The practice of freedom: learning to live the virtues part 9

Discernment: Learning to Recognize What Leads to Life

The courage to call things what they are without condemning the person

Welcome to “The Practice of Freedom: Learning to Live the Virtues.”
This is an ongoing journey into the virtues—not as abstract ideals or moral checklists, but as practices that slowly teach us how to live freely.
Each virtue is a way of becoming more fully human in Christ:
learning to see, to choose, to love, and to live in the freedom for which we were created.
These reflections are not meant to be rushed. Take what serves you, sit with it, and return when you are ready.
Formation takes time—and God’s grace is patient.

Father Thomas Hopko of blessed memory often insisted that there is no spiritually neutral territory.
There is the Kingdom of Light and Life, and there is the realm of darkness and death.
One draws us into communion with God and with one another. The other isolates, enslaves and finally kills.
One sets us free to become truly aLive; the other promises freedom while fastening the chains.
This does not mean that there are two equal kingdoms struggling for supremacy. Darkness has no light of its own.
Evil creates nothing; it can only distort, corrupt and consume what God has made good.
Christ is already victorious.
Nevertheless, each day places before us thoughts, words and actions that lead either toward His Life or away to darness and boundness.

Father Tom’s advice was therefore wonderfully direct: call what is-speak the truth in love..
Do not call manipulation concern. Do not call cowardice peacemaking.
Do not call retaliation justice.
Do not call the avoidance of truth kindness.
But neither should we call another human being evil,
as though one action told us everything about that person or erased the image of God within them.
The virtue that helps us hold these truths together is discernment.

Discernment is not condemnation
Discernment is sometimes confused with suspicion, criticism or the ability to discover what is wrong with everyone else.
That is not discernment, and may just simply be pride wearing designer spectacles!
The discernment of the Chuch begins much closer to home by asking:
What is happening within my own heart? What is this thought asking me to become?
If I follow, where will this thought lead?
Will this thought/temtation move toward communion, freedom and Life—or toward isolation, slavery and death?
St John Climacus teaches that discernment begins with true knowledge of ourselves.
As we mature, discernment becomes a spiritual capacity to distinguish what is genuinely good from what merely appears good!
The appearance can be convincing. Fear may disguise as prudence. Pride may masquerade as courage. Resentment may call itself justice.
The need to control another person may present itself as love.
Without discernment, even a good desire can be bent in the wrong direction.

St Peter gives us a striking example. He has just confessed Jesus to be “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Then Jesus begins to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, suffer, be killed and on the third day be raised.
Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes Him: “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to You.”
Peter loves Jesus. He doesn’t want Him to suffer. Yet love mixed with fear has become controlling.
Peter has confessed Jesus as Lord, but now tries to tell the Lord which road He may take.
Jesus answers: “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
The word translated “stumbling block” is skandalon: an obstacle or the trigger of a trap.
Peter thinks he is protecting Jesus, but he has stepped in front of Him and is obstructing the way of salvation.
Here is Peter’s failure of discernment: he mistakes self-preservation for Life and the Cross for disaster.
He sees the suffering clearly, but he cannot yet recognize where the road leads.
Jesus calls what is-speaks the Truth in Love.
Peter’s proposal serves the temptation of the adversary—the Kingdom without the Cross.
Yet Jesus does not discard Peter. In Greek He tells him, opisō mou—“behind Me.”
Then, in the next verse, He says that anyone who wishes to come opisō mou—“behind Me”—must deny self, take up their0 cross and follow.
The rebuke is also a restoration: “Peter, you have stepped in front and tried to lead Me. Return to your place behind Me.
Let Me be Lord. You be the disciple. Follow.” Christ names the falsehood, corrects the disciple and preserves the relationship.
This is discernment governed by love.

St Paul writes: “Be transformed by the renewing of your nous, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
(Romans 12:2) The nous is the inward eye of the heart—the faculty by which we perceive God and see creation truthfully.
THe nou’s renewal is not merely learning to think better, but being healed so that we may see as God sees—and therefore learn to choose what is good.
The word translated “discern” carries the sense of testing and recognizing something as genuine.
This is needed because not everything labelled “good” leads to Life, and not everything that is difficult or costly leads to death.
The Cross looked like defeat, yet became the destruction of death.
Self-preservation looked like wisdom, yet would have turned Peter away from Christ’s saving work.
St. Paul continues: “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good.” (Romans 12:9)
Genuine love requires discernment.
Love must learn to recognize what heals and what harms, what frees and what enslaves, what serves Life and what carries the smell of death.
This is why the Saints considered discernment essential.
In St John Cassian’s Conferences, Abba Moses—“Abba” being the ancient monastic title for a spiritual father—
calls discerment the mother, guardian and regulator of the virtues. Courage without discernment can become recklessness.
Obedience is not blindly doing whatever we are told. God also calls us to recognize what is good and true.
Zeal without discernment can become cruelty. Even love without discernment can become sentimentality or control.
Discernment gives the other virtues direction: Discernment sees what is.
Truthfulness names it. Courage acts. Love determines how we act.

We live at a time when moral language is often used carelessly.
“Good people” may simply mean those who agree with us, while “bad people” are those who do not.
An entire person becomes identified with a political opinion, a failure, a fear or the worst thing they have ever done.
The Church’s discernment refuses both moral confusion and personal condemnation.
We may need to say, “That action was wrongdoing.”
We may need to speak firmly, set a boundary, report wrongdoing, protect someone who is vulnerable, or oppose injustice.
Refusing to do so is not always mercy. Mercy that will not name the wound can become sentimentality.
But naming the wound without mercy becomes accusation. The Church is a hospital for souls.
A physician must call the disease by its proper name, but does so in order to heal the patient—not to identify the patient with the disease.

Therefore, even when faithfulness requires us to speak firmly, set a boundary, bring wrongdoing into the Light,
or protect someone from injustice, we must not fight the works of darkness with the weapons of darkness, nor allow hatred to reshape our heart.
If another person’s wrongdoing can compel me to become hateful, deceitful or vengeful, then evil has already begun to overcome me.
St Paul does not say merely, “Avoid evil.” He says: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21)
We are not called to make peace with darkness. We are called to defeat it without becoming it.

Discernment is not acquired by trusting every strong impression that enters our mind/nous.
Nor is it the reward for endlessly analysing everyone and everything.
Discerment grows through humility, prayer, repentance, Scripture, worship, confession, wise counsel and the patient practice of obedience.
Abba Moses teaches that true discernment is secured by humility.
We become discerning when we stop assuming that our first reaction must be correct.
We learn to test our thoughts by the Life, teaching and action of Christ, by the experience of the Church, and by the fruit they produce.
Before acting, we might ask: Does this make me more truthful or more deceptive?
Does this enlarge my capacity to love or narrow it? Does this protect the vulnerable or merely protect my pride?
Does this lead toward communion or isolation? Am I acting from peace in Christ, or from fear, anger and the need to control?
Can I do this without hatred? We will not always answer correctly.
Discernment grows partly through repentance: recognizing where we were deceived, getting up and beginning again.
God’s grace is patient, but grace is not vague.
The Holy Spirit steadily teaches us to recognize the voice of the Shepherd and to
distinguish it from the voices that promise freedom while leading us back into slavery.
Discernment is the virtue that learns to recognize what leads toward Life—even when “what” looks like a Cross
—and what leads toward death—even when it promises safety.
Christ does not drag us into His Kingdom. He reveals the truth, calls us by name and says, “Follow Me.”
There is no neutral territory because there is no life apart from Life Himself.
Every step toward Christ is a movement toward communion, freedom and the person we were created to become.
Every movement into falsehood, hatred and self-enclosure carries the shadow of death.
But even when we have mistaken the road, Christ does not cease calling us.
“Get behind Me.” Return to the place of the disciple.
Follow the One who has passed through the Cross, entered death and opened the Way into Life.

Questions for Reflection

1. Is there something I have been calling prudence, kindness or justice that may actually be fear, avoidance or resentment?
2. When I must confront wrongdoing, how can I bring it into the Light without allowing hatred or the desire to punish to reshape my heart?

Prayer Lord Jesus Christ, Light of the world and Giver of Life, renew my nous and purify my heart.
Give me discernment to recognize what leads toward You and courage to turn from whatever leads into darkness.
Teach me to call wrongdoing what it is without condemning the person You created.
Let truthfulness serve love, courage serve mercy, and every choice draw me more deeply into Your freedom and Life.
When I step in front of You and try to choose the road, call me again to my proper place behind You, that I may take up my cross and follow. Amen.