Discernment - Part 1

Bukas-Loob sa Diyos or its English translation Open in Spirit to God, is more than just the name or identity of our faith community. It also expresses our spirituality and our discernment.

Our identity is of children in quest of Father God, in journey towards the highest union with Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. Our spirituality is of sinners needing continuing conversion. Hence our hearts are open to God, a sign of our utter reliance on grace for the fulfillment of our God-ward quest. Our discernment flows from our openness and responsiveness to the movement of the Holy Spirit within us, who guides us to faithfully follow Jesus’ footsteps, to lovingly obey the Father’s will and to fruitfully serve His Church.

“Bukas-Loob sa Diyos” is the quality of our heart, the state of our spiritual disposition that is necessary for an ever-deepening experience of God. When our heart is open to God, we awaken to His Spirit, aware of His presence and amazed by His love. The heart broken by sin and hardened by hurt recognizes that it has been visited by grace, free and unmerited. It allows itself to be disturbed and moved by God into repentance and conversion.

What is discernment? Discernment comes from the Latin word “discernere”, which means to sift, as grain from chaff. It has a close correlation to “discere” or disciple, which means to learn, to follow. This etymology suggests a similar correlation between discipleship and discernment. Jesus said, the true disciple is “the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Mt 7:21). Christ’s disciple seeks the Holy Spirit’s help to find and do God’s will in his life.

The Lord has equipped us to distinguish between right and wrong through the revelation of His will in the 10 commandments and through a conscience that has the inner stamp of His moral law. In every choice involving right or wrong, good or evil, we are commanded to choose what is good, what is right.

Discernment is necessary when we are confronted with choices which are all good, and what God wants us to choose is unclear to us. God has endowed us with faculties essential for“scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God” (1 Cor 2:10). discernment: our natural gifts of the mind, feeling and will, and the supernatural gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit who

God planted us in a community where the praxis of discernment is encouraged through formation in prayer, scripture and ministry service. Our formation includes teachings in Christian discernment, discernment of spirits and Ignatian discernment, which we apply in individual and group decision-making.

Our name “Bukas-Loob sa Diyos” expresses our open invitation to the Spirit of God to make His dwelling in us. When our hearts are open to God, every day is a moment of the Spirit’s visitation, to teach us about Jesus and to guide us to a deeper communion with Him. The Spirit clears our vision so that we see Jesus more distinctly, whom He reveals to us in prayer, in Scripture, in the sacraments, in His other children, in our sufferings and joys. The more we know Jesus, the more we grow in love with Him. To do His will becomes our greatest desire.

The Holy Spirit is the sure guide of the Christian disciple to discernment of God’s will. We may ask, how do we know that it is the Holy Spirit’s moving us and not our inner motivations? After all, do not evil inclinations remain in us due to original sin? Enticed by the world, the flesh or the evil one, don't we often fall to sin by choosing against God?

We may stray from time to time, but our faithful Shepherd seeks us without fail and brings us back to the flock. The power of His love conquers the power of evil. We can never be separated from God's love.

Our confidence comes from God’s word:

• “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” Jn 10:27.
  

• “You belong to God, children, and you have conquered them, for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1Jn 4:4).
  

• “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rm 5:20).

We can trust the Holy Spirit, who speaks to our deepest center, to lead us to God.

Ephphatha - A Reflection on Mk 7:34

Then He looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” – that is, “Be opened.” Mk 7:34

In this verse, we see the Lord Jesus linking heaven and earth as He interceded to His Father on behalf of the deaf and mute man.

“Then He looked up to heaven and groaned” describes the Lord communing in prayer with His Father in heaven. In the New Testament, the verb to “groan” almost always infers an urgent prayer or heaven-ward cry coming from our deepest core. For example: “But the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings” Rom 8:26. The people begged Jesus to lay His hand on the deaf and mute man. They did not have to. The Lord is united in will with His Father. His mission is to give us life, an abundant life. His groaning? Our compassionate Lord felt the man's suffering; He may have been urgently commanding heaven to open its floodgates, so that the Father’s mercy and healing grace may be poured out on the man.

He spoke to the man (and to us): “Be opened”. Why did the Lord speak that command and not merely, “Speak and hear”? The Lord was not only speaking to the physical impairment in the man. The ear is clogged and can’t hear. The tongue is cleaved to the roof of the mouth and can’t speak. He was also speaking to his (and our) spiritual impairment.

Why do we not hear the word of God nor speak it? What deafens our ears that we can’t hear His voice? Our desire for or anxieties about worldly goods? Our self-centered motivations in ministry? Our hyperactivity and lack of solitude? What has kept us from proclaiming His gospel to others, but rather, caused us to speak lies, boasts, hurtful or divisive words? “From the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks” Mt 12:34. What fills our heart and closes it to God’s grace?

That man was deaf, but he felt the Lord's finger in his ears; he was mute, but he felt and tasted the Lord's touch of his tongue. He felt the Lord's love, savored the Lord's attention, saw the Lord's confident look of authority. He did not have to hear the Lord’s command, “be opened”. The Lord's command was relayed to his mind and heart by his functioning senses. And he obeyed. He opened his heart, his spirit to the Lord. Because of his obedience, he was healed.

The man prefigured all of us who opened ourselves to the good news of Christ, to the Lord Himself. He became Bukas-Loob sa Diyos, open in spirit to God. Our community name is thus our response to the Lord’s command. When we became part of this community, which is in turn a part of His Church, we are in fact declaring our obedience to His command, "ephphatha!" Yes, Lord, our spirit is open to You and to Your will, Lord!

And if our spirit is open to the Lord, it is also open to every human being, regardless of who he is and what is his stature in life. Individually and as a community, we will be open in hospitality and friendship and love and compassion. We will be open in sharing with others the abundant grace we’ve received from God through the ministry He has entrusted to us. God will make His home in the heart of the community. And God will pour out His grace through the open floodgates of our heart.

Our being open in spirit to God is our invitation to Him and to His people to commune with us. Every day becomes a moment of the Spirit’s visitation, to teach us about Jesus and to guide us to a deeper communion with Him. The Spirit clears our senses so that we see, hear, feel, taste Jesus more distinctly, as He reveals Himself to us in prayer, in Scripture, in the sacraments, in other people, in our sufferings and joys. The more we know Jesus, the more we grow in love with Him. To do His will becomes our greatest desire.