I this article I have been sharing the STEPS on the Ladder of Divine Ascent of our Father among the Saints, John Climacus. I have already shared the first 25 steps of his spiritual path for growing in our greater likeness to Jesus Christ. I would not share STEP 26, which is DISCERNMENT. I am sure that many probably have not heard of this attitude of the mind. Here is what St. John says in introducing this step:

Among beginners, discernment is real self-knowledge; among those midway along the road, it is a spiritual capacity to distinguish unfailingly between what is truly good and what in nature is opposed to the good; among those who have worked hard, it is a knowledge resulting from divine illumination, which with its lamp can light up what is dark in others….

If you have been following along with this article, you have probably already noticed that the steps on John’s Ladder are not independent of one another. The passions and virtues are not to be understood in isolation as distinct steps. We may have made a beginning of various virtues, but we have yet to make any advanced progress in them, and so many passions continue to dominate us in spite of our little spiritual development. To reach the heights of spirituality, we must keep battling on in every aspect of Christian life. One virtue alone may be able to save us, but only all of them combined can lead us to holiness and the likeness of God. In a similar way, true discernment requires mastery over all the passions, but that is not to say we may not all be able to make a little progress in it.

There are three stages in discernment:

• Self-knowledge;
• Ability to distinguish between good and bad;
• Divine illumination.

In order to understand discernment, I’ll attempt to examine this virtue in each of these three stages. As you might guess, this is an important STEP.