Abstract
The chapter deals with the human capacity of discerning internal emotions, experiences, thoughts, feelings, etc., which are prior to concrete action. In the first part it presents the factors which today complicate orientation in a complex world of internal experiences (with emphasis on communal discernment and the individual dimension of discernment).
In the second part the chapter examines what we can draw from the experiences of the Christian tradition, codified in certain key texts of spiritual literature (the Scriptures, the Apophthegmata patrum (Sayings of the Desert Fathers), the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola, the texts of St John of the Cross, Anthony de Mello and Thomas Merton). The final part considers how the approaches and aids which have been manifested in the Christian tradition can help to develop the capacity of discernment in the contemporary cultural context (with the distinction between internal and external examples of discernment).