Nervous System vs. Holy Spirit
People confuse these with the Holy Spirit.
What a stressed nervous system can feel like
- Anxiety that feels like urgency
- Shame that feels like conviction
- Adrenaline that feels like "anointing"
- Emotional relief mistaken for confirmation
- Fear masquerading as discernment
- Confusion, panic, and pressure to decide now
What is Peace?
St. Augustine called peace “the tranquillity of order” — a calm that comes from a life turned toward God, and toward what is good and loving. So peace is not just a calm feeling. A calm feeling can come for all kinds of reasons, so calm by itself was never the proof.
That is the relief: you don’t have to measure your own peace, or read your calm like a meter. You just live faithfully, love the people in front of you, and trust the Father.
St. Augustine, City of God XIX.13 · Catechism §2304
Five keys to discernment
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honor God’s gift of free will
God did not give you free will so that you could spend it trying to figure out what He has allegedly already decided you have to do with it.
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God’s will isn’t Whac-A-Mole
God might call some people to very specific life paths. Absolutely. But the idea that we are all subject to this vocation sorting process that God has instituted in the ether, and you have to figure out where you are — that’s just nonsense.
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don’t discern out of fear
One doesn’t discern out of fear of the challenges that we might face, because every path has challenges. We discern out of what we wish to run towards.
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surrender. test a path
God wants you to exercise your free will, and in doing that, you’re making incarnate your surrender to Him, because you’re trusting that He will redirect your path pretty explicitly if it’s not where He wants you to go. You have to be going somewhere to be able to alter your course.
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God is more clear than you realize. He is anything good, so…
People don’t recognize how present God is in everything. It’s actually very hard to miss God’s will for you. You have to actively reject the invitations so many times — reject obviously good things that are staring you in the face.
Where Scripture & the Church back this up
None of this is novel — here's the same teaching in Scripture, the Catechism, and the saints.
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“God is not a God of confusion.”
- 1 Corinthians 14:33 — “God is not a God of confusion but of peace.”
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Anxiety and panic are not the voice of God.
- Philippians 4:6 — “Have no anxiety about anything…”
- 1 Peter 5:7 — “Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you.”
- St. Francis de Sales — “This unresting anxiety is the greatest evil which can happen to the soul, sin only excepted.” (Introduction to the Devout Life, IV.11)
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God gave you a real free will — to use.
- Sirach 15:14 — “God created man in the beginning, and left him in the power of his own free choice.”
- Catechism §1731 — “Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act…”
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“Do something holy… go after what you want, so long as you’re living holy.”
- St. Augustine — “Love, and do what you will.” (Homily 7 on the First Epistle of John)
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Discernment is simple — seek holiness. There’s no hidden code to crack.
- Matthew 6:33 — “Seek first the kingdom of God… and all these things shall be yours as well.”
- Catechism §2013 — “All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity.”
- Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 39–42 — The universal call to holiness — every state of life is a real path to God.
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God directs and redirects your steps as you move.
- Proverbs 16:9 — “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”
- Proverbs 3:5–6 — “Trust in the Lord with all your heart… and he will make straight your paths.”
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Surrender is childlike trust in the Father.
- Catechism §305 — “Jesus asks for childlike abandonment to the providence of our heavenly Father…”
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“Why would God, your loving Father, let you be led astray?”
- Luke 11:11–13 — A father gives good gifts, not snakes or scorpions — “how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
- James 1:17 — “Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above.”
- Romans 8:28 — “In everything God works for good with those who love him.”
“I think the problem has nothing to do with Catholicism. It has everything to do with naturally very high neuroticism — older people applying their high neuroticism and their need for a high degree of order to an admittedly very important thing like the Catholic faith.” — Luke Shalz
Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!
Luke 11:11–13 · NRSV Catholic Edition
The short version.
Discernment in Action
Discernment teaching and quotes from Luke Shalz, in conversation with Franco.