Communal Discernment
Part II: Notes on Methodology and
Capacities to Cultivate
Mary Pellegrino, CSJ
Transformation of Religious Life in North America:
An Action-Oriented Initiative
A Working Definition
Communal Discernment:
Process undertaken by a community as a community to
discover God’s desire/direction within a particular set of
circumstances leading to some sort of action by the discerning
community.
• Shared work
• Seeking God
• Here and now
• Expressed in action
Notable nuance
• A discerning community
• Members are attentive and intentionally cultivating their capacities
for discernment (noticing, naming and making meaning of the
movement of the Spirit and call of God within and among them).
• A community discerning
• A community actively and intentionally engaged in a group process
intended to discover for themselves God’s desires/direction within
a particular set of circumstances.
Matters for communal discernment
• Matters that involve the expression of
mission/purpose/communal vocation for and in a
particular time
• Matters for which it is important that all group members
be engaged and responsible, i.e. direction setting,
disposition of corporate resources. . .
• Matters that are worthy of the time, energy, discipline
and rigor of communal discernment
Some Characteristics of A Discerning
Community
• Prayerful/Praying Community
• Continually seeking God, God’s desires and the freedom to act
on those desires
• Contemplative prayer intended for listening for God/Spirit
• Sense of Identity and Relationship
• Growing in shared understanding of itself, its history,
comprehension of its spheres of influence
• Growing in comprehension of how it is influenced and how it
influences
• Learning Community
• Open to change, transformation and the broadening of
perspectives (personal and communal)
• Names what is real; is honest toward reality (Sobrino)
• Leaders and members growing in capacities to acknowledge,
invite and consider diverse and new thinking
• Capable of holding tension, tolerating ambiguity, chaos,
unfinishedness
• Recognizes itself, its members, the world as being in
process
• Encourages and cultivates imagination, creativity,
personal initiative in service to the community
A Community Discerning
• Engaged in deciding a matter of significance for the
group
• Believes that God has a desire/intent/purpose for them
AND intends to follow God’s desire/intent/purpose
• Devotes personal and communal time and resources to
the discernment process
A Framework for Discernment: Preparation
and Process
• Seek interior freedom – personally and communally
• Gather information
• Prayerful consideration of the matter: alternatives,
pros/cons, rational and affective experience
• These elements may be serial through the process
• Move toward consensus/decision
• Make decision
• Act on decision
• Seek confirmation of decision: what are the fruits?
Fruitfulness relies on personal
preparation/capacity
• Personal capacities effect the quality of the
community’s discernment
• Personal is in service to the communal
• Personal narrative, story, reality is read in service to
larger social/communal narrative, story, reality
• Order our personal preference for the greater, common
good
Skills/capacities to cultivate for communal
discernment
• Self-Awareness
• Know/claim your personal and communal stories
• Personal and communal patterns of grace
given/received
• Identity and mission are inseparable
• Learn to read our personal and communal
narratives in service to the larger social reality
• Appropriate self-disclosure
• Allow ourselves to be known by others
• Builds trust and confidence in self and others
• Learn to speak about what is important and
appropriate to matter at hand
• Practice non-violent communication
• Broaden thinking, expand consciousness,
deepen understanding
• Expose self/community to diverse thoughts and
perspectives
• Engage in social analysis, theological reflection,
contemplative conversations
• Notice interior movements
• Personal and communal
• What’s going on inside of me/among us? What
meaning might it have?
• Be honest toward reality
• Speak the truth. . . even if your voice shakes.
• Befriend resistances
• Personal and communal
• Resistance is valuable – has something to teach us
• Learn to stay with resistance – without judgment –
long enough to learn from them
• Cultivate curiosity
• Personal and communal
• Curiosity and fear
• biochemically the same – differ only in degree
• Wondering about something, asking questions can dispel fear
• Learn to ask good questions
• Learn to take the long, broad view
• The world, our communities, ourselves are unfinished
• Perspective matters
• Get comfortable with chaos
Cultivate patience, humility and openness to
surprise
• “Do one thing every day that scares you.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Cultivate a sense of humor
• The only thing we should take more seriously than we
already do is God’s love. . . for us, for others, for all of
creation
• Learn to laugh at yourself and with others