{"id":5049,"date":"2011-09-10T07:00:41","date_gmt":"2011-09-10T14:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=5049"},"modified":"2015-03-19T14:51:35","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T21:51:35","slug":"discerning-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2011\/09\/10\/discerning-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"Discerning Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As some of you know, since returning from England, I have embarked upon a period of discernment concerning the major areas of my life: vocation, location and occupation. I have been taking some time out to re-examine where I am, what I’m doing and asking if I’m where I’m meant to be…<\/p>\n

In my early\/mid-twenties I had set aside some time to specifically\u00a0look at the question of ordained ministry. After getting frustrated and tying myself in knots, I received some good direction from a priest and after much prayer finally concluded that I was not being called to ordained ministry, or at least not for the time-being.<\/p>\n

A lot of stuff has happened in my life since my mid-twenties, so it seemed like a good idea to return to this question.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“I’m In Discernment”<\/h2>\n

In the Catholic world, I think most people use the phrase\u00a0“I’m in\u00a0discernment”<\/em>\u00a0as shorthand for\u00a0“I’m thinking about becoming a priest”<\/em>. Although the question of the priesthood is<\/em> playing a major part in my discernment, it isn’t the only<\/em> consideration. When I set out on this journey I was pretty open to each of the major vocations:\u00a0monastic life, priesthood, married or\u00a0consecrated\u00a0single life.<\/p>\n

My quest was to find out to which one I’m called…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Plan<\/h2>\n

So, since returning from England I have read vocation discernment literature. I spent more time in prayer.\u00a0I have spoken with others who are actively discerning. I have also spoken to seminarians, ex-seminarians, priests, ex-priests, monks, vocation\u00a0directors\u00a0and married couples, asking them about how\u00a0they<\/em>\u00a0came to discern\u00a0their<\/em>\u00a0vocation, in hope that it might shed a little light and give\u00a0me<\/em>\u00a0help in discerning\u00a0my own<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I think that’ll do for today. Tomorrow I’ll write about some of my discernment frustrations…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As some of you know, since returning from England, I have embarked upon a period of discernment concerning the major areas of my life: vocation, location and occupation. I have been taking some time out to re-examine where I am, what I’m doing and asking if I’m where I’m meant to be… In my early\/mid-twenties I had set aside some<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[397,395,2969,95,396],"class_list":["post-5049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","tag-consecrated-single-life","tag-discernment","tag-featured","tag-marriage","tag-priesthood"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5049"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56371,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5049\/revisions\/56371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}