Discerning the Difficult: 3 Tools to Help You Make Decisions
I have tattooed on my left wrist the letters “amdg,” in reference to one of the maxims of St. Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuit order he founded: ad majorem dei gloriam, meaning “for the greater glory of God.” St. Ignatius is one of my mentors and role models, and this phrase is there to remind me of the purpose behind everything I do. As I reflect on the intersection between two of St. Ignatius’ great spiritual exercises, surrender and discernment, I keep coming back to AMDG. The process of discernment should always keep the end - life with God - in mind, and that process often asks us to surrender our own desires or ideas about the future because, ultimately, if something isn’t for the glory of God, it’s not worth doing. However, this was a lesson I had to learn the hard way.
MY STORY
Growing up, I was a planner, a recovering perfectionist, who constantly worked from one goal to another. I did well in middle school to go to the best high school, and I got the perfect grades to get into the best colleges. Then, I worked to get a near perfect GPA and induction into Phi Beta Kappa so that I could get into any graduate program or job I wanted. Alongside this goal setting and achieving, I had a life of prayer and participation in the life of the Church, but my decisions up to this point were always determined by what I wanted, or by my own, and society’s, metrics for success. I think this worked out until college graduation because what God wanted for me happened to align with what I wanted for myself.
Then I was faced with the question: What are you going to do after you graduate from college? This question set me on a year of learning to truly discern God’s will in my life and to truly surrender to His plan.
My drive and passion and other people’s expectations came to a head when I decided to pursue a theology degree at a small Catholic university rather than a science or other more useful degree at a research university. I loved theology and looked forward to studying it, as long as I didn’t fall into the one apparently available option - teaching.
The general response to the question posed about life post graduation tended to assume that I would go into teaching. I had friends and older alumni from my college who had gone on to law school, medical school, and MBA programs with their theology degrees, so I, too, wished to prove that you could do other things with a theology degree. Sadly, a lot of the resistance I felt was due to the view that teaching wouldn’t be a successful enough end to my academic career. My stubbornness continued, and after I graduated from college, I pursued my own path.
Despite all of the advice from my college professors about pursuing a graduate degree in theology, I went to DC, enrolled in a graduate program in history, and aimed to work in museums. I got an awesome internship at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, but I needed to get paid, so I also got a job at the USCCB. Having one foot following my own path and one on the path God was trying to get me to follow, I felt lost, with no idea what I was doing or any clarity about future steps. I began to turn to prayer and, for the first time, to really ask God for help and direction in my life. I finally started the process of letting go of my own plan and trying to figure out what God’s greater one was.
It was a September afternoon and the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception was hosting a viewing of the relics of St. John Bosco at Mass. I stopped by because a Mass honoring a saint’s relics felt like a Catholic bucket list item. St. John Bosco is considered the founder of modern youth ministry and spent his life working toward bringing youth to Christ and founded a religious order that focuses on religious education and ministry. During this Mass, the priest delivered a homily about the need for good religious educators, which felt like it was directed at me.
It was God answering my prayer for probably the hundredth time, but more directly so that I finally heard it. I was being called to teach, not because it’s the only thing to do with a theology degree, but because the gifts and passions God gave me were given for this purpose. So with that experience, I gave up on my own ideas and jumped on board with God’s. This experience was also my first real experience with surrender and the role it plays in discernment.
Since this moment, my life has been about saying yes to the opportunities God lays before me and opening the doors He leaves ajar. Whenever those opportunities seem impossible or the opposite of what I want at the moment, I remember my time in DC and lean into the opportunity. My confidence in God’s plans is rooted in a life of prayer and trust in God’s providence, as well as a lifetime of experience confirming it.
HOW TO MAKE DIFFICULT DECISIONS
So how do we discern what God is calling us to? St. Ignatius would often remind his directees that true discernment can only ever be between two good choices. If one choice is a sinful one, then it should be obvious to us that it’s the wrong choice. This means that whenever we’re presented with two good options, ultimately the path we choose will be a good one and the choice is less about being the “right” one and more about being the “best” one or the one most aligned with the will of God. With that in mind, St. Ignatius arms us with 3 tools for discernment: prayer, feelings, and indifference.
Tayler Crabb, @taylercrabb.
PRAYER
The only way to be truly in tune with God’s will for us is to be in communication with Him, to be practiced in hearing His voice. Our communication style with God is personal and unique and can be developed in a myriad of ways. The important thing is to be rooted and guided by our communication with God so that we can truly choose that which would bring Him glory. The more time we spend in prayer, the more we also grow in our trust in God. Not only do we develop the ability to hear God’s voice more clearly, but we also develop the ability to trust that voice in a way that allows us to surrender our desires to Him. While we are not always in a moment of discernment, we should always be in the practice of prayer. This better prepares us to patiently assess and discover God in the midst of those moments.
FEELINGS & EMOTIONS
Feelings and emotions can be complicated things. They also seem like a weird tool to use to discern and surrender to God’s will. However, St. Ignatius reminds us that our emotions come with being human and therefore are part of the gift of life given by God. They can serve to help us better understand our experiences. As we’re often reminded in the Scripture, God’s voice is one of peace, truth, and love, so whenever we’re making a choice, the more peace we feel, the more confidence we have in it being the best choice, even if it’s the most difficult. In our prayer, we should spend time focusing on how making each of the choices we’re discerning between makes us feel. If the result of one path brings fear, anxiety, or other form of darkness, then it’s probably not the best choice for us, even if it is an objectively good choice. As difficult as it was for me to give up halfway through one graduate program and apply and move to attend another, that choice brought so much peace. As I took each hard step in the direction of teaching, I felt more and more at peace. While that peace didn’t make it easier to do, it did provide comfort in knowing that I was doing it for God and He was with me.
INDIFFERENCE
Indifference seems like St. Ignatius is asking us not to care, however, his specific understanding of indifference is the key to understanding how surrender triumphs over any of the active steps we may be taking in our discernment. By indifference, St. Ignatius means “being detached enough from things, people, or experiences to be able to either take them up or leave them aside, depending on whether they help us to praise, reverence, and serve God” (Spiritual Exercises 23). In other words, our only focus should be God and all else only has a role in our discernment when it aids us in our quest for God.
This indifference means that we take our egos out of the equation and we look at all the available options as equal, assessing only their ability to bring us closer to God and His will. It was a good choice to remain in DC and work toward a museum career just as much as it was for me to give it up and become a teacher. Only when I was able to become detached and indifferent toward what I viewed to be the more successful option was I then able to see that what I had been given by God made more sense following the path of teaching, which would then bring me closer to pointing my life toward God rather than myself.
In his First Principle and Foundation, St. Ignatius writes that
“it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created things as much as we are able, so that we do not necessarily want health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor…so that we ultimately desire and choose only what is most conducive for us to the end for which God created us.”
In other words, “our only desire and our one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to God’s deepening his life in me.” The purpose and goal of our life is eternal life with God and all the moments of choice we have in life are directed toward achieving that goal.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Discernment is important in that it is our active process of seeking out what will lead us to this goal. Surrender plays an equally important role in this process as it constantly reminds us that we don’t always know what’s best for us. What we want and what may feel most comfortable or beneficial to us in the moment, may not be what will bring us peace or joy in the long run. The ability to lean into surrender within our discernment is one that takes prayer, practice, and patience as well as some trial and error at times.
We do our best when we ask ourselves why we want something: is it for my own greater glory or is it for the greater glory of God? To answer this question, the prayer I come back to time and again is one from, no surprise, St. Ignatius called the Suscipe:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will. All that I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.
Meet Victoria Mastrangelo
Victoria is a wife, mother of 3, and high school campus minister in Houston, Tx. Her favorite saints are Edith Stein, John Paul II, Ignatius of Loyola and Dorothy Day who all continue to mentor and inspire her in her love for the feminine genius, Ignatian spirituality, the gospel of life and work for justice. She loves to read multiple books at a time, drink coffee, try new foods, play trivia and hang out at the zoo with her family. Connect with Victoria on Instagram @vimastrangelo.