9th Advisory Meeting: Conclusion & Follow-Up

A Week or More After Candidate Concludes the Decision Retreat

Description: This concluding meeting should review significant insights from the Decision Retreat and provide avenues for making further progress. The primary focus will be confirming the decision and making a plan for pursuing the directions God has revealed in this time of discernment.

Goals of the final Advisory meeting:

• To confirm (to the best of your ability) their discernment decision.

• To address any doubts or confusion about the direction.

• To finalize a Spiritual Life Plan (see handout link below) for continued growth in applying the skills and insights gained through this Novena.

• To finalize, if applicable, an Action Plan for further steps in pursuing a celibate life-state vocation if that was the conclusion from the Decision Retreat.

• To give the candidate the Century Stone and explain its purpose.

• To work out mutual understanding for any further contact with candidate.

Preparation Points – 

1. Prayerfully review the whole journey. This part is for you, the DA, to spend time in prayer. This worksheet - Reviewing the Journey - is offered as a guide.

2. Make sure the candidate takes time before your meeting to pray and fill out the Decision Resolution worksheet. This document guides the candidate in creating a Spiritual Life Plan and, if they’ve elected to explore a celibate vocation, an Action Plan for further steps.

3. A Note of Encouragement: Ebenezer becomes the Century Stone. Purchase or find a smooth, white stone as well as a box to put it in. Using a colored, soft-tip pen with indelible ink, write “100” on it. Print and fill out the Century Stone card. Use the positive aspects of your “Reviewing the Journey” meditations to offer some words of encouragement to the candidate. A more complete explanation is included in the 8th Advisory Meeting preparation notes.

4. Continue meeting? If they ask you, don’t get caught off guard. As you conclude, this question could come up. More guidance is offered below, but the point is to think ahead. The decision about further contact with the candidate is up to you. If you don’t see it as an option, be ready with some guidance and maybe a referral.

Meeting Agenda

1. Set a prayerful tone. Begin with a meditation on the parable of the Sower and the Seeds.

• Together read Matthew 13:1-9; 18-23

• Take a few minutes to quietly pray and apply this to the results of the Decision Retreat: What might endanger the seeds of a good discernment that God has planted in your life?

  • Hard ground – What inward attitudes might threaten this decision and direction? Can I give examples?

  • Birds that snatch the seeds – This refers specifically to the work of the Enemy. What could this look like in my own life?

  • Weeds and thorns that grow up and impede the good seed? – what are the ‘thorns’ (anxieties, doubts) that weigh on my mind? What are the external pressures that can eclipse my following-through?

2. Any new insights since concluding the Decision Retreat? Ask about the candidate’s experience since concluding the Decision Retreat. Did they “live-as-if” with the election they made? If so, how did it go? Has God brought further clarity to the decision? Any spiritual consolations or times of desolation? Any questions about the decision itself?

A few considerations and words of advice.

a. Clarify that we haven’t discerned the future. No discernment, no matter how faithfully it is carried out, can predict the final place God will call the candidate. So, for example, the result of this Novena could never be: “I’m going to be a priest…or a nun…or a monk!” Other people and groups have to mutually confirm such decisions. Rather, we’ve discerned a direction. That means it’s legitimate to say, for example, “I believe God is calling me to pursue a priestly vocation” or “I believe God is leading me in the direction of marriage and family life.” There’s a balance to strike here. We’re not calling the discernment into question. There should be real resolution and direction that leads the candidate to take action. That said, we remain in a posture of receiving from the Lord and staying watchful as he opens and closes various doors.

b. Can God re-direct further down the road? Absolutely. That’s why we’ve emphasized that this is about making the next good step. Does some future change of direction mean that this first discernment was wrong? Not necessarily. God directs us in mysterious ways. People who pursue religious or priestly formation, but who discover they’re being called somewhere else instead, will often say that God’s plan included those years of special instruction for them; that such “detours” were not a waste of time. God writes straight with crooked lines.

c. If celibacy is the direction, what if the candidate still wants marriage? The desire for marriage and family life is to be expected and shouldn’t call the decision into question. When St. Ignatius speaks of elective indifference, he points to the primacy of following God’s will as our overriding objective. Indifference doesn’t mean that all other paths lose their appeal. Only that we prioritize the path that we discern to be for God’s greater glory. Greater desire for the call comes with time, but that process will be different for each person. If we understand this rightly, we can actually appreciate the beauty of other life-states more richly. So a noted Ignatian scholar explained:

Those who have been through, or have helped others through, an Ignatian discernment to decide whether God called them to marriage or consecrated celibacy, no matter which way the decision went, know that, in becoming electively indifferent to the attraction of romantic love and marriage, they did not become less sensitive to the beauty of these human experiences, did not feel less attraction to them or less pain in the thought of sacrificing them. What they did experience was a desire for the greater glory of God rooted in love for God and neighbor, so much deeper and stronger than any other desire, that they were free from any undue influence on their judgment about the matter and, perhaps, could even make the decision and choice readily despite the pain.

“Discerning God’s Will, Ignatius of Loyola’s Teaching on Christian Decision Making,” by Jules J. Toner, S.J., St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1991, pp. 83, 84

3. Go over the candidate’s completed worksheet. The Decision Resolution worksheet should be self-explanatory. If any observations you made during your own DA reflections would be helpful, share them with the candidate here.

4. Give the Century Stone and card. The candidate was directed, at the end of the 99 Days, to throw away their Ebenezer, their rock of remembrance, in a cemetery. This experience of “letting go” finds its reward in the gift of the Century Stone. We hope they connect this white stone with the insight that whatever we set aside will return to us transformed in God’s perfect will - something that is similar but also different from what we once held onto so firmly. At this time feel free to offer further words of advice and encouragement.

5. Concluding and continuing. This may come up naturally, but if not, a few simple words about what further contact might look like can be helpful for the candidate. How much or how little is for you to decide based on your own availability and the candidate’s needs. There are no expectations implicit in the 99 Days for on-going guidance beyond this point. Be clear. Be kind.

End by asking the candidate to name one thing they are most grateful for at the end of this Novena journey. Together turn to God in prayer and thank him for this and other blessings you’ve received!