We Must Cultivate a Discerning Heart Today
King David had a brilliant idea to build a temple for the ark of the Lord. He knew it was not right for him to be in his palace while the ark of the Lord was in a tent. The timing also seemed right, “King David was settled in his palace, and the Lord had given him rest from his enemies on every side.” He even received the blessing of the prophet Nathan, “Go, do whatever you have in mind, for the Lord is with you.”
But God refused to have David build a temple for Him. On the contrary, He would be the one to establish a house for David, one that would endure forever, “The Lord also reveals to you that He will establish a house for you.”(Sam 7:1-5, 8-12, 14,16) This prophecy is fulfilled in the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ.
There is a serious lesson for all of us from this passage. We may have a good plan with good intentions. The timing may even be right to implement our plan. But it may not be what God wants from us at that moment. This is why we must be ready to discern at each moment what God wills for us at that moment.
Reflecting on the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we see that she did not immediately say “Yes” to the Angel Gabriel. She did not rush to pronounce her “Fiat” because of the mere presence of the awesome archangel. She did not consent simply because the angel praised her as “Full of grace.” She did not consent because she liked the plan or because she found it pleasant and possible. She also did not consent because the angel told her she had “found favor with God,” or because of the grandness and beauty of the plan announced to her.
Mary consented only when she sensed that this angel before her was indeed from God and that His message was also from God. She pronounced her Fiat only when she sensed the presence and action of God in this encounter, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you…Elizabeth, your relative has also conceived a son in her old age…For nothing will be impossible for God.” Then she pronounced her fiat, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, May it be done to me according to your word.”(Lk 1:26-38) She rightly discerned the presence and action of God first while remaining completely open to what God was revealing to her.
We need this discerning heart today in all things, most especially in the Church. There has been a lot of justifiable uproar recently on the Vatican declaration, Fiducia Supplicans, which granted permission for the blessing of people in same-sex unions under certain conditions. Many supporters of this declaration try to justify it by repeatedly harping that what is being blessed are the persons and not their sinful homosexual unions.
This is where the deception comes in through the declaration’s ambiguous statements. Many have rightly called out this deception because it is impossible to bless the persons in such union without actually blessing the sinful unions themselves for the simple reason that it is the union that makes them a couple in the first place. Let us reflect on the insightful words of Cardinal Gerhard Müller calling out the contradiction in the document and its deceptive language: