Seeking Fulfillment

Key Discernment Questions: Who am I & What do I want?

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 2 Comments

We continue to use the storytelling lens to reflect on the importance of coming to know ourselves and our motivations.

hand-534867_1280Our God-given identity is often expressed in our deepest desires and needs, as well as by our choices and actions. Knowing that we are made in the image of God as well as weak and sinful, it’s crucial that we come to know ourselves and our inner life well. This includes knowing our motivations, too. For example, if we are kind to someone, we can have any of the following motivations—or a mix of them—for that one act of kindness:

  • trying to please the person who is with us
  • hope to get something back from the person we are being kind to
  • a sense of duty
  • the genuine virtue of love

Many times, if we are honest with ourselves, our motivations will be mixed. No matter how simple or complex they are, when we know our motivations, we are better able to freely choose what will make us deeply happy.

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Here is a rather extreme example. In the Middle Ages, sometimes women entered religious life because it seemed a path to greater independence in a time when women’s equality with men was not commonly understood or respected, especially married women. Circumstances often pushed women to seek the relative freedom of religious life even if they weren’t called. And a woman in such a situation might feel attracted to life in the convent. If she didn’t know herself well, she might have thought her attraction to the convent was a call from God rather then her own need to escape a loveless marriage or oppressive circumstances. Trapped in difficult situations, many women who weren’t called opted for religious life. As a result, some convents became quite lax because many of the sisters were not following a call from God but seeking escape.

Our deepest needs and desires—the ones that have been placed in us by God—will motivate us and shape our entire lives.

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My own personality was and still is shaped by a deep need for meaning and purpose in my life. I think I’ve always been this way, and to this day, my need for purpose and meaning continues to be very important to me. I know that this need can even make me see, a bit more serious than other people—at least on the surface. When I visited the sisters as a teenager, I was drawn to them partly because I thought that living their apostolate of contemplative prayer and active mission would give my life more meaning.  (When I got home, I tried to live a little bit of a convent schedule, and ended up frustrated and discouraged!)

Ultimately, my need for meaning and purpose in life became one of my main motivations for entering religious life, and I think it continues to influence me—even in difficult moments— because I can find joy as long as I continue to feel that I’m living my life’s purpose—drawing closer to Christ and sharing his love with the world.

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To Journal About

Think back on some of the major choices you’ve made in your life. If you can, pick three. For each one, reflect on the following questions:

* What was the driving factor or motivation in each decision that you made?

* What inner needs or desires were you seeking to fulfill by making that decision?

What’s the connection between deep desire and discernment?

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 1 Comment

Anna_Brassey_438-victorian-woman-writing-jornalThe driving force of any story is the protagonist’s deepest needs and desires, because they determine what the protagonist chooses and does. Think of Will Smith’s character in the film The Pursuit of Happyness. Or Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. 

Whenever we are discerning, we want to become more mindful of our deepest needs and desires. (Deep desires go much deeper than a passing urge, such as our appetite for chocolate or ice cream. “Deep desire” means desires that well from deep within our soul, such as the longing for happiness, etc.)  Just like in a movie, our needs and desires drive our choices—often without our knowing it. So the more aware we can become of what we want and need, the more honest and free our discernment becomes.

When writing a story, the writer has to write two stories that are deeply connected: the outer story with events, plot, obstacles, and other characters; and the inner story of the protagonist’s growth with the protagonist’s desires, needs, and choices. In a good story, these two stories are so deeply connected that it’s the resolution of both the inner and outer challenges that make a powerful ending.

Just as a good story has both an inner and outer story, so does a good discernment. In our world today, it’s easy to spend time focusing on the outer story: What are the needs of the world today? What do my family and friends tell me about myself? What does this spiritual book tell me? What is Pope Francis saying about the needs of the Church and how to live our Christian vocation?

All of these are important and critical when we discern. Yet the most critical place to listen to the voice of God is interior: within us. The basis for any discernment is our relationship with God. If we do not pray, we cannot hear the voice of God—often the whisper of God—within us.

When we discern, we also need to go within, to listen to God speaking and working within us. Our deepest desires often express our God-given identity! It’s just as important to pay attention to the voice of God within as it is to pay attention to how God speaks to us through events, circumstances, and people in our lives. Discernment involves weighing the different “voices” that I hear—from within, from outside—and discovering which is God’s call.

Our interior journey—our understanding of who we are, and our needs and desires—will profoundly influence and shape our response to God’s call in our choices and actions.

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To Journal About

  • Make a list of the ten things in life that are most important to you.
  • When you’re finished, bring that list with you before the Lord in prayer, and ask him to reveal his priorities for you.

The Story of God’s Saving Love

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 2 Comments

Young Preschooler Reading A BookI love stories. I can’t remember how old I was when I finally started to read “real books” on my own (readers with big type weren’t “real” books), but once I started, I couldn’t stop. One summer, my mom got so tired of telling me to stop reading and go play with my brothers and sisters, that she made a rule: I could read only one book a day. I was devastated until I decided that I would live according to the spirit (not the letter) of the rule: I would read only two books a day. I’m sure some bibliophiles will understand that this compromise was still a big sacrifice for me.

But my love for stories is not the only reason I chose to look at discernment through the lens of storytelling. Storytelling is a helpful framework for exploring discernment because we often see patterns in our lives as stories. We seek to give meaning to the events in our lives by looking at them as part of a larger story. While it’s possible to see our days and weeks as if they are made up of discrete, disconnected events, when we step back to look over our lives, we group different events together, giving them a context or a framework that connects them to a larger purpose or meaning: the story of our lives.

When I first started studying theology, I was impressed that my teachers would repeatedly talk about the centuries of biblical times as salvation history. With eyes of faith, the history of the world—the World’s Story—must also be salvation history, and I think we will recognize in heaven that all of earth’s history is one big revelation of God’s saving love for all humanity. And all of our unique and individual stories will fit within the overarching Story of God’s saving love.

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To Journal:

Do I intuitively look at my life as a story?

How do I see events in my daily life? As random, fragmented, disconnected events? Or as a series of events that are leading towards something? Why?

Discernment is…a living relationship with all creation!

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

Every once in a while, I’ll post one of my favorite quotations from Father Marko Ivan Rupnik’s book, Discernment: Acquiring the Heart of God. I had a little problem with the size, but if you click on the title or image, you can read it more easily. Here is today’s quotation:

Discernment Blog Backgrounds

Discerning in Daily Life

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 1 Comment

02 F (GS)Discernment is not just about big decisions. Discernment is a spiritual art, an attitude of seeking God’s will that we can take into our daily life. As our relationship with God deepens and grows, discernment naturally seems to become more and more a part of our daily life, even to our daily decisions. Even the small decisions can have untold influence on the story of our lives or the lives of others.

When I first wondered if I was called to religious life, I thought discernment was a one-time thing I needed to do—to discover my vocation. I believe that God gently led my young self through the steps of discernment, and I entered religious life. I thought I had finished discerning.

But as I traveled further into religious life, I found that, even when I finished my initial discernment regarding my vocation (which lasted several years), I had to continue discerning within my vocation. Especially when I was confronted by large questions, such as being asked to take on a particular assignment, I felt the need to discern God’s will. I wanted to live God’s story for me, so I brought these big questions to prayer and discerned, within the context of my vow of obedience, which apostolic work was God’s will for me.

Gradually, I started to feel the need to discern smaller apostolic choices within the assigned field of my ministry. For example, now every time I write a book, I spend at least several weeks discerning if it’s God’s will that I write that particular book. (Any writer will tell you that choosing one’s next book–which can take from a few months to several years to write–is not a small decision!) Is God calling me to respond to this particular need, to reach out to this particular group of people? How is he calling me to do that? What is it about this topic that God invites me to learn, deepen, and share with others? How will writing this book fulfill the mission that God has given me as a Daughter of Saint Paul? How will writing this book shape how I live my story, and my community?

After discernment became such an important part of my writing, it started to “leak” into my daily life—especially difficult choices. Long ago, I used to just trust common sense, the inspiration of the moment, and the intentions that I placed in my morning offering. But now, I try to bring a spirit of discernment to these daily choices. This allows me to be more mindful about seeking God’s will all the time, not just with big decisions.

But I still have a long way to go before I can claim to truly seek God’s will in everything. That’s my desire, but other things—like selfishness, a desire to please others, or fear of conflict—still get in the way. Making these daily little discernments helps to shape my larger life story, and makes me more receptive to God’s invitations—no matter how big or small, how obvious or subtle.

To Journal and Share

  • What discernments have I already done?
  • What kinds of things do I feel are important for me to discern?

What are you discerning?

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

02 D (me)In light of God’s Storyview (see several previous posts),  let’s break down/explore the first key to an authentic discernment, which answers a key discernment question:

What can we discern?

When I first saw the great classic film, The Godfather, I was riveted by the core dramatic question: Was the younger son Michael Corleone going to become the next padrone? The film brilliantly explores moral choice; how one chooses what one will do with one’s life, including the complexity of intentions; the responsibility of those surrounded by an evil that has become systematized; the attractiveness of evil disguised as protecting one’s family; the insidious process of corruption from within. But as brilliant an exploration of good and evil this film is, The Godfather is never about discernment, because becoming part of the mafia is aligning one’s self with evil, and is thus a choice for evil, no matter what a person’s intentions are.

If a choice involves an option that is sinful, it’s not a situation where we need to discern God’s will. Instead, it’s a situation in which we need to pray for the wisdom to make a good moral decision and for the moral strength to resist temptation and respond to God’s grace.

Very often when Catholics hear the word “discern,” they associate it with vocational discernment, e.g., a person seeking to discover whether their vocation is to marriage, single life, consecrated life, or priesthood. (Or in some cases, a combination of two.)

Vocational state is a great example of what to discern because all the states in life are inherently good. Discernment is always between good things. God, who is Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, is always going to invite us to truth, goodness, and beauty. God cannot contradict himself; God’s will for us can never be something morally wrong.

One of my favorite movies about discernment is Amazing Grace, the story of two crises (and two discernments) in the life of William Wilberforce, an Englishman who dedicated his life to end slavery in Great Britain. If you have the opportunity, I encourage you to see the film using the “lens” of discernment. Several principles of discernment that we’ll look at here on this blog are well depicted in the movie, which I will highlight and reflect on in a later (soon to come!) “Discernment @ the Movies” guide.

Pen_UncappedTo Journal About:

  • What difficult moral choices am I facing in my life? What can I do to gain the wisdom and strength to make a good decision?
  • What in my life do I want or need to discern? What are the “goods” that I am discerning between?

God’s Story for Us

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

01A choice 2 (me)Oops! There’s a catch there in my last post when I said I love my plans. The catch is that I don’t just enjoy making plans and rejoicing when they work well. I actually become invested in my plans, to the point that I can make my security revolve around my plans–how well they are working, etc. If you are one of those people that rejoice in saying, “It’s all going according to plan,” then you might also be in danger of absolutizing your plan…or at the very least, making it more important than it was ever meant to be.

Because a plan is a very temporary thing, meant to serve the needs of the moment. It’s not meant to be something that takes over our lives, that becomes more important than its purpose, or the people it involves, even ourselves.

Yet plans can be incredibly helpful and important–in keeping a group on track, in juggling many things at one time, in achieving goals that, without a lot of careful planning, might otherwise be impossible.

Whether you are a pantser or a planner, whether you love plans or hate them, or whether you are somewhere in-between–loving the organization that plans bring, but longing for more spontaneity–you probably aren’t neutral to plans.

The problem with any plan is that it isn’t perfect. No matter how many contingencies we anticipate, it’s likely that something will come up that we couldn’t foresee. And then the plan must be adjusted or replaced with another.

The good news is that the most important plan for you is perfect: perfect for you wherever you are, and flexible when your situation changes, or when you want to shift directions. What plan is that, you wonder? God’s plan.

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Vocational Insight: Religious Life*

For all of us, the future is unknowable. As a religious with the vow of obedience, I don’t have the stability of creating my own plan, of knowing where I’m going to live, or the work that I’m going to be doing. While others can take this stability and this sense of control for granted, they are not part of my life. Often, I have no clue of what’s coming next. I cannot count the times when I’ve needed to change plans for the mission that I’m carrying out midstream. And I honestly never know for sure where I will be or what I will be doing a year from now. Although this might sound difficult to live, the security I have in living the vow of obedience is worth it:

Living well the vow of obedience offers me the certainty that I am doing God’s will, however unexpected it may be.

My vow of obedience demands that I trust in a larger plan that is not my own: in God’s plan for me, as mediated through my superiors. Though at times I may struggle in the moment (or the first weeks or months) to accept God’s plan for me, the truth is that every time I’ve been able to step back and look at my life, it’s clear that God’s love guides the story of my life. God’s plan has proven  over and over again to be the best for me.

*For those who are  discerning their vocations, I’ll occasionally offer an insight from the various states in life. Naturally, since I’m a religious sister, my personal insights will most often be about religious life. But I’ll try to find others to offer spiritual insights into the vocation to marriage, priesthood, and the single life too.

God Dreams with Us, Not for Us

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

DSC03070One of the traps that we can fall into when we’re trying to discern something is to think that God has one precise and perfect way picked out for us, and woe to us if we take a wrong step. We mix up God’s knowledge of the future with God’s will, imagining that God already wrote the complete story of our lives, and that we really don’t have free will. That’s a pretty robotic view of human nature, and it’s far from the Church’s teaching about the human person. (See the Catechism of the Catholic Church, numbers: 1704, 1705, 1711, 1731, among many others.)

1. God doesn’t abandon us if we don’t pursue his dream for us—he always loves us and continues to invite us towards a closer relationship with him, up to the last moments of our lives.

2. God knows us better than we know ourselves, and God is all-wise, so whatever God wants is a perfect fit for us. His dream for us is exactly what we want at our deepest core, we just don’t always know it.

3. God’s dream for us isn’t created apart from us. It might be more accurate to say that God dreams with us, not for us. With the Holy Spirit, we are co-protagonists in the story of our lives.

4. God values our free will so much that he invites us (not forces us) into a loving relationship with him. Similarly, he invites us to enter into his dream for us. We choose how we respond to God’s invitations. God respects our freedom, and is more than willing to work with whatever steps we take, especially when we are sincerely seeking his will for us. Even when our steps seem to be going in the opposite direction, God is able to turn things around in the blink of an eye. The cliché “God writes straight with crooked lines” totally fits here—although it’s not complete. It’s even more than that! God seems to delight in working with our littleness, even with our limitations.

(We have a powerful reminder of this as we approach Christmas: God delights so much in working with human littleness that, when he took on human nature, he was born a little Baby.)

God Has a Dream for You

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment
Not sure where the path is leading...

Not sure where the path is leading…

After I entered religious life, I was almost immediately assigned to proofreading as a way of taking part in the Pauline mission.* Already a bookworm, I loved it there because I got to read almost half of the new books that our sisters published that year. And I became a pretty good proofreader, too. It seemed the perfect fit.

About two years later, I was assigned to the newly developing Pauline Video studio. I was flabbergasted. Why would anyone in their right mind take me away from books and throw me into a department that required talent in visual arts and a combination of skills that I knew I didn’t have: creativity, technical skills, and an ability to design? As I struggled with the new assignment, one of the sisters told me, “God knows us better than we know ourselves. You wait and see: God will show you why you’ve been sent there.”

It took me a number of years to figure out what a marvelous gift God gave me in transferring me to the video studio. Working in a small studio where everyone has to help out in many areas—out of sheer necessity—stretched me to develop talents I’d had no idea I had. And it also gave me many opportunities to write. Although I’d never thought about writing a script before, it became my favorite form to write in. Sometimes God’s co-authorship gives our stories a plot turn that we do not expect!

Over the years, I have learned to trust that God always has a reason for leading us—God wants to lead us closer to himself, and closer to the fulfillment of God’s dream for us.

And God’s dream for us is better than we could ever possibly imagine!

*The Daughters of Saint Paul have the mission of communicating Christ through their lives and all forms of media.

The best discernment partner ever!

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

Due to our internet going down, I haven’t been able to post here or on Twitter since Thursday. Happily, we are up and running this morning!

Also, it’s my understanding that Lifetime will run the last two episodes of The Sisterhood: Becoming Nuns from 10 PM-Midnight EST tomorrow night. As before, the #RealPostulants and #MediaNuns will be tweeting about it, using the hashtag #TheSisterhood. I’ll also try to put my commentary up Wednesday morning. (Although I’m definitely going to be short on sleep!)

REQUEST FOR YOUR HELP: If you are watching The Sisterhood, feel free to tweet questions about discernment to me @SisterMPaul, and I will answer them on this blog! (Or you can simply email me anytime or put a question in the comments on any post.) God bless you!

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Photo by Sr. M. Emmanuel Alves, fsp. © Daughters of St. Paul.

© Daughters of St. Paul. Photo: Sr. M. Emmanuel Alves, fsp

We do not discern alone.

Does it surprise you to discover that you have a partner ready to help you sort out your life? A partner who wants the best for you, who understands you better than you do yourself, who knows what will bring you the greatest happiness and fulfillment, who can bring to life your deepest dreams, who respects your freedom, who waits for you to ask for guidance?

This perfect partner is the God who created you out of love and for love, who died to save you and bring you greater freedom, and who now not only sustains your every breath but desires to walk with you and enliven your daily journey with joy, peace, and fulfillment.

The God who knows you better than you know yourself created you with a specific mission in mind. Yes, God has a dream for each of us, and shares with us our deepest dreams for ourselves—dreams of being our best selves, of living lives of purpose, meaning, and love.

God is with you on every step of your journey: previous, present, and future. When we remember that we have the perfect Partner to discern with, a Partner who shares our deepest dreams, we no longer need to fear the uncertainty of sorting through our lives on our own. Because we are not alone. God’s dreams—God’s story for you—are beyond all your cherished hopes and dreams.

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Daily Discernment Tip

Today, pray this simple prayer of trust several times: Lord, I trust in Your dream for me.