Then the hand of the Lord came over St. Francis. As soon as he heard this answer and thereby knew the will of Christ, he got to his feet, all aflame with divine power, and said to Brother Masseo with great fervor: “So let us go — in the name of the Lord!”
— From the Fioretti of St. Francis
A few blocks from the residence where I lived as a seminarian was an elementary school run by a community of sisters. Our priests, and I with them after ordination, used to say Mass for the school. These same sisters worked in Africa, in hospitals and in education. In 1995, one of them, Sister Floralba, came briefly to the attention of the world.
Sister Floralba was born in 1924, in Pedrengo, a small city in northern Italy. When she was fifteen, her mother died and, for the next five years, she became a second mother to her younger brothers and sisters. She entered religious life when she was twenty, with a desire to serve in the missions.
Sister Floralba trained as a nurse with a specialization in tropical illnesses and spent forty-three years in the hospitals of Africa. When she had served for twenty-five years in the hospital of Kikwit, in Zaire, she was sent back to Italy, where she expected to pass the remaining years of her life.
At the age of seventy-one, however, her superior asked her to return to the hospital in Kikwit. Sister Floralba said yes. Shortly after her return to Kikwit, she wrote to her superior:
Forgive me if I haven’t written earlier, but I wasn’t ready; I wanted to wait for a short while. Having spent so many years in Kikwit, when I arrived I had the feeling of having always been here…. When I visited the hospital, I felt again all the demands of the work…. Yet I said to myself: I did not ask to come here, rather, I never thought they would send me here again since I had been here for twenty-five years. So I am sure that I am in the will of God, and this gives me peace and joy. I try to be with the sick and to help those who are especially ill. Since I have less work, I am trying to be more patient, more kind, more gentle with all. I want in the few years that remain to me to witness to the goodness and merciful love of the Father.1
Not long after, in April of 1995, Sister Floralba assisted a woman who underwent an operation in the hospital of Kikwit. Shortly thereafter, Sister Floralba fell ill, and on April 25, she died. She was the first of six sisters who would heroically give their lives in the outbreak of the Ebola virus in Zaire.
“So I am sure that I am in the will of God, and this gives me peace and joy”: this unshakeable peace and joy, the certitude of being “in the will of God” that gives strength to love in even the most unexpected and humanly troubling circumstances of life — this is the fruit of discernment.
We will listen a final time, now, as those who have discerned share the fruit of their discernment. KATHLEEN remembers the months before her marriage to Mark:
I had thought about religious life briefly in high school, but never seriously. When Mark and I got engaged, the thought came back. I asked Mark for time to deal with this, and he lovingly gave it. We still saw each other, but less, and I had more time for silence and prayer. The whole discernment took two or three months. The Lord gave me a really beautiful gift and showed me clearly that he had made me for marriage with Mark.
I came out of that time with absolute serenity about marrying Mark. I know how important that experience has been over the years. Times of struggle come, and I think, “I’m not a good mother,” and so on, that I made a mistake. Then I remember that time when I knew that I was supposed to get married, and to Mark, and I can get on with handling the problem. I can think of how off-track I could have been without that discernment. I think it changes everything.
There have been bumps along the road, but because there was that peace and serenity we could cope with them and keep going. We have been married for thirty years and have three children.
For Kathleen, discernment has been the bedrock of her life. In all the struggles of marriage and motherhood, the memory of her months of discernment supports her: “Then I remember that time when I knew that I was supposed to get married, and to Mark, and I can get on with handling the problem.” The blessings of discernment are inexhaustible for Kathleen and Mark.
In chapter 3, we heard Matthew tell of his discernment regarding further studies. In fact, his religious superior asked Matthew to undertake those studies. As he recalls those years of study, MATTHEW adds:
When I was doing the studies, it was very helpful to me to return to the origin of this discernment, that I wasn’t looking for this, that it came from prayer. It helped me to decide the details of the studies. My heart’s emphasis was on receiving this gift from God rather than as something that I was doing, just as the original idea was received from God.
So the manner of the discernment became a manner of living the studies. I would go back to the discernment to keep me on this path. I would try to pray before I read, knowing that I had to receive this from God. It gave me confidence in continuing. There was a deepening through it in my relationship with God and my identity as a religious priest.
In Matthew’s experience, the discernment becomes a way of living the choice that emerged from the process. The grace of the discernment is not simply a clarity in the past, but a gift that shapes the entire living of the choice. The ongoing blessings of his discernment process are evident: “It gave me confidence in continuing. There was a deepening through it in my relationship with God and my identity as a religious priest.”
For years JULIE and CARL have discerned together the many decisions of their married life. Julie shares what such discernment means in their lives:
Carl and I are individuals, but we are one. Our discernment is not so much in our individual walks, but in the marriage. There is a grace in it — we are both on the same path, equally yoked, joined in our prayer walk, so that we desire the same thing. We can talk about our prayer experiences freely because we both share this prayer in our lives. What Carl says often confirms and affirms my prayer, what is coming up in my prayer, and I do this for him. We keep each other accountable in prayer and encourage each other.
Clearly, discernment profoundly blesses this marriage: “We are both on the same path…we desire the same thing.” Here discernment has become an ongoing way of life which joins husband and wife in a common response to God’s will.
PATRICK concludes his story with this simple and rich reflection on discernment:
It’s so great to be able to discern when you’re not sure which way to go, when your heart is pulled in different ways and you don’t see clearly with your thoughts. It’s so good to be able to bring this to the Lord, to a process of discernment, and to search for the answer.
Yes, it is a great blessing at such times — “when your heart is pulled in different ways and you don’t see clearly with your thoughts…to be able to bring this to the Lord, to a process of discernment.” At such times, Ignatius’s clear and practical teaching on discernment is an invaluable gift.
As I read Sister Floralba’s letter and listen to Kathleen, Matthew, Julie, and Patrick, and as I ponder the many stories of discernment told in this book, I think of the words of St. Gregory Nazianzen so loved by Blessed John XXIII: “Voluntas tua pax nostra” — “In your will is our peace.” Every story shared in this book reflects the truth of those words. The fruit of discernment — the process of finding the will of God — is, most deeply, the peace for which every human heart longs. That path lies open to us all.