Discerning one’s vocation is not an easy job. A key element of discernment is self discovery…truly understanding who you are, prior to listening to where God wants to lead you.

Awakening the Hero Within is a book that delves into personality types and can offer some very eye-opening ways of focusing from within.

“The heroic quest is about saying ‘yes’ to yourself and in doing so, becoming more fully alive and more effective in the world…”

If you have read it, tell us what you think. What did you learn? What advice can you give other discerners?

To view our Suggested Books on Discernment, CLICK HERE.

Are you looking for inner calm and true peace?  Do you want to explore your Catholic spirituality further?  Deeper?  Do you want to encounter your own personal connection to God?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, then this is the book for you!  Sr. Jean Aulenback recommended The Naked Now: Learning to see as the Mystics See as a great read.  The author, Richard Rohr, is a Franciscan Priest who is well established as a writer. 

In The Naked Now, Mr. Rohr takes excerpts from several of his other books, on subjects such as non-duality, and weaves them together offering an alternative perspective.  He guides the reader through a journey of self-discovery and spirituality deepening, but he does it in simple terms.

“Theism believes there is a God. Christianity believes that God and humanity can coexist in the same place! These are two utterly different proclamations about the nature of the universe.” 

                                                                   -Richard Rohr

Now available at the Bon Secours Bookstore in Marriottsville, MD (near Baltimore).

If you are exploring (discerning) a vocation, read, Chapter 3 “What Do You Want?” to learn how to recognize your own desires (like road signs) as a path leading you into God. Martin reminds us that “our deep desires help us know God’s desires for us and how much God desires to be with us” (p. 59). Like a skilled surgeon, he pinpoints the fact that our desires are often masked; presenting themselves from time to time as a sense of incompleteness, a longing for connection, and even feelings of vulnerability. At other times we may experience our desires as moments of joy, clarity, or a sudden attraction to holiness. 

It’s a great read and provides a practical ‘how-to guide’ in addressing every day questions we ask ourselves, “How do I know who I’m supposed to be” “How can I face suffering?” “How can I be happy?” “How can I find God?” “How do I make good decisions?”

So far, Mr. Wick has taken us on a journey through our natural tendencies and reactions to stress, and is highlighting ways to use daily “debriefing” techniques and “self-talk” to stop the drain of valuable emotional energy.  It seems like it would be a nice book to take on a trip, where I could get away and really focus on the content and its meaning in my life right now.  So far, so good!

“Bounce treats us to ‘Have a Life!’ and live it more fully. Wicks helps us to develop hardiness, learn to debrief ourselves after a hard day, and create a personal self-care program we will actually follow. Insightful, practical, and often humorous, Bounce is the right tonic for the spirit that we need in today’s stressful world.” –Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking

For a glimpse inside, CLICK HERE.

An Excerpt from the Introduction

One of the gifts we have received from the twentieth century is a picture of Earth as our shared home. The human community of the twenty-first century can see Earth as a blue-green planet set against the darkness of interstellar space. We are able to think of our home planet in the context of the vast distances of the Milky Way Galaxy and of the roughly one hundred billion galaxies that make up the observable universe, and be led to a new appreciation of Earth’s beauty and hospitality to life. We can see human beings as part of a global community, interconnected with other species and with the life systems of our planet. This represents a precious new moment in human cultural history.

At the same time we are confronted by the damage human beings are doing to the atmosphere, the soil, the rivers, and the seas of Earth. It is becoming more and more obvious that if we continue to destroy the great forests and clear the bush, if we continue reckless exploration of the land, rivers, and the seas, if we continue to lose habitats, what we will pass on to our descendants will be an impoverished and far more sterile place. We are in the midst of a process that, if allowed to continue, will end in the destruction of much of what we have come to treasure.

Everything is interconnected. The continued use of fossil fuels, like the vast amounts of coal mined in my own land, Australia, contributes to rapid climate change that will bring terrible suffering to human beings and a further acceleration in the extinction of other species. Already uncounted and unnamed species are being lost forever. All of this will have an unimaginable impact on human beings, but it is also obviously far more than a human problem. At the center of this book is the argument that this loss of biodiversity is a theological issue. When human beings cause the extinction of other species, they destroy creatures made by God. They damage a mode of God’s self-revelation.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Human beings within the community of life: “made in the image of God.”

3. The Creator Spirit: “Giver of life”

4. Ecological commitment and the following of Jesus

5. The diversity of life and the Trinity

6. The final transformation of all things

7. Worship and practice

8. Ecology at the heart of Christian faith

Pick up the book, “Sabbath” by Wayne Muller for some simple pointers for busy people.  It is a great read!