Because our conscience is that inner sanctuary in which we listen to the voice of God, we must remember to distinguish between our subjective self and what is objectively true outside ourselves. We can be subjectively in error about something that is objectively true. If there is an incorrect conscience, that means that the conscience is erroneous in its view of truth.
The person thinks it is a Holy Day certain subjectively but incorrect objectively and acts on it. This person has a certain but incorrect conscience. But because the conscience acted against what it perceived to be objectively the good, the conscience chooses to sin. First, always follow a certain conscience. Second, an incorrect conscience must be changed if possible. Third, do not act with a doubtful conscience.
We must always obey the certain judgments of our conscience, realizing that our conscience can be incorrect, that it can make a mistake about what is truly the good or the right thing to do. This can be due to ignorance in which, through no fault of our own, we did not have all we needed to make a correct judgment. We can qualify this as the dynamic Christian conscience. This is the conscience which leads us to have a responsible attitude to someone, to Jesus, to the community, to the Church, etc.
Every person who fits into this category feels a responsibility for a progressive search and striving to live out a life ideal according to the mind of Christ Phil.
In the first place, this category represents a truly acceptable and dignified human position. Vatican Council II has clearly placed great emphasis upon the basic dignity and value of the human being and upon his responsibility as the ultimate judge under God of the value of his action. For God has willed that man may be left 'in the hand of his own counsel' Ecclesiasticus so that he can seek his Creator spontaneously, and come freely to utter and blissful perfection through loyalty to Him.
Hence man's dignity demands that he act according to a knowing and free choice. Such a choice is personally motivated and prompted from within. It does not result from blind internal impulse nor from more external pressure" Gaudium et Spes , Consequently, it is the proper dignity of every human being to feel the responsibility which is postulated by God himself in the manner in which He has created us. This is the basis for the argument which St. Paul presented in his letter to the Romans, where he so clearly enunciates the fact that every human being, in coming into the world, has God's law in his heart.
By this he means two things. First, that man is responsible for his acts, and secondly, that he cannot take it upon himself to act according to the whims of the moment without reference to his Creator, to his fellow men and to himself Rom In our times we welcome the growing maturity of our people who understand this first element, but we remind them that so to judge does not dispense them from the second element of referring to God's presence, variously but truly manifested in their lives and guiding their judgements.
Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience can when necessary speak to his heart more specifically: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God.
To obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged" Gaudium et Spes , We feel that this type of mature conscience will be the greatest antidote the to growing attack, both explicit and implicit, upon the concept of man's sinfulness. The exaggerated and pseudo-autonomy of man has led us into a frame of mind in which we have played down the concept of sin and redemption, and have deliberately turned our backs upon the clear teaching of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ that while God is a loving Father, he cannot be mocked.
This does not postulate the ancient erroneous idea that God is some sort of a tyrant who is looking for an opportunity to punish us.
On the other hand, the very gift of our freedom indicates that when we misuse it, we ourselves will suffer. In this sense, possible punishment is the necessary concomitant of the law of love. Love cannot be forced upon anyone, but as a modern writer has put it, "He who rejects love is in turn rejected by it and lies howling at the threshold.
The suffering of those who reject God's norms of life is of their own doing. Hence, we feel that a dynamic Christian conscience is one which recognizes all of these facts and is freed by it.
It is therefore freed from the necessity of pretending that sin is not there and that the eventual result of sin is not there. We have already pointed out that the basic responsibility of every human being lies in the fact that he is God's creature and that, as a result, he must assume responsibility for his actions over which God has given him direct stewardship. But, we have also pointed out that for the Christian and for the Catholic Christian, in particular, there are guides which he has freely accepted which are meant to help him to discover that light of God's guidance within him.
In this context, we necessarily insist first and foremost upon the working of the Spirit in the hearts of men Jn. Vatican II brought us from a somewhat widespread opinion that the Catholic Church constituted a monolithic arrangement in which the very voice of the Spirit was controlled and channelled.
Everything was supposed to come from above, with the faithful, as it were, the ultimate recipients of the straining of the Spirit through the upper echelons. It is obvious that nothing so crass was every officially taught by the Church, but impressions are sometimes more lasting and more universal than teachings.
The insistence of the Council on the importance of the people of God and of their personal and direct relationship to the Spirit is a clarification which must never be lost to sight Lumen Gentium , 4 and It is under this heading that we recognize the need of the personal conversion and acceptance of salvation by every human being. The Council Lumen Gentium 13 and 48 has explicitly upheld the scriptural teaching that God wills the salvation of all men, but there is always the second movement to this symphony of love and that is that man cannot be saved without himself.
Every man must turn freely to God. For us who believe in an order over and above that of the temporal and temporary, this turning to God and the acceptance of his loving will for man, even though he has revealed himself in an obscure fashion, is called an act of faith. It is the free decision of a man to accept as true that God has spoke to us ".
But in this the final age He has spoken to us in the Son. The guidance of the Church is a part of that revelation. We are now in a position where we can lay down certain norms for the guidance of the conscience of the Catholic Christian. If our positions up to this point have been accepted, it follows that an act of conscience is an individual thing but must be based upon certain accepted principles and positions.
It becomes, therefore, the duty of the individual to acquire the necessary information and attitude in order to make the right decision.
Certain human conditions undoubtedly aid in the balanced performance which one requires from a Christian. Sound emotional stability, a cultivation of self-knowledge and clear objective judgement, even education itself, will undoubtedly help, although we must not postulate a certain elitism which would expect only the educated to have sound conscience.
The assistance of sound communal attitudes and of cultural and social influences - all of these things are sound human contributions to the acquisition of knowledge and, above all, of proper attitude. But these fall far short of the total necessary conditions for the formation of conscience and their ultimate application in life. For the man who had made his act of faith, the prime factor in the formation of his conscience and in his moral judgement is to be found in the existence and the role of Chris in his life Jn.
A person who wishes to have a true Christian conscience must be faithfully in communication with his Lord in all of his life, particularly through his own prayer a nd the prayer of the Church. Indeed, properly understood, the presence of Christ in his life is all-pervasive and all-embracing.
All the other aspects of conscience formation are based on this one and stem from it. This does not make them unnecessary or superfluous, but simply puts them in their place 1 Jn. With this in mind, the man of faith draws his inspiration from the Scripture, the very Word of God in which he finds revealed not only the designs of the Father in the historical context of the world, but a refined series of ideals, precepts and examples given to us by the same Lord Jesus.
This is communicated to him not only in the words of the Scripture but in the Spirit of Jesus which continues to live with us and which makes us "a chosen race and a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation and a people set apart" 1 Pet. It is in this context that the teaching of the Church finds its full force. We have seen through sad historical example, the kind of confusion that can arise from an unguided and overly subjective reading of the Scriptures and interpretation of tradition.
The Church has been give to us to make sure that the Word of God contained in the Scripture and illustrated to us in the Spirit can be authenticated in the community of believers. In this one Spirit of which we speak, we have the service of the apostles and of their successors, the College of Bishops, united with their head, the Pope. The role of the apostles and their successors was and is to bear witness to Christ, the revealer of the Father's Will.
It was and is their duty to transmit the testimony of the original apostles concerning Christ, to celebrate the new covenant and to guide the people of God in the living of the new creation of Christ Mt. Guided by the Spirit, the Church has sought to do precisely this in the past and continues to do so in the present world while turned toward the second coming o f Christ.
The doctrinal service of the successors of the apostles includes the Scriptures and tradition as described above.
In the fulfilment of this task, they do not seek to suppress the other gifts of the Spirit but encourage all to test the gifts according to the criteria found in Scripture and tradition. For a believer, this teaching of the magisterium as outlined above cannot be just one element among others in the formation of his conscience.
What must be kept in mind is that we are in the dimension of faith. And we should be encouraged and hopeful because we can count on the continued assistance of the Holy Spirit in a manner which pure reason could never give. The responsible person, as defined above, must weigh the facts before acting. This is far removed from saying that he may act in accordance with his whims and wishes.
A believer has the absolute obligation of conforming his conduct first and foremost to what the Church teaches, because first and foremost for the believer is that Christ, through his Spirit, is ever present in his Church, in the whole Church to be sure, but particularly with those who exercise services within the Church and for the Church, the first of which services is that of the apostles.
Furthermore, even in matters which have not been defined ex cathedra , i. The reality itself, for example, sex, marriage, economics, politics, war, must be studied in detail. In this study, he should make an effort to become aware of his own inevitable presuppositions as well as his cultural background which leads him to act for or react against any given position. If his ultimate practical judgement to do this or avoid that does not take into full account the teaching of the Church, an account based not only on reason but on the faith dimension, he is deceiving himself in pretending that he is acting as a true Catholic must.
For a Catholic "to follow one's conscience" is not, then, simply to act as his unguided reason dictates. When doubt arises due to a conflict of "my" views and those of the magisterium, the presumption of truth lies on the part of the magisterium. This religious submission of will and of mind must be shown in a special way to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra Lumen Gentium , And this must be carefully distinguished from the teaching of individual theologians or individual priests, however intelligent or persuasive.
These positions bring us now to the delicate question of law, which is a regulating force in human and Christian action. Learn Without a foundational, practical formation, it is difficult for our consciences to guide us well in concrete situations.
As Catholics, we have the immense gift of the teaching authority of the Catholic Church and can turn to it for help forming our consciences. For example, learning about Christian moral principles, reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church , or researching what the Church says about a challenging teaching will help us grow in knowledge of the truth. In turn, this helps us understand a little more how to live in a way that leads to our true happiness.
Reflect We are formed by the stories we hear and tell. We may be uncertain how we ought to respond to various challenges as followers of Jesus, but there are many saints who have faced similar questions throughout the ages. Immersing ourselves in the stories of holy women and men can encourage us and help us develop habits of mind that allow us to grow.
Stories help us hone our instincts. Nurture friendships A life of following Jesus is exceedingly difficult without help from a community. When we devote energy to holy friendships with people who are also trying to know, love, and serve the Lord, we gain partners who can lighten the load.
Conversation with other Christians about how to respond to challenges in the life of discipleship are vital. Two Challenges A couple challenges we may face in following our consciences are worth noting.
Indifference When we are bombarded with news, images, stories, and sound bites, it's easy to become numb to other people and the world around us. Conscience requires us to be attentive.
We must listen to God, who speaks to us. Having a well-formed conscience doesn't mean we have all the answers to the complex problems in the world, but it does mean that we are sensitive to the needs and struggles of other people.
Coercion Increasingly, we are seeing that certain groups use the power of the media and even of the state to coerce people to violate their consciences. We can see how unjust these types of actions are that insist that popular opinion, rather than conscience, should be our primary guide for action.
Our Response Inspired by the example of Sister Agnes Walsh and her mother superior, let us devote ourselves anew to following wherever the Lord leads.
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