How to Discern

Reflect Upon The Following Before Starting Discernment

• Who have been the people most present in my life?

• What has my relationship been to them?

• How have they influenced me positively and negatively?

• Who has had the most impact on me?

• Reflect on your experience of family

  • What have I learned?

  • What do I value?

  • What do I want to let go of?

Educational Experience

• What schools did I attend. How have they affected my perception of God ?

• What did I like, dislike, favorite memories, activities, friends, significant events, people?

• What did I learn about life that I want to keep? What gets in the way?

Social and Sexual Development

• What do I enjoy doing with others?

• What do I do in order to fit in?

• What do I find relaxing and renewing?

• Who have I dated, what circumstances?

• What has been my relationship to men?

• What has been my relationship to women?

• Review your sexual history.

  • From whom did you first learn about the gift of sexuality?

  • What have been your experiences as a child, teen, young adult, now?

  • What impact have various relationships had on you?

Work History

• Jobs held, how long, where, colleges, preparation for positions, responsibility, initiative.

• What did you learn and what skills did you acquire in each job or preparation process?

Faith Experience

• What's your earliest recollection of God?

• Who taught you about God?

• Who has had the greatest influence in faith development?

• How was church, faith, God in your family?

• What practices do you do to care for your faith life?

• Where did you learn about these practices?

• Who is God in your life?

• Name your experiences of the Divine in your life.

• How did that feel, what impact did these have?

• How do you see God in the everyday circumstances of your life?

• How do you nurture this relationship?

Life Choice

• When did you first think of religious life?

• What has been the pattern in this?

• Why religious life? What about marriage? or single life?

The XI Steps of Discernment

• Go to Eucharistic Adoration for an hour per week and spend time in prayer asking God what your vocation is. Specifically ask him for guidance and insight. Specifically pray this prayer:

• Ask Jesus Christ to be part of both major and minor decisions in your life, and be attentive to the fruit of the Holy Ghost (joy, peace, gratitude, etc.) to make sure what you chose is what God wanted. Practicing this in small things will get the mind and soul used to this practice for vocational discernment. 

• Speak with people who live out different vocations (married, religious sister or brother, priests) about the blessings and challenges of their vocations.

• Ask people whom you trust and respect, including your parish priest of spiritual director, for guidance as to how they think God might be asking you to love.

• Be active in the life of the Church and volunteer regularly for parish events.

• Participate in evening vespers on Sundays at your church.

• If you are male, serve at the altar for The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

• Visit monasteries, seminaries, or convents and experience what life there is like. 

• Participate in the sacraments, study the faith, theology, doctrine, and apologetics, and spend more time throughout the day in personal prayer.

• Learn and follow the Church's primary teachings for growing in holiness.

• Develop and understand your particular gifts, and where those overlap with the needs of each calling. (Successful discernment also includes discovering what gifts you don't possess.)

Films on Discernment