The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

Discernment is the process of figuring out exactly what a person wants deep within their soul. Because all humans ultimately long for God, even if they do not know it yet, discerning God’s wishes for oneself and discerning one’s true desires will overlap. The goal of Ignatian spirituality is to cultivate one’s closeness to God through prayer and other methods so that one can realize one’s vocation in life—God’s calling—and make all daily decisions in accordance with God’s wishes. Martin writes, “One of the themes of this book has been the Ignatian model of ‘discernment,’ in which your desires help to reveal God’s desires for you. We look for signs of those desires in our lives” (279). Because the practitioner discovers his or her own desires to be the method that reveals God’s wishes, in the end he or she will not find the discipline of the Spiritual Exercises to be onerous. Instead, the practice will result in the experience of one’s true freedom and joy.

Early in the book, Martin gives the example of Jesus and Bartimaeus the blind beggar on the road. The beggar hears a commotion as Jesus is approaching with a crowd of followers.