Discernment in Catherine of Siena

Theological Studies, March, 1997 by Diana L. Villegas

At the age of 18, Catherine became a Dominican mantellata (the mantellate were a group of widows who worked with the sick and poor of Siena and who were affiliated with the Dominicans). While continuing to live at home, she spent the next three years mostly in solitude and prayer. Through her contemplative experience she eventually felt urged to become more involved in the work of the mantellate. Following the urgings and guidance encountered in prayer, she progressively became involved with a wider circle of people and a broad spectrum of spiritual, social, and political concerns.(15) She acted as spiritual mother to many who gathered in her room at her parents' home; she mediated between individuals of rival families; she attempted to mediate with and influence leaders of city states; she advised the pope,(16) cardinals, and other church officials. This unfolding of her life into wider service to community and church exemplifies the spirituality that I will later describe. Her interior encounter with God and with self before God led to a transformation of her own desires and perceptions, so that the good of others and the good of the Church became consuming concerns for which she was willing to sacrifice herself.

History of the Notion of Discernment

In order better to understand Catherine's teaching on discernment and better to appreciate the significance of her contribution to current spiritualities of discernment, it is important to see how Catherine's doctrine fits into the history of the notion of discernment. Historians of this concept distinguish between the discernment of spirits (discretio spirituum)(17) tradition and the virtue of discernment (discretio) tradition. Catherine's contribution is to the discretio tradition which has not been significantly explored since the late Middle Ages(18) and which does not often inform contemporary spiritualities of discernment.

Much modern literature on discernment has exemplified the discretio spirituum tradition. It has focused on discernment in the Ignatian tradition that emphasizes reflection on inner movements of consolation and desolation and the implications of such movements for the discovery of God's will. Catherine wrote about consolation and desolation when she taught about the action of the evil spirit on the person and described ways of recognizing this action.(19) Since her teaching on this theme was not extensive and did not make a significant contribution to the tradition, it will not be explored here.(20)

Discernment in the discretio tradition is the virtue that regulates or modifies other virtues and the activities of the spiritual life. It is a virtue based on knowledge of self acquired in prayer. When this virtue is operative, a person develops an internalized capacity to distinguish what is most ordered and measured and to act accordingly. For some authors discretio is also the virtue that orders the practice of Charity.(21)

Catherine's teaching on discernment goes beyond these dimensions of the discretio tradition as she intertwined her wisdom about discernment with her wisdom about her central theme: coming to know and live truth and love.(22) In these contexts discernment is no longer one of several virtues, or even the virtue that orders the others. Rather, discernment is a concomitant fruit of the person's capacity for love and truth, capacities for which the person is created. The capacity for discernment and the quality, as it were, of a person's discernment is inextricably tied to the process of conversion and the growth of one's potential for truth and love. The basis for this theology of discernment can already be glimpsed in the first paragraph of The Dialogue: