Discernment

I've been meditating on the whole prayer, sacraments, reading, God's will prescription for leading a Christian life. Prayer, sacraments, and reading have been my tools for conforming my will to God's... Prayer and conformance to the Father's will were prominent features of our Lord's humanity so I know I'm on the right track. But I'm not sure I've paid sufficient attention directly to strengthening my will to follow God. All too often my will is antithetical to God's and I am all too weak in turning away from myself to face Him. I will pray for the fortitude to keep my face turned toward my Lord and Savior.

So how can we know what God's will is, in any given situation? Our vocation is to love God with all our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves. Practically speaking the Decalogue (aka the Ten Commandments) is our guide for making this happen. If our will is guiding us to turn our back on God or on our neighbor (again, practically speaking, this means breaking a commandment) we know we are headed in the wrong direction.

This guidance may still be insufficient. Who is to say how the commandments should guide me in my particular situation? We live in a world where cohabitation, fornication, adultery, abortion, contraception, divorce, artificial fertility treatments, pornography, are all regarded as positive treasures... or if not actual treasures, then harmless ways to spend our time.

Scripture is an obvious start, and the only starting point. But our Adversary can use Scripture for his own ends; he quoted the Psalms to our Savior in the desert. Many reasonable people today feel that Scripture justifies activities ranging from female preachers to homosexual marriage. Look at the Anglican Church's debates over female ordination - each side had their historians, Scripture scholars, and logical arguments.

For Catholics this issue is resolved by the Church. Only the Catholic church can say definitively that it does not have the authority to ordain women and that homosexual marriage is a contradiction in terms, like "round square" or "cold heat". Only the Catholic church can make it stick. Other churches can only say we don't ordain women - yet; or, at this point in time, we don't marry gays; but who knows what next year will bring for our doctrine? The Church's teaching on faith and morals today is just the same as it was in the very beginning; just as Scripture is still the same.