Helping One Another to "Discern What is of Value"

"And this is my prayer:
that your love may increase ever more and more
in knowledge and every kind of perception,
to discern what is of value,
so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,
filled with the fruit of righteousness
that comes through Jesus Christ
for the glory and praise of God."

~Philippians 1:9-11  .

I have a particular love for this text and its indications for the Christian vocation in the Church and in the midst of the world.

Saint Paul prays that the love of the Philippians might increase "ever more and more" with knowledge and, indeed, with "every kind of perception" so that they might carry out a very crucial task: "to discern what is of value" in life and thereby bring forth "the fruit of righteousness."

There is much to be learned from meditation on this text. Jesus tells us, "Do not judge" and this is crucial, because each person belongs to God, and God alone knows their heart, their degree of moral responsibility, and His own plans to draw them to Himself.

But it is something different to practice "discernment." By the grace of the Spirit, and reason enlightened by faith and vivified by love, we can engage concrete realities in our own lives and give guidance to others (above all those entrusted to our care in various ways).

We are called, and given the grace, to discern "what is of value" as we journey through life. This is certainly important for our own lives. But it also suggests one important component of how we look at others and even the world at large.

It's easy for us to fall into a pattern of looking at other people and trying to see what's wrong with them. We are inclined to search for their faults and for ways of behaving that are objectively sinful, then to reduce their identity to these negatives, and judge them rashly in our hearts (if not in our gossip-filled conversation).

Discernment, however, takes a different approach when looking at others. It is not blind to their faults and gives full weight to the hindrances of sin in their lives (knowing well enough how sin hinders all of us), but it does this within a larger perspective, as only one part of a broader focus. Discernment seeks out "what is of value" in a person's life; it tries to discover (as much as possible, with great humility and respect for the person) where God is working to draw forth or enrich the heart's desire for goodness and beauty, the soul's search for truth and wisdom.

Discernment requires us to listen to the person, to allow them to talk about themselves and tell their story. It not only listens to their speech but also watches the way they treat others and the way that reality fascinates them and draws them beyond themselves. It looks for signs of how and where God is working. This is not to imply that such "signs" are going to be easy to find or to understand—God's action is essentially hidden, but by listening to a person's own words, to their story, and watching the way they respond in ordinary situations, discernment can at least gain some useful insights and learn something about "who they are" and "what matters to them" in life.

Then, in an essential part of the process, discernment asks in prayer, "Lord, how do you want me to foster your work in this person's life? How can I be your instrument to build up the good, or at least to enliven and increase the desire for the good in them, so that they might draw closer to you?"

Very few people have the extraordinary charism of "reading souls" and that's not what discernment aims for in any case. With reference to others, really it's more a matter of serving them by helping them (without any kind of psychological manipulation, with profound respect for their freedom) to discern God's will in their life. Also, it entails helping to build up and nurture in them the love of whatever draws them closer to God, whatever is truly "of value" in them insofar as we are given to recognize it.

Obviously discernment is concerned with sinful behavior and never approves of evil. But by calling on God, being attentive, and loving what is good, what is "of value" here and now in a person's life, a discerning approach seeks to help the person in their particular struggle with evil, their need to resist sin. "Admonishing the sinner," even in the most basic rhetorical sense, requires attention to what might really be a useful or even comprehensible warning for a person. Genuine discernment will allow more space for God to shape a necessary admonition to the need of a particular person and to His grace.

Beyond that, however, a discerning approach can open us up to being instruments of God in building up, supporting, and serving one another on the journey we are making together to Him. We are united as members of one Body in Jesus Christ. He wants to give us abundant graces to help one another. There is no need for some artificial structure here, no need for special meetings where people sit around criticizing one another or making rash claims that "God told them that you need to do x or y." No, that quickly becomes a strange and manipulative situation.

The terms used to describe our relationship in Christ are "brothers and sisters." We can exercise discernment as we seek together "what is of value" within the connections and bonds that develop organically among Christ's members. The relationships between brothers and sisters in Christ remain human relationships that grow in particular places and along the various and sometimes bumpy roads of human communities. They require the appropriate regard for the dignity of persons that allows space for the development of genuine and mature human friendships.

"Friendship in Christ" must not be a label we misuse or devalue. It is real human friendship informed by Christian love. Friends can help one another in the work of discerning God's will, by a charism of the Holy Spirit that takes shape within the friendship as a human reality--all the more profoundly human in the measure in which it is imbued by grace. Christian friendship is human friendship; it is warm and familiar (in different ways, and not without the flaws and quirks that characterize all human things); it is respectful, trustworthy, well grounded, open beyond itself, and inserted into the life of the local and universal Church.

Indeed, such friendship is in itself a thing of great value.