7 Principles for Catholic discernment of vocations; Rushing versus efficiency in discernment; Relying on reason more than desires

7 principles for discerning a vocation [with 4 of them from Thomas Aquinas] in order of most important and necessary to less important and more contigent: consider (1) God’s will for your life and act on his will regardless of any evidence to the contrary [e.g. if God wants you to get married though you have much evidence that you want to be a priest—then get married], (2) that any discernment you choose must be by the Catholic Church’s teaching [e.g. no discernment for being a prostitute], (3) your responsibilities [e.g. if you have an elderly mom who would otherwise die if you left her to religious then stay with her, all things equal], (4) your capacity [e.g. those more capacity for prayer should choose a more prayerful life–all things equal], (5) whatever is more likely going to fulfill your good and better desires, (6) whatever allows you to love and live reasonably virtuous the most, and (7) the need of the world. 

A supplementary point: consider how intense and immediate are the 7 principles applicable to your life.

Objection: 5 and 6 should be switched because love and virtue are obligations in Christian living but not fulfilling desires. There are many saints whose desires are not fulfilled and yet continue doing what they do.

Answer: The reason 5 and 6 are like so is due to the grand intuition that when one considers what one should do in life, the common advice is, “Do whatever [good] you want to do.” In other words, do whatever you desire. This intuition is intending to mean love and virtue but it does mean desire. Moreover, [I don’t yet endorse this view] the heart’s deep and true desire is always good, never bad, so it automatically connects to love and virtue, but the principle consideration is still desire instead of love and virtue.

The difference between rushing a discernment versus being efficient in discernment is as follows. Rushing in discernment is bad and is to be avoided by discerners. Efficiency in discernment is good and is to be sought after by discerners. 

Rushing in discernment is (1) acting out of one’s desires only [e.g. I want to become a priest merely because I desire it]. The reason for this conclusion is that people say that one should not act merely out of one’s desire otherwise it is rushing. The second (2) quality of rushing in discernment is too short of an amount of time to discern and choose. But this is very contextual. When determining who has (or those who have) the final say as to what is too short of an amount of time, consider this order of judgment: God, the person [since the person is closer to himself than any other person], the spiritual director, and those closer to the person.

What is efficiency in discernment? At least in part, it is acting in a short amount of time as much as reasonably possible with no delay since an opportunity may be missed. An opportunity is missed if one were to spend one’s younger self in the vocation that God has not called one to because the actual vocation will not receive one at a quicker time as reasonably possible.

It is not rushing to act out of one’s non-desire reasons only [e.g. I have a non-desire reason to become a priest for the village that is lacking priests]. Maybe the reason is not a good reason in reality (so it would be a false reason), but at least the reason is not in the category of “rushing.” When contrasting desire versus reasons in discernment, it is better to rely on reasons. 

Some desires are reasonable, such as desiring to eat well, but some desires are unreasonable, such as desiring to steal. Arguably, both are real desires.

But all reasons are reasonable, not just merely some reasons. All reasons must be unreasonable. False reason is not real reason, only real reason is real reason. 

Given the above facts, one should follow reason more than desire when discerning since all reason is guaranteed to be reasonable whereas one takes a bigger risk with desires, which can be reasonable or unreasonable depending on the desires.