Dreaming and Discernment 

Recently I dreamed that I changed congregations. As a Franciscan sister (FSPA) who made first vows almost 20 years ago, I have never thought of being in a different order. But that morning, after the dream, I had my regular prayer time. As I prayed and talked to God, suddenly a desire started to take shape. I knew what order I would like to explore, what sisters I should start discerning with, and why I wanted to be in a different order. Then I started to explore their website, and I could see ministries and locations that excited me. It seemed to come out of the blue, but within a few hours my dream and my prayer had brought me to entirely new territory. 

I know sisters who have transferred and flourished. I also could imagine that it would mean leaving all the sisters I love so dearly, learning a new mission, living somewhere new, and really shifting my whole identity. My life would be turned upside down. 

Luckily, I had my spiritual direction that morning. My director listened patiently to me, heard my story, and asked discerning questions. One really stood out to me, “what do you need to stay where you are?” What do I need? Ultimately, what is my call and how should I live this life?

As I dug deeper I thought of conversations with sisters and friends in recent months. I remember saying to them, “In the next 10-15 years, many of my close sisters and mentors will die, my parents will die, and I will face significant health changes. As the demographics of my Franciscan congregation change rapidly, not only will I lose dear friends, but we have no idea what that future will look like. I will be called on to step into more responsibility as we shift and change.” This is not to mention how our world will change — the climate crisis, global political instability, and the impact of disasters and violence, among other things. 

Radical loss of all these things will enter me into a grief unlike any I have experienced before. I have grieved, but I imagine the grief of the next decade to be truly transformative. None of us knows what the future will hold. But I have to admit there is both fear and excitement as I look forward. 

I am not trying to be dramatic, but this impending reality is what I see when I look around me. As I take this reality to prayer, I find my love, my most steadfast companion, Jesus. As it says in Hebrews 4:15, we do not have a Jesus “who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way.” Jesus was tested. Jesus knows my struggles most intimately, because he struggled with death, instability, betrayal, and radical change. He was tested and he came out on the side of a love that casts out all fear. 

A few months ago I was praying with my sisters through some Advent resources. We came across this quote by Michael Morwood that Jesus of Nazareth was the one “who so allowed the Spirit of extravagant generosity to move in his life that we recognize in him the wonder of the Spirit in human form.”

This brought me new language to a traditional understanding. Jesus is Christ, the Messiah, God from God and Light from Light. He is God and human. And as Morwood says, he was so united to the divine in his daily life that we acknowledge and recognize the wonder of this unity. God made flesh. Love made visible. 

This is a Jesus who knows what it is like to have a parent die. To mourn and cry. He knows a best friend lying in the grave. Jesus knows about the change of empires and religious instability. He knows darkness, and the need to cling to God in prayer. This is a Jesus who understands what I am facing, what all of us face in our lives, and he holds us tenderly in his hands.

So back on that morning with my spiritual director as I considered changing congregations. I took it to prayer. I took the discernment seriously and reached out to sisters in the order I was drawn to and transfer sisters who transferred to my own community from elsewhere.

As I discerned, I heard Jesus say to me, “what do you desire?’ And deep in my heart, I heard an answer, “authenticity and wholeness.” In conversation with my spiritual director, sisters, and friends, it became clear that right now I am called to live authenticity and wholeness as an FSPA sister. To voice my hopes and concerns here with the sisters I love. To make my home even deeper in these vows and this place and to face whatever the future brings with FSPA by my side.  

With a Jesus who knows me. A Jesus who knows all of us. 

For more information about discernment, read how spiritual direction can help here, and listen to Sr, Julia Walsh, FSPA, discuss her book dealing with her own discernment here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Hennessey is a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration based in La Crosse, Wisconsin. She grew up in North Carolina as an active Quaker and became Catholic in 2000. For her, Jesus’ messy business includes falling in love with Christ AND with the People of God! Her heart is on fire for her Franciscan community, poetry and singing and accompanying people through birth, death and the living that comes in between. She currently ministers as a spiritual director at Franciscan Spirituality Center in La Crosse.