Accompanying Discernment
Cultivating an Ignatian Way of Proceeding
Monday, February 22 - Wednesday, February 24, 2027
Jesuit Retreat House at Lake Winnebago
Discernment is at the heart of the Ignatian tradition. It is the prayerful work of becoming attentive to the movements within us, learning to recognize the ways the Spirit is at work, and growing in the freedom to respond. For the spiritual director, this raises an important question: How do we accompany another person as they discern?
Accompanying Discernment is a workshop for spiritual directors who desire to deepen their capacity to accompany others in the practice of Ignatian discernment. Together, we will explore both the discernment of spirits and discernment in decision-making, with particular attention to the role of the spiritual director.
The work is not to discern for another, nor to lead someone toward a particular outcome. Rather, it is to help create a space in which a person can listen more deeply, recognize the movements of their interior life, receive the graces being offered, and respond with greater freedom.
A Workshop for Spiritual Directors
This workshop is designed for those who already have experience in spiritual direction and desire deeper formation in accompanying others in discernment.
Participants will engage the Ignatian tradition through:
- presentation and theological reflection
- prayer and personal reflection
- conversation with other spiritual directors
- case studies drawn from the practice of spiritual direction
- opportunities to reflect on one's own way of accompanying
- exploration of the Spiritual Exercises and Ignatian texts
The workshop will invite participants not simply to learn about discernment, but to consider how discernment becomes part of their own way of proceeding as spiritual directors.
A Way of Proceeding
Ignatius understood discernment not simply as a method for making difficult decisions, but as a way of proceeding—a way of becoming attentive to God's presence and activity in the whole of one's life.
In this workshop, we will consider how this Ignatian way of proceeding shapes the ministry of spiritual direction.
We will explore questions such as:
- How do we help a person become attentive to interior movements in prayer and in daily life?
- How do we recognize and accompany consolation and desolation?
- What distinguishes the movement of the good spirit from other movements within us?
- What does Ignatian freedom have to do with good discernment?
- How do we recognize when our own assumptions, preferences, or desire to help may interfere with another's discernment?
Two Dimensions of Ignatian Discernment
The workshop will bring together two dimensions of discernment found throughout the Spiritual Exercises.
Discernment of Spirits
We will explore Ignatius' teaching on consolation and desolation and the movements of the spirits. Particular attention will be given to helping directees notice, name, and interpret what is happening within their prayer and their lives.
The goal is not simply to identify consolation or desolation, but to become increasingly attentive to the ways God may be inviting, encouraging, challenging, or drawing a person toward greater freedom and love.
Discernment in Decision-Making
We will also explore the Ignatian tradition of discernment in making choices. How does a person move from noticing interior movements to discerning how to respond? What helps a person become free enough to choose well? How does a spiritual director accompany this process without taking responsibility for the decision?
Through the presentations, reflection, small group conversation, plenary gathering and case studies, participants will have opportunities to consider how Ignatian principles become concrete in the ministry of spiritual direction.
The Spiritual Director as Companion
At the heart of the workshop is a conviction that discernment is relational. The spiritual director accompanies another person with reverence, attentiveness, and trust. We listen not only to what a person says but to the movements beneath the words. We attend to prayer, desire, resistance, freedom, fear, consolation, desolation, and the ways a person's relationship with God is unfolding.
The director's role is not to become the discerner-in-chief. It is to help another become more attentive and responsive to the Spirit's movement in their own life. This requires not only knowledge of Ignatian principles but also the ongoing formation of the director's own capacity to listen and discern.
Ignatian discernment ultimately points toward greater freedom—the freedom to recognize what is happening within us, to release what keeps us from responding generously, and to choose in a way that is increasingly rooted in love.
For spiritual directors, this means cultivating the freedom to accompany without controlling, to listen without rushing toward an answer, and to trust the Spirit's work in the person before us.
Registration opening soon.
Presenter(s):
Carol Atwell Ackels
Carol is Director of the Ignatian Spirituality Institute. A spiritual director in the Ignatian tradition she serves as retreat director of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius in various formats. She offers weekend retreats, the Exercises in Everyday Life, and one-to-one directed retreats at Jesuit retreat houses across the United States. Carol regularly gives programs and days of reflection to parish and Church groups. She launched and continues to give workshops to shape persons, Jesuits and lay, who are moving into retreat ministry and spiritual companioning in the Ignatian tradition. Appointed by the Provincial, Carol served six years on the bi-province Commission on Ministry--the group that discerns long-range planning for apostolic work of the Jesuits and their colleagues. Carol co-authored with Joe Tetlow, S.J. the twelve week Ignatian retreat Finding Christ in the World, and worked with Anthony Borrow, S.J. developing the Toward Greater Freedom retreat for parents at Jesuit College Prep of Dallas. Carol holds a J.D. from SMU Dedman School of Law, Dallas and a Master of Art in Theology and Leadership from Gonzaga University, Spokane. She and her husband reside in Dallas and are the parents of five adult children.
Fr. Michael Graham, SJ
A native of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Fr. Michael Graham, SJ holds degrees from Cornell College, the University of Michigan and the Weston School of Theology (now, the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry). He entered the Jesuits in 1978 and was ordained in 1988.
Fr. Graham was Xavier University's President from January 1, 2001 to June 30, 2021. Fr. Graham’s passion for the specifically Jesuit mission of Xavier animated his presidency in multiple ways. He collaborated with a variety of professionals in the area of Jesuit Mission and Identity to shape and support work to share Xavier’s Jesuit ethos and heart with faculty, staff and students in such a way that its approach to that work is generally regarded as best-in-class. He helped found a campus center for dialogue that became a crucial hub for inter-religious conversation in the Cincinnati region, and whose work engaged a wide variety of constituencies and topics in areas of justice, sustainability, immigration and more. He likewise championed diversity, inclusion and equity efforts on and off the campus and helped recruit transformative leadership to embed that work firmly within the fabric of the University.
In his retirement, Fr. Graham looks forward to expanded opportunities for pastoral ministry, especially through various retreats at the Midwest Jesuit Province network of retreat houses, and to assisting Jesuit university trustees and senior executives understand better the Jesuit mission and identity of their schools so as to lead them more effectively and in fidelity to their origins. And, of course, he’ll keep his eyes and ears open for whatever ideas for his future his Provincial Superior may suggest.