King David had a brilliant idea to build a temple for the ark of the Lord. He knew it was not right for him to be in his palace while the ark of the Lord was in a tent. The timing also seemed right, “King David was settled in his palace, and the Lord had given him rest from his enemies on every side.” He even received the blessing of the prophet Nathan, “Go, do whatever you have in mind, for the Lord is with you.”
But God refused to have David build a temple for Him. On the contrary, He would be the one to establish a house for David, one that would endure forever, “The Lord also reveals to you that He will establish a house for you.”(Sam 7:1-5, 8-12, 14,16) This prophecy is fulfilled in the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ.
There is a serious lesson for all of us from this passage. We may have a good plan with good intentions. The timing may even be right to implement our plan. But it may not be what God wants from us at that moment. This is why we must be ready to discern at each moment what God wills for us at that moment.
Reflecting on the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we see that she did not immediately say “Yes” to the Angel Gabriel. She did not rush to pronounce her “Fiat” because of the mere presence of the awesome archangel. She did not consent simply because the angel praised her as “Full of grace.” She did not consent because she liked the plan or because she found it pleasant and possible. She also did not consent because the angel told her she had “found favor with God,” or because of the grandness and beauty of the plan announced to her.
Mary consented only when she sensed that this angel before her was indeed from God and that His message was also from God. She pronounced her Fiat only when she sensed the presence and action of God in this encounter, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you…Elizabeth, your relative has also conceived a son in her old age…For nothing will be impossible for God.” Then she pronounced her fiat, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, May it be done to me according to your word.”(Lk 1:26-38) She rightly discerned the presence and action of God first while remaining completely open to what God was revealing to her.
We need this discerning heart today in all things, most especially in the Church. There has been a lot of justifiable uproar recently on the Vatican declaration, Fiducia Supplicans, which granted permission for the blessing of people in same-sex unions under certain conditions. Many supporters of this declaration try to justify it by repeatedly harping that what is being blessed are the persons and not their sinful homosexual unions.
This is where the deception comes in through the declaration’s ambiguous statements. Many have rightly called out this deception because it is impossible to bless the persons in such union without actually blessing the sinful unions themselves for the simple reason that it is the union that makes them a couple in the first place. Let us reflect on the insightful words of Cardinal Gerhard Müller calling out the contradiction in the document and its deceptive language:
“Notice that not only sinful persons are blessed here, but that by blessing the couple, it is the sinful relationship itself that is blessed. Now, God cannot send his grace upon a relationship that is directly opposed to him and cannot be ordered toward him. Sexual intercourse outside of marriage, qua sexual intercourse, cannot bring people closer to God and therefore cannot open itself to God’s blessing. Therefore, if this blessing were given, its only effect would be to confuse the people who receive it or who attend it. They would think that God has blessed what He cannot bless. This “pastoral” blessing would be neither pastoral nor a blessing. It is true that Cardinal Fernandez, in later statements to Infovaticana, said that it is not the union that is blessed, but the couple. However, this is emptying a word of its meaning, since what defines a couple as couple is precisely there being a union.”
In short, what the good Cardinal is saying is that such a blessing is both impossible and deceptive.
Consequently, this document has disturbed the peace and seriously divided the Church on different levels. It is indeed a reminder to us that we must discern all things today. We Catholics cannot just pray, pay, and obey as we used to be told to do in the past. For whatever reason, a spirit of deception has crept into Church documents, mixing poisonous ideas about faith and morals with beautiful-sounding pastoral language laced with deliberately ambiguous and deceptive statements. We cannot just be passive anymore, unreflectively accepting everything we hear because it comes from the Vatican, or from someone with a miter, or from some so-called experts. Like Mary, we must remain open to what God is offering to us but subject all things to proper discernment first.
This is exactly what St. Paul asks of the Christians in Thessalonica, “Do not stifle the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test everything. Retain what is good. Avoid any semblance of evil. May the God of peace make you perfect in holiness” (1Thes 5:19-24). Our holiness and our peace of mind depend on how well we discern all things and apply them in our lives.
We should not reject or immediately close ourselves off from the Spirit of prophecy in the Church but subject everything to true spiritual discernment. This means that guided by the prophetic Spirit of truth and not public opinion or personal whims, we sift through everything, looking to find and embrace all things that come from God and lead to God and immediately rejecting anything that resembles evil in any way or can lead to evil.
Here are some practical steps to practice this spiritual discernment.
First, we must cultivate the heart of Mary. Mary is resolved to do the will of God always with love no matter the cost or the consequences. She listens to God speaking to her through angelic and human intermediaries like St. Joseph, Elizabeth, the shepherds in the fields, Simeon in the temple, etc., She always listens for the voice of God in every event and situation so that she can respond appropriately and do what is pleasing to God, “She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.”
We cannot find the will of God in any situation if we are not resolved to fulfill His will in our lives. We cannot do proper discernment if we are still seeking to abuse God’s gift, especially the gift of sex. Only when we resolve to please God and not satisfy ourselves can we discern His will.
Secondly, we must live a life of ongoing conversion. A life of sin makes us selfish and self-centered, making true discernment of God’s will impossible. We cannot discern God’s will properly when we have so many inordinate attachments that hinder our freedom. We cannot discern God’s will when we are saying things like, “I must have……,” or “I cannot do without….” Freedom from sin’s bondage and appropriate affective freedom make good spiritual discernment possible.
Thirdly, we must ask ourselves the following pertinent questions about the choices before us:
- Does this choice before us conform to the revealed will of God as found in Sacred Scripture and Tradition? The will of God for us at any moment must have a scriptural basis and must not contradict the Church’s Tradition. We have no business with anything that contradicts divine revelation.
- Does this choice or idea place Christ at the center of our lives? The will of God for us at any moment brings us to complete dependence on Jesus Christ, submission to Him, and greater conformity with Him. We are not doing the will of God when we make choices based on personal satisfaction alone or choose in a way that makes us more centered on and dependent on ourselves and not on God. Only by submitting to Jesus and having an intimate relationship with Him can we actually see what is pleasing to Him in the choices before us.
- Does this choice or idea foster abiding inner peace and unity with others? The will of God must leave us with deep peace from God, even if it demands great sacrifices and suffering from us. God’s will surely leaves us with deep peace, hope, and inner strength and makes us agents of authentic unity. You can tell the will of God is ignored when the choices we make breed nothing but disunity and conflicts.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we celebrate the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, we rejoice that He is always with us. He is always inspiring us to do great things for Him by His grace.
The evil one is also with us all the time, tempting us directly and through his agents to do evil things with the gifts that God has given to us. He is always tempting us to do evil under the appearance of good. He is doing this in our personal lives, in the world, and even in the Church.
This Christmas, let us beg our Lord Jesus Christ for the gift of a discerning heart and likewise for the grace to do good spiritual discernment today and always. Why is this always important? Our holiness and our peace of mind depend on how well we discern all things.
Blessed Christmas.
Glory to Jesus! Honor to Mary!
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
