Discernment: A journey into the unknown
‘…great instance was made by diverse spiritual, and learned men, that we would take upon us some Rule already confirmed; several rules were procured by our friends, both from Italy and France, and we earnestly urged to make choice of some of them; they seemed not that which God would have done, and the refusal of them caused much persecution, and the more, because I denied all, and could not say what in particular I desired or found myself called unto.
Mary Ward’s Letter to Mgr. Antonio Albergati, 1621
About this time in the year 1611 I fell sick in great extremity, being somewhat recovered (by a vow made to send in pilgrimage to our Blessed Lady of Sichem), being alone, in some extraordinary repose of mind, I heard distinctly, not by sound of voice but intellectually understood, these words, Take the Same of the Society, so understood, that we were to take the same both in matter and in manner, that only excepted which God by diversity of sex hath prohibited, these few words gave so great measure of light in the particular Institute , comfort and strength, and changed so the whole soul, as that unpossible for me to doubt but that they came from him whose words are works……..
Concerning the name, I have twice in several [different] years understood in as particular a manner as these other things I have recounted, that the denomination of these must be Jesus. And thrice, I think more often, of the inconv
