We ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord.
—Colossians 1:9–10
For Father Richard, contemplation cultivates an ability to discern right action:
Our goal consists in doing the will of God, but first we have to remove our attachment to our own will so that we can recognize the difference between the two. Throughout history, many people who did horrible things were convinced that they were doing God’s will. That’s why we have to find an instrument to distinguish between God and us. Paul calls this gift the discernment of spirits. We have to learn when our own spirit is at work and when the Spirit of God is at work.
The most convincing social activists in our country were and are people of prayer, like Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr., Sister Simone Campbell, John Dear, and Jim Wallis. It’s important that we bring the contemplatives and the activists together in the Church and in the world, because neither group is credible without the other. Jesus went into the wilderness for forty days; only after that did he begin to preach the reign of God and to heal the sick. And along the way he kept reminding his disciples to withdraw and rest in quiet, peaceful places (see Mark 6:31).
With this withdrawal and this emptiness, we are, so to speak, cultivating fertile soil where we can be receptive to the seed of God’s word. I don’t believe that Jesus dumps the harvest into our laps. Rather, he shows us a process of growth. He shows us a way we can learn to hear God, a path of self-surrender and forgiveness. He trusts that his followers, as they practice this way of prayer, will learn to hear the truth ever more clearly. The great truth will always lie beyond us. The great truth of God will never underpin a small world. This means that the Christian life must be a constant journey back and forth between the radical way inward and the radical way outward. [1]
Dutch priest and author Henri Nouwen (1932–1996) views discernment as a gift that comes from our intimacy with God:
I can see no other way for discernment than a life in the Spirit, a life of unceasing prayer and contemplation, a life of deep communion with the Spirit of God. Such a life will slowly develop in us an inner sensitivity, enabling us to distinguish between the law of the flesh [ego] and the law of the Spirit [soul]. We certainly will make constant errors and seldom have the purity of heart required to make the right decisions all the time. But when we continually try to live in the Spirit, we at least will be willing to confess our weakness and limitations in all humility, trusting in the one who is greater than our hearts. [2]
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Essential Teachings on Love, selected by Joelle Chase and Judy Traeger (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2018), 142–143.
[2] Henri J. M. Nouwen with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird, Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life (San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 2013), 170.
Image credit and inspiration: Kuo-Chiao Lin, After Work (detail), 2017, photo, Taiwan, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. When we are listening we stop, be still and quiet, because we don’t want to miss the voice that is speaking.
Story from Our Community:
Having taught choral music for more than thirty years, I have often witnessed profoundly sacred moments that bring me to tears. The blend of harmonies and spirits evokes a larger presence in the room that can only be known as Christ. At the end of the piece, we often pause in a silent moment of awe. I find myself speechless, having heard the voice of God within all the voices in the room.
—Marvin Z.
