Concerning Discerning

A young person's perspective on the Eucharist (Originally published in the July 2022 issue of the Marist Messenger magazine) Recently my nine-year-old brother, who is struggling with being bored with Mass, told me that He keeps asking God to show Him He is real but isn’t getting any response. I asked him, “How do you know the wind is real?” and his reply was “because you can feel it and see it moving things.” Then I asked, “and how do you know love is real?” “Because you can feel it and see its effect on other people.” I finished our conversation by explaining that just because you can’t see or hear God, doesn’t mean He isn’t real. One way we can know His reality is through the way He moves and works through those around us. We are physical beings. We like to be able to see, touch, feel, and hear the evidence for the existence of our God. Yet as Christians, we are ultimately called to have faith, which Hebrews 11 describes as “...the assurance of things hoped for, the convictio...

It’s been a season of growth and healing.   I haven’t posted much lately because my discernment seemed to have hit a brick wall (although that doesn’t mean I ever stopped discerning). I was so certain of what the future held, and then all of a sudden, I wasn’t anymore. It was confusing! It hurt, it led me on a bit of a downward spiral.    Yet there’s been so much bought to light because of this season. I’ve learned to trust without seeing the whole picture. Love regardless of reciprocation. Surrender even though I like being in control. I’ve learned that no season is ever wasted and God truly does know what He’s doing (although this is something I guess I’ll just have to keep learning over and over again!).   I don’t know who’s subscribed to my blog yet, or who will see this post! But here’s an honest update on the last few months. (N ote: the majority of this blog post is a mash-up of brain dumps I had intended to publish back in May but never got round to...

 In a recent reading of the day, St Paul writes (2 Corinthians 12):   “…a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated.”  I’ve been getting very caught up with a ‘thorn in my flesh’ lately. While the above image is a little uncomfortable, it illustrates this point well!  St Paul boasts of his weaknesses, so here’s one of mine:  I am a perfectionist. I like to have everything worked out well in advance, and achieved to the very best possible standard. I like knowing what’s coming up and how I can prepare for it so I can remain in control.   That’s a bit of an issue when you have a God who isn’t a fan of comfort zones and likes chucking us in the deep end! I know He'd never give us more than we can handle, and being challenged simply makes us rely on him even more, which I’m grateful for. I would definitely not be the person I am today without the Lords promptings to do crazy new things! But whe...

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...

Sorry (not sorry)...bombarding this blog with tonnes of posts, but writing is lifegiving and my retreat at Tyburn brought that out of me again. 😍 For the MGL Enquirers Programme session three, one question I had to reflect on was:  What is your experience of being His chosen one and the call He has placed on your life? I thought I'd share my response with you here too, as I've shared my discernment journey so far, but not actually my life in general! So....This is me in a nutshell 🙂 (just a nutshell - there is much more about me I could tell!).

Following on from my post 'The Beginning,' here's a brief (be warned I don't do brief very well!) overview of my Vocation journey from then till now. 2018 Couldn't find a recent pic - so enjoy these pics I took of a VCR video that was made showing moments from my birth until after my first birthday! We unearthed it for my 21st this year 😍 This is the moment they first laid eyes one me...😭 Grandparents 💕 I don't know why exactly (and I know it's a good idea to tell as few people as necessary in the beginning), but I really felt like I should tell my Grandparents (on my Mum's side) - my Nonno and Nonna - abut this call I'd felt at camp. So the day camp finished, I briefly went and visited them to let them know. I felt so excited and happy, and honestly like I'd just been proposed to, and was going to inform my grandparents...I was excited to see their joy for me too. They are very Catholic and very faithful, and I think ...

When I say 'The Beginning,' this clearly isn't the moment when I decided it was time to properly discern things now - as if all my previous decisions hadn't been discerned but just made on the spot...Discernment is a lifelong process, and is something we do every day. What is Discernment? Google says discernment is 'the ability to judge well.' From a Christian point of view, ' Discernment can describe the process of determining God's desire in a situation or for one's life or identifying the true nature of a thing, such as discerning whether a thing is good, evil...' ( Wikipedia ) I really like how Ann Yeong explains it on the Archdiocese of Singapore website : Discernment is the process by which we come to know what is in God’s heart and discover to our amazement that it is what is in our own hearts as well. Discernment is a loving and attentive listening to the One we love more than anyone and anything in the world so that He can unv...