God Cares about our Decisions
On September 6th, 2025, Sr. Rosa Maria, MSC arrived at St Philip’s Mission, Eswatini at the Holy Spirit Community, for a moment of sharing and learning with the postulants: Stellamaris, Immaculate, Catherine, Rita and Sr. Suany, the Postulant formator. It was a time of sharing experiences together and a moment of deep discernment. Sr. Rosa adopted the simplest form of teaching to help each one in understanding the core of the Discernment.
Postulant Rita Idoko shares a reflection about this experince.
Sr. Rosa Maria teaching the postulants
The meaning of discernment was explained from a lay man’s perspective and from the spiritual perspective as a process that involves self criticism, questions and risks, a process of detecting with the senses other than the vision, a process of becoming aware of God’s presence and how He calls us as individuals and as a community, a process of sifting through the choices and voices that surround us, bearing in mind that the real one who discerns is the Holy Spirit.
Sr. Rosa set an example before us, St. Ignatius of Loyola, who assumed in his discernment of spirits, that God communicates directly with each of us in our hearts, minds and souls through various interior movements like our feelings, thoughts and desires. St. Ignatius noted that both the good and what he described as the “evil spirit” speak to us. Hence, the trick is to figure out which of our desires, thoughts and feelings are from God and which are not. This discernment of spirits is what he called the “motions of the soul”.
Sr. Rosa helped us to understand that God cares about our decisions, and that the Divine desire is manifested largely in our desires and efforts and that our emotions are the key for discernment. Furthermore, Spiritual Consolation and Desolation were discussed: we were helped to better understand the difference between spiritual desolation, mere tiredness or exhaustion and hormonal changes in the body and how to handle each moment.
Sr. Rosa also shared that self awareness is being able to be in touch with one’s character, emotions, strengths and weakness, thoughts and beliefs. Our consciousness was brought to how we see our own values, how these values impact others and how our environment and people make an impact on us.
To be aware of one’s self, one need to have the capacity for introspection, the capacity to understand how others see us and the capacity for inner silence and prayer.
Finally, we discussed the importance of the Examination of conscience and the steps to make a good one each day in order to recognize where and how God was present in our daily activities.
During these moments of discussions, we shared our reflections and experiences amidst short breaks. As an important course for this stage of our formation, it was worthwhile sharing this time with Sr. Rosa Maria, for which we remain grateful to the institute for this candid opportunity.
