Just a reminder for any New Yorkers that I’ll be visiting this week for two special events:
1. Manhattan’s very own #Soul of Christ talk and book-signing at our Pauline Book & Media Center at 64 West 38th St. on Thursday evening (June 4) at 6:00 PM
2. Daughters of Saint Paul Centenary Day of Recollection and Centenary Mass on Saturday, June 6th, from 10 AM to 6:30 PM, at Holy Family Church, where I will be giving one of two talks and will lead the Eucharistic Hour of Adoration:
“St. Paul Writing His Epistles” attrib. to Valentin de Boulogne, c. 1618-1620
Introduction: We know that God’s invitations to us flow from our God-given identity. In this lectio, we pray with how God sees us, how God’s love shapes our very identity, and how God’s love frees us to be more fully ourselves.
Lectio: Ephesians 2:4-10
But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
Read through this reading slowly and attentively at least twice. Take your time with it.
Meditatio
Saint Paul’s dramatic encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 9) completely changed Paul’s relationship with God from Pharisaism to experiencing the fullness of God’s love and mercy. By his baptism, Paul became a new creation in Jesus. Learning Christ, and living his new identity in Christ as an adopted son of God, led Paul to discover true freedom. No longer driven by fear or possessions, Paul belonged to Christ and trusted that nothing could separate him from God’s love and mercy. The extravagance eloquence of this passage demonstrates Paul’s amazement and gratitude to Jesus for his saving Passion, Death, and Resurrection.
Each of us who have been baptized can share in that journey from fear to trust and freedom discovered by Paul: we too are loved, redeemed, and sanctified.
As you re-read this passage, let yourself become aware that you are a son or daughter of God, that your very being is God’s awesome gift to you. Different translations of verse 10 into English range from the prosaic, “We are what he has made us” to “God’s handiwork,” “God’s masterpiece,” or “God’s work of art.” Have you ever thought of yourself as God’s “work of art”? Do you believe that you are an heir of God, who will share everything with Christ as his brother or sister?
Contemplatio
Which phrase from this passage of Ephesians best describes how you see yourself? As you allow this phrase to “sink in,” how does it change your understanding of how God might see you? In your own words, how would you describe your relationship with God?
Oratio
The Work of Your Love – by Blessed James Alberione
My Lord, I am entirely the work of your all powerful love. I adore you, my God, one in nature and triune in Persons. I thank you, because you have made me for the happiness which lies in you and for your eternal glory. Save me with your love and your mercy!
Actio
Choose one way to act on your belief in God’s powerful love for you today.
Blessings for Holy Week! You will all be in my prayers even though I’m taking a bit of a break from posting the book this week.
In the meantime I wanted to share with you an app that teaches and reminds us how to do the examen, a wonderful discernment tool and spiritual practice. The examen is a wonderful way to listen to God’s invitations in our life, helping us to look over our day and to be aware of how God is acting in our life, and how we’ve responded. The examen comes to us from the famous expert on discernment, St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, who has influenced the Church greatly with his spirituality that focuses on discerning the will of God. One of the tools for discernment are his Spiritual Exercises–an in-depth retreat where the retreatant seeks to discover God’s will. A practical tool that everyone can use in everyday life is the examen of consciousness.
The examen is a bit like the examination of conscience–examining our thoughts, words, actions, and omissions at the end of every day, or before we go to confession. But the examen is a bit different. Rather than focusing on what we’ve done or haven’t done, the examen helps us to look over the day and focus on how God has invited us and worked in our lives during the day.
At http://www.theprodigalfather.org/ Father Michael Denk hosts the Examen App for iPhones, android phones, and tablets that can guide you through the examen–with written steps on the screen and videos. The app is free and contains a full explanation of how to pray the examen. It even has reminders that you can set so that you remember to take the time to pray the examen! If you have a moment, just visit his site now and download the app!
For those of you who don’t have a device with which to use the app, I’ll briefly share the steps of the examen below. Later, I’ll do a whole blog post on this powerful prayer and tool for discernment.
Steps for the Examen:
1. Gratitude
Note the gifts of love God has given this day; give thanks
2. Petition
Ask God for insight and an open heart; ask God to show you what God wants of you this day
3. Review
With God, look over your day; pay attention to the stirrings of your heart; review your choices and responses
4. Forgiveness
Accept the love and forgiveness God gives you
5. Renewal
With God plan concretely how to live in accord with God’s desire for you
Journaling with the steps of the examen is very helpful, and Father Michael’s Examen app encourages you to do just that. For more explanations of the examen prayer, visit: http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen/
I’m visiting St. Louis, MO, for the next 10 days, to teach some classes and talk about the Eucharist and the Anima Christi prayer. If you are in the area, I’d love to see you at one of the following events! (If you’d like more details about any of the events, just give the Pauline Books & Media Center a call.)
For those in California, I just wanted to let you know I’m visiting on a book promotion tour for the next two weeks. If you can, join me–I love meeting those discerning and readers of my books and blogs! I’m posting up the events below. As you know, Eucharistic adoration is one of the best ways to pray when you are making a discernment!
San Francisco Area:
Los Angeles Area (Culver City):
San Diego:
Adoration in our Pauline Chapel
Lifetime’s reality TV show The Sisterhood: Becoming Nuns continued last night with episodes 3 and 4 back-to-back. These new episodes highlighted all the conventions of a reality TV show that I don’t enjoy: competition, heightened (over-the-top!) drama, staged scenes, coaching from the show’s producers, oversimplification of relationships and personal journeys, and an overt editing that revealed an obvious manipulation of various events. For me, watching this show has become a study of reality television shows and how “not real” they are!
Yet, if we take these conventions into account, it’s still possible to gain insight, both into religious life and into the process of discernment, as some viewers live-tweeted with other sisters and me while watching the show. I think this is particularly true because of the good will of the sisters and discerners on the show, who tried to be real in their interviews and comments.
Insights that I think could be particularly helpful for those of us who want to live more deeply in a spirit of discernment are:
Insight 1. Do not be afraid, but trust in God! We can often see God’s hand in our lives much more clearly when we look back on an experience, rather than when we are living in it. The most positive moments in the show so far have been when the young women leave one convent for another. In looking back on their experiences there, they talk about being loved, about experiencing God, and about growing as persons.
Yet we have just witnessed that these visits were not easy to go through. So these episodes help us to see that even in the difficult, confusing, or challenging moments of our lives, we need to cling to hope: God will use every event to draw us closer to himself, if we let him. This insight bears repeating for all of us: Do not be afraid! Trust in God, no matter where you are because he is with you.
Insight 2. The power of Eucharistic adoration in discerning. As a Pauline sister, I have a special love for Eucharistic adoration. My favorite description of adoration is something that St. John Paul said when he encouraged young people to go before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and simply “let him love you.”
If you already pray before Jesus in the Eucharist regularly, you know how blessed we are to be able to take advantage of his presence, his love, his availability! When you take quality time with Jesus in the Eucharist—at Mass, receiving Communion, or making some time for adoration—Jesus will transform the rest of your life as well. You cannot, will not, walk away unchanged.
If you don’t already make an occasional or regular Eucharistic Hour of adoration, I encourage you to consider it, perhaps by starting with just 20 minutes. There is something about the tangible closeness and vulnerability of Jesus in the Eucharist that can pierce through our blindness and defenses, helping us understand how loved we are, and how faithful his love is.
For those for whom the silence of adoration is really hard, there can be for a number of reasons, but I hear two reasons repeatedly:
1) We simply don’t know what to do with the silence.
2) When we are silent for a time, all the negative stuff–thoughts, feelings, or experiences–that we carry within us come to the fore, and we’re not expecting that. It can make any time of silence difficult, including time of adoration. It can be really hard if we feel that we have to be “extra-holy” to come to adoration. But what better place to deal with the “tough stuff” of our lives than with our loving Lord? In the Eucharist, Jesus welcomes and loves us. Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves, and delights in us, no matter what we are struggling with. And when we draw close to him in the Eucharist, we are inviting him to work in us, to heal us, to help us to grow.
What can we do if we struggle with the silence? Here are a couple quick suggestions:
(For more on Eucharistic adoration, you may wish to check out my book, Soul of Christ: Meditations on a Timeless Prayer, or another book on Eucharistic prayer.)
Insight 3. Discernment is not about proving ourselves; it’s about love. None of us are “worthy” of being loved or being called to love. If we honestly know ourselves and ponder the heights of each vocation to love—whether it is the vocation to consecrated life, single life, or marriage—all of us find ourselves lacking.
Several times during the show, a young woman referred to “proving” herself to God, or “redeeming” herself in the eyes of others. This highlights for me again that the show can be misleading about competition and comparisons. Discernment is about discovering that we are loved by God deeply and wondrously, and then responding to God’s amazing love.
Discernment is about discovering our call to love.
4. God works with each of us individually. There are commonalities within discernment, but there is also the truth that God has a unique relationship with each one of us.
Every young woman experienced something remarkably different in the aftermath of several events, for example, praying the Rosary in the car after Darnell showed up to bring Eseni home (and thus short-circuit her discernment). From bringing back painful memories for Stacey and prompting her to feel lost, to offering light and clarity for Christie, this moment showed how unique each woman’s journey is. God’s individual guidance was also very clear during the young women’s different responses to the quiet time of Eucharistic adoration. Some of the young women were deeply touched and one had a breakthrough, while some found the adoration time very difficult—with one young woman needing to leave for some fresh air. (Note: It might have been helpful if the young women had some guidance in how to make an hour of adoration, especially for those who hadn’t done it before.) Because discernment is so individual, a group experience like this—while it has its strengths—also needs to take into account where each young person is. Obviously this wasn’t possible in a show like this.
* * *
Although the young women and sisters offered a lot of support to the young women discerning, both Episodes 3 & 4 had moments that really challenged me to continue watching, when certain behaviors contradicted Gospel values that are sought to be lived intensely in religious life. Especially the moments where participants of the show talk about others on camera, it’s hard for me to see the charity at work there amidst the comparisons, even knowing the comments are taken out of context. As one of our sisters, @SrSeanM so eloquently put in Twitter-verse nuggets last week:
“I figured out what’s bugging me about #TheSisterhood. They’re treating #discernment like religious life Boot Camp. And it’s so not!”
“#Discernment NOT a matter of seeing whether or not you measure up! It’s a matter of discovering what you are called to.”
“There are no short-cuts to creating a deep loving relationship. Love takes time and persistence. #Vocation is a call to love.”
Ultimately, discernment is a call to love: to discover how loved we are, and to respond to that immense, divine love! I close this post as I have in the past: by praying for the discerners on the show and watching the show. The prayer below is adapted from the prayer given to us by our Founder, Blessed James Alberione, to encourage prayer for priestly and religious vocations:
Jesus, Divine Master, who said, “The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few,” we lovingly accept your invitation: “Pray the heavenly Father to send forth laborers into his harvest.”
Inspire a devout crusade for vocations: “All the faithful for all vocations!” More priests! May they be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the city placed on the mountaintop for the salvation of humanity redeemed by your blood. More religious–both men and women–to fill the earth with religious houses which welcome your chosen ones, and which will be centers of light and warmth, sources of prayer, gardens of saints, singing “glory to God and peace to men and women of good will.” More husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, who testify to your Gospel in the world, at work, in the family, and in the loving formation of their children.
Mary, “God’s chosen one,” Mother and guardian of holy vocations, pray with us, pray for us, and for all called by God to live our vocations in greater love and holiness. Amen.
Co-Author Your Life with God 
