A Useful Aid for Those We Guide
A Guide for Spiritual Guides
Hello and welcome to the most unique feature of this 99 Day Novena journey. It’s a parallel resource for ministers, pastors and spiritual directors who are working with Catholics discerning a life-state vocation to religious life or priesthood.
First a little about the Novena itself. The 99 Days is more than a devotional practice. It’s an accompanied process of self-discovery that prepares a person for fruitful self-gift. The 99 Days is not a program of self-improvement like Exodus 90 (which we predate). Nor is it a recruiting tool. And there is no special “magic” to 99 days. The purpose is to provide adequate time and space for a candidate considering a celibate call to explore inwardly (self-knowledge, relationship patterns) in order to more effectively explore outwardly (various life-states, seminaries and communities).
By way of introduction, my name is Br. Sam Gunn and I’m the author of the 99 Day Novena. I’ve written it based on my own journey and from my experience over the past two and a half decades as a Catholic campus minister. I got tired of seeing so many young people wanting to know God’s will but having no effective means of finding it.
As an artist I think in pictures. The 99 Days is an image-based journey through the spiritual life. I use picture-analogies to convey truths in ways I find young people understand. I’ve drawn on the spiritual greats – Augustine, John of the Cross, Teresa, Thérèse, and many others. This Novena is an interactive visualization, for an image-oriented generation, of the way spiritual growth happens.
The 99 Days have proved effective in reaching a distracted, busy and visually over-stimulated audience with the most important message of their lives. Bold, bright and unlike anything they’ve seen before, this Novena comes at the task of discernment with elements both old and new to capture the candidate’s imagination. I also hope it provides a ladder to the spiritual classics. Once familiar with the principles of spiritual life offered here, the candidate can explore further.
Members of my community, the Brotherhood of Hope, have been taking people through the 99 Days for over 20 years. We’ve been very impressed with the results. This Discernment Advisor’s Guide was the final phase of the project. I hope you find it helpful as you set out.
Br. Sam Gunn, BH
author of the 99 Day Novena
What is the Role of a Discernment Advisor?
The 99 Day Novena is not “Do It Yourself” discernment. From the very beginning, the discerner is urged to choose a trusted companion, a spiritually wise guide, to serve as a Discernment Advisor (DA). If you’re recommending the Novena to someone you’re pastoring, it means you’ll have a vital role to play and the purpose of this page is to inform and equip you for the task ahead. If you register below, we’ll send you access via email to the Advisor’s Guide. You’ll find there an explanation of the Novena as a whole as well as a step-by-step outline for the meetings you’ll be having with the discerner, whom we call the candidate. Below, we’ll answer some common questions.
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).
If you’re a vocation director, the 99 Days gives you a good look at the candidate. It opens up conversations about identity and patterns of relationship that are very valuable for mutual understanding. It allows for discerning together even when you are geographically distant.
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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 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.
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Actually, it is a lot to ask. That’s kind of the point. You’re going to see how the candidate handles commitment and deals with obstacles. What kind of character do they show? Do they have grit and determination? Best to find out sooner rather than later.