Curley started the mini-course with fellow Pauline Sister Margaret Michael Ellis during the year of St. Paul in 2008 to help women considering religious life. Curley soon realized that there were very few resources for people to learn to discern in general. She noted, “How can you discern your vocation if you don’t even know how to discern at all?”

The participants at this month’s session comprised an ethnically, culturally and demographically diverse group. Their reasons for attending were also diverse, with Jennifer Ellis, 19, contemplating religious life, Alicia Mandarano, 25, discerning marriage and Nadia Murillo-Delgado, 19, learning about discernment for the first time. Curley encouraged each of them to practice discernment in everyday life. That way “when a bigger decision comes up, it’s easier to understand how God is working in your life because we’ve been recognizing Him in our life on a day-to-day basis,” said Curley.

The session was loosely divided into two parts. The first was learning about different tools to discern. The second was the opportunity to apply these tools in eucharistic adoration. Some of the basic tools include the sacraments, the Bible, learning about God and the Catholic Church and spiritual direction.

Curley also stressed the tool of self-reflection through regular examination of conscience. She said that examination of conscience is not “just looking at how I failed God” but the bigger picture of “how is God at work in my life and how have I responded?”

For example, Ellis shared her experience of a particularly stressful day a few weeks ago when she was working on a grotto for Mary. It was not going well and she started complaining to God.

“At that moment, a bird pooped on my arm and I just burst out laughing. I think that was His way of saying, ‘Take a break!’ ”

Quoting from The Vow, Curley added, “There are key moments in your life that really shape you and the memories of those moments make you who you are. When we don’t reflect on our experiences, we tend to miss the big moments.”

Although a relatively young program, Curley has witnessed past participants make decisions to enter religious communities, marry, start new companies and change careers.

“Vocationally is where I’ve seen the most fruit (of the sessions) where they’ve really applied what they’ve learned,” said Curley.

Among these was Cheryl Galema, a Pauline postulant who shared her discernment journey with the participants. Galema was visiting Toronto from St. Louis where the Pauline novitiate and formation house is located.

“Every moment of each day is an opportunity to discern and I learned that here in this discernment mini-course,” she explained. 

For Curley, discernment’s whole point is to freely and lovingly understand what God’s will is for us and say “yes” to it, to have the grace to say “yes” in freedom, she said. To do this, she explained, “We want to engage our mind, use our memories, weigh pros and cons of our decisions. We also want to engage our hearts and feelings.”

Ultimately, discernment is about listening to what God is communicating to us. Silence plays a key role in listening, said Curley.

“We think of communication as talking and expressing but silence enables us to listen and that is when true communication happens.”

(Thien-An Nguyen, 19, is a history and political science student at the University of Ottawa.)