Tolstoy and wife in
“The Last Station”

St. Ignatius of Loyola is known for the ‘discernment of spirits’ in his life and his work, especially the Spiritual Exercise. The discernment of spirits for St. Ignatius was his way of learning God’s will and was dependent a lot of feelings. He learned how to reflect how an experience or thoughts left him down and discouraged or with a deep sense of peace and energy, as a way to find the satisfaction and peace of doing God’s will.

An example from my life: Last night my wife and I watched a DVD from the library on the last days of the great Russian writer and philosopher Leo Tolstoy. The movie was called the “The Last Station”. It left us feeling satisfied and a sense of gaining some new knowledge. Tonight we watched another DVD from the library called “Duplicity”. It was advertised as a romantic spy movie but left us confused and like we just wasted time.

However, the sad part of this lesson in discernment of movies is that we have done this before. I have learned not to watch movies that do not have at least 3 of 4 stars in overall ratings. The “Last Station” had four stars and “Duplicity” had two and half stars. More important that discernment of spirits is to practice what we learn from it. All people are made to make mistakes. Great persons discern and learn from their mistakes. This discernment of movies hopefully is the last time I will need to learn this lesson…but I probably said that before.

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