Discernment Advisor
What is the Role of a Discernment Advisor?
The 99 Day Novena is not “Do It Yourself” discernment. From the very beginning, the discerner chooses a trusted companion, a spiritually wise guide, to serve as a Discernment Advisor (DA). If this is you, it means you have a vital role to play. The purpose of this page is to provide you with general information about the Novena and answer some common questions. We hope this helps you decide whether the DA role is a good fit for you.
If you register as an advisor below, you’ll receive an email with links and further explanation about serving as a DA. This includes step-by-step outlines for the meetings you’ll have with the discerner, whom we call the candidate. After signing up, you can still decide to opt-out and there’s no spam. We’ll only send Novena-related info! Please note that we don’t provide discernment contacts, but leave it to would-be candidates to find their own DA’s. You’re also free to recommend this resource if you know or work with others who might find it helpful.
Common questions
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If you haven’t already, take a moment to read about the 99 Day Novena here. The page is directed to a potential candidate, but we hope you’ll find it informative too.
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We designed the Novena to have a relatively low impact on the Discernment Advisor’s (DA) schedule. The Advisor’s Guide will give you content summaries, recommended areas to focus on and agendas for your every-other-week meetings. If you do decide to read the daily meditations along with the candidate, your time will be well spent. We think you’ll find the content informative and we hope it will be a blessing to your own spiritual life as well. If you ever have occasion to serve as a DA with the Novena again, being acquainted with the content, you’ll have far less work to do. The Decision Retreat made by the candidate at the end of the Novena is ordinarily directed by you, the DA, with materials provided in your Advisor’s Guide. The timing of the Retreat is flexible and can be arranged to fit with your schedule and availability. As explained elsewhere, you can offer spiritual guidance by phone so you don’t have to be on-site with the candidate (unless you decide to).
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A brief introductory meeting (where you give, or are given access to, the material), a meeting after the first 9 days to evaluate whether to go ahead with a full discernment (the remaining 90 days), and then a meeting every other week after that. The concluding retreat requires a daily meeting and there should be a final face-to-face meeting after the retreat. That works out to about 12 to 15 meetings over the course of roughly 3 months.
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The first 9 days serve as a “discernment for discernment” and open up opportunities for the DA to raise such questions. To state the obvious: a program for discernment is only as useful as the willingness of the candidate to accept the outcome. The first nine days are a challenge to the candidate to “be real” about discernment and not merely go through the motions. This is important for you because if you are not confident that the candidate is serious, don’t start. They don’t need to be sold on this or that possible outcome, but they do need to “be willing to be willing” to follow God’s will once it is known. The most obvious sign that they are not willing would be serious prior commitments. For example, if the candidate is entering med school or has a very demanding job or is currently in a very committed relationship with a potential marriage partner his or her heart is probably not in it. Please feel free to save yourself the time and tell someone in any such situation that you’re not available to serve as their DA.