Pope Francis: Practical Wisdom on Knowing God’s Will (Discernment)

Pope Francis taught that continued discernment is needed after you make a decision.  Is there gratitude to God, renewed energy, and freedom to let it go?

Image by Manfred Kindlinger from Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/photos/blessing-of-children-pope-religion-604358/.

Pope Francis is rightfully being praised for how he focused the attention of the Catholic Church and the whole world on people who are marginalized and left out; how he spoke out against the harm that is being done to immigrants, victims of war, and the very Earth itself; how he literally fed the hungry, welcomed the stranger, and visited the sick and those in prison as Jesus taught us to do.

What is rarely noted is that those actions involved a process of discerning God’s will, making a decision, and acting on it.  Were the decisions he made good decisions? 

Pope Francis was a practical teacher with simple wisdom about how to live our everyday lives.  In 2022, he gave a teaching on how to evaluate, after you have made a decision, whether it was a good decision or not.

What is the process for knowing God’s will – also known as “discernment”?

How can we know God’s will for us?  We ask this question about both major and minor decisions that we face.

Pope Francis gave a series of 14 talks about discernment – the process of determining God’s will – in his Wednesday morning General Audiences for visitors to Rome, from August of 2022 to January 2023.

Most articles, sermons, and books on knowing God’s will focus on what we should do before we decide.  The step of actually making the decision is usually the last step in the process, and the sermon or book ends when the decision is made.

These steps of discernment typically include prayer, Scripture study, seeking God’s guidance, getting wise counsel from godly people around you, waiting on God with patience, etc.  In a similar vein, Pope Francis explored the role of prayer, cultivating a relationship with God, and knowing yourself, among other topics.

But in his 11th teaching on discernment, Pope Francis went a step further than typical teachers.  He focused on what to do after you have discerned the will of God and made a decision.

More discernment is needed after you make a decision

It is easy to think that the discernment process is over once I have made a decision.  I’ve done my discernment, God has guided me to a decision, and now I’m just carrying it out, right?  Not so, says Pope Francis.

On the contrary, there is important discernment work to be done after I have made a decision.  “It is important, he says, “to also remain attentive to the stage that immediately follows the decision taken, in order to either catch the signs that confirm it or those that disprove it” (Pope Francis, “Catechesis on Discernment: 11. The confirmation of the good choice,” General Audience, 7 Dec. 2022; emphasis in the original, here and in the quotes that follow).

I need to watch to see whether my discernment has led me to a good decision or not.

Pope Francis offers us 3 signs to look for, that may confirm or challenge our belief that we have accurately discerned God’s will in a situation:

• First, was the decision a response of gratitude for “the Lord’s love and generosity toward me,” or “born out of fear . . . or compulsion”?

I faced this post-decision discernment process after I accepted a job because I thought surely it must be the Lord’s will: it involved working with people I like, to apply materials I had created to a cause I cared about.  Yet I kept saying to myself, “How could I say no?” (which suggested an element of inner compulsion) rather than “Thank you, God!”

The underlying feeling was much closer to compulsion than gratitude because the actual tasks in the specific job I was offered were not tasks that were well suited to my strengths and interests; they were tasks I dreaded rather than welcomed.

That leads to Pope Francis’s second sign to look for, after you have made a decision.

• Second, does the decision affirm your place in life, giving you “that tranquility, ‘I am in my place’ – and feeling that you are part of a larger plan, to which one wishes to make a contribution”?  As you lean into what comes after the decision, does your day become “more orderly,” do you feel “a growing integration among [your] many interests . . . facing the difficulties that arise with renewed energy and fortitude”?  If so, Pope Francis says, “These are signs that you have made a good decision.”

Although I was excited about the larger mission I would be part of, I realized that, because of the actual tasks of my assignment, I would wake up each morning saying, “What do I have to do today” instead of “What do I get to do today?”  The prospect of difficulties in the work depleted me rather than renewing my sense of energy about the job, because it was not the right job for me.  It did not match my skills and strengths.

• Third, do you feel possessive about what you have gained by the decision, or could you give it up if God led you to do so?  Pope Francis says that “remaining free with regard to what has been decided, being willing to question it, even to give it up in the face of possible denials, trying to find in them a possible teaching from the Lord” is important because “possessiveness is the enemy of good, it kills affection.”  The person who is free is the person “who blesses the Lord both when good things come and when not-so-good things come: May he be blessed, and let us go forward!”

In explaining this part of the post-decision discernment, Pope Francis cites Saint Paul, who says, “I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound; in any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want.  I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:12-13).  If the decision leads to a grasping attitude toward what you gained by the decision and an inability to consider letting it go, that may be a sign that the decision was driven by your own desires rather than the will of God.

Pope Francis’s practical wisdom

To summarize, after you have made a prayerful, thoughtful decision, the signs that it was a good decision include that you experience freedom, not compulsion; your life becomes more orderly and integrated so that you can face difficulties with renewed energy; and you can let it go and keep trusting God.

We saw all these signs in Pope Francis.  He cared for all people, especially the ones others cared least about, and he did it with joy.  Whenever he spent time with the marginalized, you could see his freedom, how his time with them renewed his energy, and how he was willing to let go of everything for God.

His decision to love them is confirmed by the same signs he offered to us in his practical teaching about how to continue to discern God’s will after we have made a decision.

May Jesus welcome into eternal life his servant, Pope Francis, who so readily welcomed others in Jesus’s name.