Steps of Discernment

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STEP 1:

Know that the Lord has created you for a specific mission in the world

The Lord has loved you into being, and since the moment of your conception He has had a plan for your life. He has created you totally unique. There is no one else in the world quite like you, and he wanted you to be here in this world. You are not an add-on, an extra, an afterthought, or luggage in this world. You are essential, indispensable and important. Jesus Christ has created you and you alone for some specific mission, and wants to reveal it to you.

Jesus loves you so much that He invites you to help Him save the world. Of course He alone is the Savior, but He opens up His life to us that we too may share in his mission of salvation. He is calling you. He is calling you to help Him in his salvation of the world. This is what we mean by vocation. So the first step in discerning your vocation is to understand that God has created you out of love and in His love invites you to share in his work of saving the world.

STEP 2:

Accept the Lord's love and His choice for you

The second step in discerning the vocation is to open yourself to the Lord's love. He told His apostles and now He is saying to you: "It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you."

In order to hear His call we have to receive His love. He asks you to accept His love in spite your past mistakes, your weaknesses, your ignorance, your confusion ... in spite of everything. He wants to overflow your heart with His love. Your task is to be open to receive. Without God's grace nothing good happens in this world, and so we need to receive His grace. His grace enables us to respond say "Yes" to his call.

Let Him free you so that you can say "Yes" to His choice for your life. His choice for you is far better than any choice you can come up with yourself. After all, He made you. He knows you better than you know yourself. He wants to make you happy and fulfilled, and knows that only by doing His will can we be free, happy, fulfilled and at peace. As the great poet Dante wrote, "In His will is our peace." This is often the step that is most challenging to even the faithful Christian. To say "Yes" to God without conditions is to put our lives radically at His disposal. When we say, "Not my will but Your will be done," we are handing over to Him our plans, our ideas, our goals, our very selves. This can be frightening, but it is only in His Will that we will find peace in this life and in the world to come.

His Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament is a primary way in which we encounter and accept His love and then give ourselves in return. In every Mass, He invites us to unite ourselves to Him in His Sacrifice on Calvary. In the Liturgy of the Word, He cuts us with His Word from Holy Scripture which is "sharper than any two edged sword", so that He can pour His very self into us. In the Liturgy of the Eucharist we see the Word become Flesh before our very eyes, and then receive Him into our flesh in Holy Communion. In every Mass, we join our Blessed Lord in His act of sacrificing Himself for the salvation of the world, and receive from the altar His very Body and Blood. The Mass is the primary place where this giving and acceptance of His love happens. To find your vocation, going to Mass faithfully and often is extremely important.

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