In this series of Walking with the Church, we journey with the People of God and the whole world as we mourn the death of Pope Francis.
As a vocation director, I was very excited when I discovered about halfway through 2022 that Pope Francis was dedicating the talks at his Wednesday audiences to the theme of discernment. In my role, I do a lot of thinking and reflecting and praying about what discernment is, how to make a good discernment, and how to walk with people in vocational discernment. So I immediately dove into Pope Francis’ talks on the topic.
As a Jesuit, Pope Francis was well-versed in the art of Ignatian discernment. This came out consistently in his homilies, speeches, messages, and writings. As I watched his pontificate unfold, I realized that it also came out in the way he interacted with others, the way he served and led as pope, the way he was present in the world, and the way that he called us to be.
Discernment, true discernment, calls us to hold a number of things together in our heart and to wait patiently for the Lord to indicate a step. It calls us to be attentive to the many movements of our heart and the many movements of God in the world around us. It calls us to ponder when to act and when to be still. It calls us to listen and to love.
Pope Francis showed us with his life, even more than he taught us with his words, how to patiently hold many different things together and trustingly wait for the Holy Spirit to move. In fact, I think this may be why some people have sometimes expressed that they found his teaching or his actions confusing—he was willing to begin something, without knowing where it would end. He was willing to welcome the messiness of people and situations, and then wait for the Spirit to make the next move. He had the real openness that true discernment requires.
I believe that Pope Francis wanted us to be a discerning Church, a Church that is habitually present to the Holy Spirit within us and around us. Here are three lessons, or rather three “words,” that I learned from Pope Francis about discernment.
First, familiarity. The basis of discernment is a relationship of familiarity with the Lord, as well as familiarity with ourselves and our story, and with the world around us and how it tugs at our heart. In words very similar to those of Blessed James Alberione, Pope Francis said:
“Prayer is an indispensable aid for spiritual discernment, especially when it involves the affective dimension, enabling us to address God with simplicity and familiarity, as one would speak to a friend. It is knowing how to go beyond thoughts, to enter into intimacy with the Lord, with an affectionate spontaneity…. True prayer is familiarity with and confidence in God.
“… talk to Jesus as a friend talks to another friend. It is a grace we must ask for one another: to see Jesus as our friend, as our greatest friend, our faithful friend…. He remains at the door of our heart…at heart’s reach because he is always faithful” (Pope Francis, Catechesis on Discernment, Sept. 28, 2022).
Second, heart. Years before his last encyclical, “On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ,” Pope Francis was already emphasizing the heart. In terms of discernment, he shared many times that the heart is the place of discernment, the place where we know ourselves, and the place where we encounter God.
“[Discernment] means opening my heart to Jesus, drawing close to Jesus, allowing Jesus to enter into my heart and making us feel his presence. And there we can discern when it is Jesus and when it is us with our thoughts, that so many times are far from what Jesus wants.
“In discernment, it is the heart that speaks to us about God, and we must learn to understand its language” (Pope Francis, Catecheses on Discernment, Sept. 28 and Oct. 19, 2022).
Third, human. I find this word from Pope Francis to be the most reassuring of all. For Pope Francis, discernment is not abstract, theoretical, or disconnected from our real human life. Instead, it is made up of our humanity and of our real life, and it leads us to abundantly and fully living all the realities that life gives us.
“Our life is the most precious ‘book’ we have been given, a book that unfortunately many do not read, or rather they do so too late, before dying. And yet, precisely in that book, one finds what one pointlessly seeks elsewhere.
“This is an invitation I would extend to all of you, and even to myself: ‘Return within yourself. Read your life. Read yourself within, how your journey has been… With serenity. Return within yourself.’
“It is one of the most beautiful and intimate forms of communication, recounting one’s own life. It allows us to discover hitherto unknown things, small and simple but, as the Gospel says, it is precisely from the little things that the great things are born” (Pope Francis, Catechesis on Discernment, Oct. 19, 2022).
With you, with the Church, I thank Pope Francis for the witness of discernment that he left us. It is a witness that invites us—even implores us—to return to our place of encounter with the Lord, to see him there stretching out his hand, and to follow him with joy. In the words of Pope Francis:
“Perhaps we could finally ask [the Lord] to help us know his deepest desire, which God himself has placed in our heart: ‘Lord, may I know my desires, may I be a woman, a man of great desires.’ Perhaps the Lord will give us the strength to make it come true. It is an immense grace, the basis of all the others: to allow the Lord, as in the Gospel, to work miracles for us: ‘Give us desire and make it grow, Lord.’ Because he too has a great desire for us: to make us share in his fullness of life” (Pope Francis, Catechesis on Discernment, Oct. 12, 2022).
