We continue to discuss the seven attitudes that carry importance in a serious discerner, the first four of which, addressed in recent discernment blogs, are openness, generosity, courage, and interior freedom. The fifth attitude is prayerfulness, that is, assuming the discipline of reflection in prayer on one’s experiences. A serious discerner needs to be listening to the Spirit within. God speaks softly, gently in the depths of our hearts. God’s call will not be heard if one is not listening. Cell phones, iPods, Droids, TVs, the Internet need to be shut off and one needs to recede into solitude. A prayerful decision, obviously, assumes one is in prayer for a minimum of twenty minutes or more on a daily basis. Twenty minutes, even, may not be enough to quiet an active mind, to put oneself in God’s presence and listen to God speaking within one’s depth. Source: Discernment of Spirits by Warren Sazama, SJ, National Religious Vocation Conference, Chicago, IL 60615.
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