lord was being really, really heavy-handed with me. My ex-husband seemed to be making it his goal in life to hurt my sons and I. We had very few resources and I worked night shifts mostly so I could raise my kids, since I was playing mom and dad.
My mom had talked to me about her brother and how he helped her when she wanted to go to business school as a young woman. My uncle's current situation was really challenging, he had a Down's Syndrome child. Unfortunately she was very overweight, probably about 200-300 pounds. She never learned to walk or talk, feed herself or even toilet herself. You can imagine the tough situation. His wife, my aunt, had been recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She was the sole breadwinner of the family. She would get up before dawn and prepare hot tamales and some Mexican drinks that she would sell on the streets of Mexico to people that were rushing to work. My uncle had been an alcoholic and was diagnosed with diabetes. Because he didn’t give up the drinking, the disease progressed to the point where he had to have both his legs amputated up to the knees and he went completely blind. He became wheelchair bound. He was the main caretaker my Down's Syndrome cousin. He bathed her, changed her diapers, fed her and cared for all her needs. She was a challenge, taking advantage of his blindness and resisting his care every step of the way.
When my mom explained to me the direness of his situation, I felt a small prompting to send him $200, and as I said, I was barely making it myself. I had very, very limited income, no child support and lots of medical bills. I let the inspiration sit until I had discerned it was surely from the Lord. I remember a sister in our Community used to teach us to let the cream rise when you receive a message. I waited until this message got really thick and creamy and then I moved on it. I had been reading the Book of Job at that time, and applying it to my life, trying to understand and address how my current situation of living in constant fear wondering how do I do this, how do I have joy in this situation. The prompting grew to write my uncle about Job and so I did. I wrote him a long letter about Job's challenges and included the cash. Once I sent the letter off I thought, "I'm done." A good deed done and that would be the end of it. Over a month later my mother received a call from my aunt and she recounted the testimony of my uncle. He prayed one day in desperation and despair. He told God he is going to stop believing in him if he didn't give him a sign that he was real and present in his life. If he did listen to him, he would be a faithful follower. On that same day my uncle received my letter.
When my uncle read the letter and learned of Job, it made a desire grow for God's Word in his heart. My uncle's life changed and my aunt reported that my uncle became a joyful man. That joy was really contagious because I can tell you I was having a pity party for myself with my own situation, which didn't compare. It is awesome how in your own suffering when you watch others who suffer more and have joy, that joy is super contagious.
Anointed music
I told my mother of another prompting I received. I remember when Bobbie Cavnar would tell these great stories and one was about how he would play tapes of anointed music for a possessed man. I knew my uncle was really hungry for scripture so I purchased the entire set of the New Testament in Spanish and I felt it was Jesus' way of making himself further present in my uncle’s life. I received subsequent reports of my uncle that he was known for his joyful spirit and that he would play scripture all day long, feeding his soul. When family visited, he would recount to them the stories of Jesus. I continued to receive inspiration and send him money. Miraculously even my income began to increase. I learned first-hand we cannot outdo God's generosity.
This went on for years. My situation too began to dramatically improve. I was able to complete my Bachelors and Masters Degrees, and place my sons at the Community school. I had a chance to visit my uncle in Mexico and he showed me a drawer where he was actually putting all the cash I had sent. It was his savings account. He wanted to buy me a gift and I said, "No, no, no. I have the same goal as you; I want a home." So, I said, "I don't know why, but God doesn't seem to want me to have a home." I had meant to stay at my mom's house for six months until I got on my feet, but it had been ten years. A few years later my uncle was able to purchase a small apartment free and clear and he sent message to me that this was my home also. I felt touched. I was proud of him for achieving his goal, but it was a little bittersweet I have to admit, as I still didn't have a home of my own. Then just a few years later I received word that my uncle died. I remember thinking that he would now be in heaven praying for me.
The fruit of responding
Within a few days of his death I was house searching, which I did from time to time because I just thought "Who knows, maybe the Lord will make a miracle out of nothing." I came across a neighborhood that I liked. The agent told me there was a home that contracts kept falling through on and it would be back on the market the next day. It was actually larger and cheaper than all the homes I'd looked at. Up until then I had been living in a really cramped house with my parents, and I couldn’t help getting my hopes up. We went to look at several homes and ended with the one that was going back on the market. My sons are very prophetic, and they said, "This is our home; we are going to live here." You can imagine how I was feeling, I was panicked I thought, "No, I'm not ready for this. I've been asking for this, but I'm not ready for this." I had just gotten a sizeable increase again in my income and so I was able to afford it. It was exactly what we desired. There are so many more miracles I could share: getting part of the closing cost back, being able to buy furniture, the seller purchasing my fridge, washer, dryer, upgrades thrown in for free, the house had never had any noxious chemicals, which I am very hypersensitive to.
The gift of my home provided me with a gift of gratitude that sometimes overwhelms me; sometimes just going into my house I am overwhelmed with gratitude. It increased my faith in large and small things. It taught me total dependence on God. Taught me it's ok to tell God the desires of my heart. All this began with a small inspiration that I listened to and obeyed. Only in heaven will I know the true impact of each inspiration I obeyed and the fruit it bore, not only for my salvation, but for others too. Now can you imagine what each of your fiats done in love has accomplished for God's Kingdom? The story reminds me of how each of us plays such a critical part in salvation history.
I was fortunate enough to be assigned the conclusion of Chapter Three of In the School of the Holy Spirit, and today we sang a song that talked about beholding God's splendor. When I think of our Blessed Mother, I think of those words because she reflected God's splendor so beautifully. Everything we've learned in Chapters one, two and three wouldn't be complete without one final addition: filial love for our Lady. The Virgin Mary is the one person who lived most in the shadow of the Holy Spirit. She lived her whole life as a perfect act of consent. Imagine the perfect act of consent to all operations of the Spirit in her.
I listened to one inspiration and look what happened. She achieved the most ardent and highest degree of love. St. Francis de Sales said, "Mary's love grew steadily because the Holy Spirit met with no resistance in her." Mary is our Mother in the order of grace. She gives onto us the fullness of grace that is hers. Those who take her into their homes share in her total availability to grace, her capacity to let herself to be led by the Holy Spirit without resistance. As a mother Mary passes on to us her humility, her trust in God, her total self giving to God's will, her silence and her inner listening to the Spirit. So entrust the whole of your spiritual life to Our Lady. Finally, Our Lady teaches us to recognize clearly, receive the full trust and put into practice the total fidelity all the suggestions of grace by which God will work marvels of love in our lives as he did in the life of his humble handmaid.
Community Gathering, February 12, 2017