More Rules for Discernment.

How do we decide about whether to participate in a hospital strike, or how to respond to homelessness, or whether to marry Ben, or to enter religious life or ministry? On what basis? By what criteria? In matters like these, in the wide-open space beyond moral minimums, we follow the Spirit. The Spirit guides by consolation, but not by consolation alone. Nor is consolation infallible. (Brackley, 142)

Do you have rules for making important decisions in your life?

I don't necessarily mean that you have them written down or delineated by subset - I imagine most of us don't. But perhaps, in the course of making decisions through different stages of your life, you've learned certain things, and you've tried to remember them, and you've tried to bring them to bear on the decisions you make today.

And then maybe, much to your chagrin, you've discovered that it doesn't always work.

Sometimes we do our best to think through an important decision, remembering everything we've learned and using all of the available data at hand, and yet: The choice we made still seemed to be the wrong one in the end.

In cases like these, the wisdom Ignatius offers us is this:

God our Creator continues to love us first. Christ continues to walk with us. And the Spirit continues to lead us on, further and further into God's project. We are justified by grace, held in the arms of an unfathomable love, even when we fall short.

And then, once we've re-grounded ourselves in that gospel, we might take another look at our "Rules for Discernment" - the things we've learned over time about what leads to wise decisions. We might pull those things out into the open, and take a look at them again. Maybe we'll notice something we missed the last time.

There's always more to notice, after all, in the holy gifts that are our lives.

Thanks be to God. Amen.