Concerning Discerning

Hearts Aflame last year (check out the last part of this blog post for a recap of that experience) lead to a year of saying 'no.' I realised it wasn't healthy to be spread so thinly across so many different ministries, and learnt the importance of (and how hard it is!) saying 'no.' Someone said it so well at Hearts this year: "The quality of your yes often depends on the quantity of your no's." And then COVID19 came along and joined the fun by enforcing a 'no' in every aspect of life! I guess it was actually a blessing in disguise as it helped me refocus and do something productive with all my newfound spare time. Well, at Hearts Aflame this year, God revealed to me why He nudged me to say 'no' last year. Hearts Aflame 2021 Participants As mentioned in my ' This is Me ' blog post, I really struggled with bullying and peer pressure when I was in High School, and learnt to base my identity off others (often imagined) opinions of ...

So for a blog on discerning Religious Life I realise I haven't posted much on that specifically... I'd like to blame COVID19 for putting a pin in some of my plans! I was hoping to visit the Missionaries of Gods Love and the Sisters of Mercy in Sydney last year but that obviously hasn't been able to happen.  Discerning is something you do at every moment in life though, and particularly over the past year, I've been discerning what media, movies, books etc. I want to fill my mind with - so that's what's been coming across in my blog posts.  But 2021 is a new year! I've stepped back from one of my jobs, will be working at St Catherine's 20hrs a week, and have decided to spend the rest of my time focusing on things like my Vocational discernment. And at Hearts Aflame 2021, I took another step forward in my discernment journey.  Something that sits heavily on my heart is how isolated you can feel when you're considering Religious Life ( RL from now on so...

Jumping straight into Chapter 1 because it is so relevant right now! Pt. 2 to come, and summary once I’ve read all the Fourth Mansions.  Chapter 1 1. Temptation It is better to face temptations than to never be tempted. Then our soul is always growing as we face opportunities to show our merit, and we don’t become comfortable in consolation, or too self-absorbed.  "Into these Mansions poisonous creatures seldom enter, and if they do, prove quite harmless – in fact they do the soul good.” 2. Worldly vs. Spiritual Joys Later called Spiritual Sweetness and Spiritual Consolation. More detailed description in Pt. 2! “...worldly joys have their source in our own nature and end in God, whereas spiritual consolations have their source in God, but we experience them in a natural way...”  3. Love! “...the important thing is not to think much, but to love much; do, then, whatever arouses you to love. Perhaps we do not know what love is... for love consists, not in the extent of our ...