Conscience: Gut or Cricket?

Sunday after the Ascension

Leroy Jethro Gibbs

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  While, in my opinion, the TV show “NCIS” is not as good as it was when Mark Harmon’s character Leroy Jethro Gibbs led the team of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, it still was one of my favorite shows to watch.  Gibbs, as most call him, is known primarily for two things: his rules and his gut.  But in this case, the gut doesn’t refer to the paunch or beer belly, but to his instinct, his intuition when it comes to cases and finding the suspect who did the crime.  
    When most people use the word conscience, what they really mean is intuition, instinct, or gut.  It’s a feeling, a sense for what to do.  But this can all too easily change into desire or want, having its base in our will and our passions, rather than in anything objective.  Or some may think of it like Jiminy Cricket from the Disney animated classic, “Pinocchio.”  And perhaps this gets closer to the truth, as conscience is meant to have a connection to something outside of ourselves.
    The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraph 1776, states:
 

Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey.  Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment….For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God.

This text is actually taken verbatim from the Vatican II document, Gaudium et spes, n. 16.  It addresses both the reality of being something interior, like intuition, instinct, or a gut, but also something exterior, like the fictional conscience of Pinocchio.  While some would make conscience a law unto itself, and cite church teaching that we must follow our consciences, and even an erring conscience binds, conscience is rather our understanding of the objective moral law, given to us by God, applied to the particular situation in which we will find, we are finding, or we have found ourselves.

St. John Henry Newman

    And this voice that speaks to us from within is really the Holy Spirit, who gives testimony to Christ and His teachings within our soul.  St. John Henry Newman describes conscience this way: “[Conscience] is a messenger of him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by his representatives.  Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.”  By our conscience, Christ continues to speak to us each day through the Holy Spirit who helps us to know right from wrong, and how to choose the good and avoid the bad.  The Holy Spirit gives us the power to be prudent and loving, as St. Peter instructed us in the epistle, so that “in all things God may be honored through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”  
    Christ teaches us in the Gospel that the Holy Spirit will give testimony to Christ.  Practically, this means that the Holy Spirit will never encourage us to do that which Christ would condemn or teach as wrong.  Again, modern man wants to make the conscience a law unto itself, that is, something which is untethered to any profession of faith or church teaching.  But the Holy Spirit always testifies to Christ, and so they can never contradict.  The Holy Spirit will never encourage us to do evil things, even with the best of intentions.  The Holy Spirit will never contradict what He has said earlier in a privileged and infallible way.  Right now there are some (perhaps even many) in Germany who want to rewrite the Church’s teaching on the reservation of the Sacrament of Holy Orders to men, or the Church’s teaching on the proper use and meaning of sexuality.  They use the word (wrongly, I would suggest) synodality to promote merely human and political evaluations of what we call wrong and right.  And perhaps some even appeal to conscience.
    And while they may have voices within them telling them that trying to change Church teaching is right, I can assure you that those voices are the voices of a holy spirit, but of a fallen one.  Because the Church has, always and everywhere taught, and this was confirmed as a matter of faith by Pope St. John Paul II, that the Sacrament of Holy Orders is reserved to men: not because of a greater holiness of men or because of a cowardice of rejecting sinful patriarchy, but because Christ willed it this way for His Church, and it is, after all, His Church, His Mystical Body, not ours.  Sacred Scripture, affirmed in both Old and New Testaments, and affirmed by doctors of the church and pontiffs, teaches clearly that marital relations are meant only for a man and woman within the context of a loving marriage and as an expression of true love and the full gift of self in an act that could, under the right circumstances, conceive a child; and that marriage is for life, and he who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery.  The Holy Spirit cannot teach us anything different without undermining everything of what came before and leaving all teachings open to shifting mentalities and proclivities of human activity.  
    We often don’t naturally remember what Christ told us, because those teachings call us to reject our fallen passions and intellect, and live in a way that does not always come most easily to us.  But our conscience, the voice of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, tells us what God has affirmed as true, which will not change, even if the rest of the world declared it to be changed.  
    Our duty is to form ourselves to be able to distinguish the voice of the Holy Spirit from the voice of other spirits or even simply our human so-called wisdom.  We do this through reading the Scriptures, reading the Catechism, and studying our faith through sounds guides like the saints.  The more we do that, the more we will recognize that even when we want to do something wrong, we know that we should not.  If we try, we can hear that voice, and if we hear that voice, we can follow it, even when it means true challenge to what comes most easily to us.
    Our conscience does come to us from within, like Gibbs’s gut.  But it also references that which is outside of us, the inerrant and unchanging teachings of Christ through the Scriptures and through the Church.  May the Holy Spirit strengthen us to readily hear His voice and follow what He teaches us, that is, what Christ tells us.  Who with the Father and the same Holy Spirit is God for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Pray, Hope, and Don't Worry

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Recently more and more journalists are reporting that sometime around the middle of this month, Pope Francis will further restrict celebrations of the Mass using the Missal of Pope St. John XXIII.  And while I’m loathe to accept rumors and gossip as fact, two previous similar situations have proven that, at times, rumors and gossip do have a ring of truth.
    I cannot and will not go into detail now about speculating on what will happen after Rome releases this document, if there will be, in fact, a document as feared, because we don’t know what it will say.  I have, through the Diocese of Lansing’s Office of Worship, asked Bishop Boyea to release a pastoral letter to the communities that celebrate using the Usus antiquior if further restrictions are levied against us.  Certainly, in times of upheaval and strife, the words of the spiritual father of our Diocese are most important.
    But what do we do until then?  One temptation is to worry.  But our Lord told us quite directly not to do that.  “Do not worry about your life…” he said in Matthew, chapter 6.  “Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?”  Worry is what the enemy seeks to have us do, because when we worry we try to take the place of God where everything has to be in our own hands for an appropriate answer and resolution.  No amount of worrying will change anything, but it will exhaust us and cause us to lack trust in God, who can do all things.

    St. Pio of Pietrelcina, more commonly known as Padre Pio, would say it this way: “Pray, hope, and don’t worry.”  Prayer is something we can do.  When we pray we take our concerns to God, for whom all things are possible.  Whether we pray Rosaries, or litanies, or novenas, or simple Paters and Aves, prayer draws us closer to the Sacred Heart, which always benefits us.  In prayer we become like the beloved disciple, St. John, who leaned his head against the breast of our Savior at the Last Supper.  And that is not a bad place to be.
    Obedience is also key.  St. Augustine of Hippo once wrote, “If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”  Analogously, we could say that if we only obey what we like, and disobey when we don’t like something, then we are not truly obedient.  Pope Francis, whatever we may think about the reasons for any upcoming decision, is the Pope.  He was validly elected.  If he weren’t, I’m sure Cardinal Burke, who was present for the election, would have said something by now.  I don’t have to agree with all of Pope Francis’s decisions.  I don’t have to find that his words or actions always to help foster faith.  But I do owe him, as Supreme Pontiff, religious submission of will and intellect.  And Popes have always retained the authority to adjust the form of the sacraments and the way the Mass is celebrated.  Pope St. Pius V did so in eliminating rites that were less than 100 years old.  Pope St. John XXIII did it when he added St. Joseph’s name to the Canon.  Pope Benedict XVI (who should be canonized) did it when he gave all individual priests that authority to celebrate using the pre-Conciliar liturgy. 
    In my time here, I have observed almost none of the criticisms which Pope Francis has leveled against those who prefer the Traditional Latin Mass.  Very few deny the dogmatic and doctrinal authority of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, even while some (quite rightly) do point out issues in its implementation.  Very few do what Cardinal Burke has condemned: lacking respect and obedience to the Holy Father by simply referring to him as Bergoglio or using other words to describe him which are not fitting for Catholics when referring to the pontiff.  Most, if not all, even while struggling with some of the things Pope Francis says (as do I, at times) pray for him and seek only to be good Catholics who appreciate the entire 2,000 year history of the Church, and prefer to worship using the older Mass.  We have united well in our parish with those who worship using the Missal of Pope St. Paul VI, and I truly believe we are united as one parish, not a divisive group within a parish.  So the attacks that some level against us are not true, and we suffer quietly those detractions, as St. Peter, our first pontiff, encouraged us to do.
    We also remain true to our conscience.  Conscience is a word that has been warped in the past decades.  Right now, most consider conscience as simply what they want to do or what they feel in their gut is right.  But conscience is the voice of God, and so God cannot contradict Himself, nor what He has revealed as true for the past 2,000 years.  Conscience has to be aided by the study of Church teaching, both in the Scriptures and in the Magisterial pronouncements.  Conscience is our practical application of those teachings in individual circumstances, not the changing of teachings to fit individual circumstances.  And the Church is very clear: whoever knows the Catholic Church to be necessary for salvation, but purposely chooses to leave her, cannot be saved.  We must follow our conscience, even if it errs.  But we have the responsibility to make sure our conscience is formed so that we can hear God’s voice and not rely only on our gut or instinct.
    When a recent parishioner who attends this Mass brought up to me the now-more-pervasive stories about further restrictions, his approach was an inspiring act of faith.  He simply said that he would trust God and not worry about what was ahead, because God is in control.  He said he chose not to worry because worrying wouldn’t accomplish anything productive, and could prove quite destructive.  I applaud that man’s faith, and hope that we can all emulate it. 
    Be assured of this: as your local shepherd, your pastor, and your spiritual father, I will never lead you away from what I believe to be the truth and the best course of action.  I will ardently yet gently encourage you to stay with the Church, even as waves sometimes seem to pummel the barque of Peter.  I will never encourage anything which I believe will endanger your eternal salvation, and I will do whatever I can to make sure that the Mass is still celebrated reverently according to whatever legitimate laws we need to follow.  I pray that you will not worry, but you will pray and entrust this present trial to God.  I pray that we will all have the wisdom to know when to be obedient and how best to do that.  And in this way, we can be assured that we are not simply those who say, “Lord, Lord,” but are truly those who do the will of our heavenly Father, and so prepare ourselves for heaven, where He lives and reigns with the Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Receiving the Holy Spirit

Sunday after the Ascension
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  St. Peter lays out some challenging admonitions for us in our epistle today: “be serious and sober for prayers…let your love for one another be intense…be hospitable without complaining…[use your gifts] to serve one another.”  Those are all things to which I hope we aspire.  But maybe we feel like we simply have to muscle through to get these things done.  And perhaps, as we try to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps, we get frustrated because in day to day life exhibiting these behaviors doesn’t always come easily, and maybe we even fail on a regular basis. 
    But God does not want us to muscle through or to try to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps.  God gives us a gift that will give us what we need to live as St. Peter exhorted.  That gift is the Holy Spirit.  He is the one who makes living as a disciple of Christ possible as the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth, and gives us the power to live that truth daily.
    I know that sometimes as Catholics who love the traditional Latin Mass we can get nervous about the Holy Spirit.  Maybe we see charismatic Catholics whose outward appearance seems more like Pentecostals than Catholics in their devotions and even in their liturgies.  Or people equate the way Vatican II was implemented (which was often a hot mess) with the Holy Spirit who called Pope St. John XXIII to convoke the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.  So perhaps we are a bit skittish when it comes to this Third Person of the Blessed Trinity.
    But we do not believe in a Binity, only two Divine Persons of the Godhead.  We profess our faith each week in the Trinity, which includes the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life.  And without Him, we miss something of the full expression of our life in Christ.  Christ promised us the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to help us to know the truth who is Christ, and to live that truth, even in the face of persecution and suffering.  And these nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost are precisely the days when our Lord asked the Apostles and the Blessed Mother to pray for that gift of the Holy Spirit, who would give them a new power from on high to evangelize and transform the world.

    So how often do we call upon the Holy Spirit?  When, if ever, do we ask the Holy Spirit to fill us?  Is it only in these nine days as we pray our Holy Spirit novena?  Or is it more frequently?  A local priest is known to invoke the Holy Spirit every time he loses his train of thought or is having difficulty expressing himself as he says, “Come, Holy Spirit.”  Though I still need to grow in my comfort and relationship with the Holy Spirit, I will ask for His guidance in the hiring process, or when I need to make a big decision. 
    But the Holy Spirit is not just for new hires or major changes.  I need to, and I encourage you to, make the Holy Spirit more of a daily part of my life.  The Holy Spirit is not just the closer you bring in towards the end of the ninth inning to help you win the game.  The Holy Spirit should be the starter, the reliever, and the closer, all rolled up in one.  And the more we condition ourselves to be attentive to His voice in our daily lives, the more even our small choices will be guided by the Holy Spirit so that we cooperate with God in the big and the small matters.  This is the way the saints lived.
    One of the primary ways the Holy Spirit guides us is through the conscience.  Again, most people act as if the conscience is some subjective voice which tells me what do to without any connection to anything else.  Basically, we can use the word conscience to justify simply following our feelings.  But the Holy Spirit, as our conscience, tells us how the moral law applies in various situations.  He does not make us a moral law unto ourselves, determining right from wrong, though many would like that to be the case, which is exactly what Adam and Eve wanted.  They wanted to determine right from wrong, rather than let God guide them.
    As a parent, and especially today as we honor mothers, the Holy Spirit helps you to know how to raise your children.  I do not envy you parents in trying to raise your children today.  On the one hand, kids are so often over-exposed to social media, to extreme violence, to lust, and to unkindness from others.  Yes, I got teased when I was a young boy, but I could get away from it when I went home.  Today, kids will mercilessly make fun of each other on social media, and you never seem to be able to find a place that is not connected to it.  I was first exposed to pornography in a magazine when I was in high school.  Today, due to phones and the internet readily available in most places, many kids see images they should never see in fifth or sixth grade and devices their parents give them (because every other kid has one), and it can affect their future relationships and their interactions with the opposite sex.  When I was growing up, we knew that boys and girls were different, even if some girls liked rough sports and GI Joes, and some boys didn’t appreciate those things as much.  Now, our national leaders can’t even say what makes a woman and woman, and kids are told that gender dysphoria is not only not an illness that needs therapy, but should be celebrated and protected. 
    On the other hand, you can’t just live in a bubble (at least most can’t).  Eventually, children will go out into a rough and morally dangerous world, and parents are tasked with preparing them to choose virtue even when vice seems more attractive and readily available.  Part of the vocation of a mother or father is to help their children be attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit to know what behaviors will lead them away from God the Father, and which behaviors will lead them toward God the Father.  A mother or a father’s vocation is to help their children be able to interact with people who are different from them and love others who do not live as God invites us, but to be able to reject the behaviors of those who reject God’s laws and teachings.  That is only possible if parents are calling upon the Holy Spirit daily to help them know when to push towards freedom and when to pull back to safety.  The Holy Spirit can guide you to know how best to discipline with charity, and not simply out of anger or a lack of patience. 
    So not just in these nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost, but each day, may we all call upon the Holy Spirit to help us hear the voice of God in our hearts, which is really His voice, and to follow it, so that we can go where Christ has led and has brought our human nature with Him, the right hand of God the Father, who with Christ His Son and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from them both, lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Voices

Fourth Sunday of Easter
    Chris Young, a country singer, has a song called “Voices,” in which he talks about the voices he hears in his mind.  But it’s not a sign of being crazy.  He sings about the voice of, “My dad saying working that job, / but don’t work your life away. / And mama telling me to drop some cash / in the offering plate on Sunday.”  Those are the voices that guide him in his life to help him make good decisions.

    Jesus today refers to Himself as the Good Shepherd, and says that His sheep follow Him because they recognize His voice, and He calls us each by name.  But it begs the question: do we listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd, or do we listen to other voices?  Do we recognize the voice of the Good Shepherd in our hearts, or is another calling for us who does not know our name?
    We often refer to the voice of God in our heart as the conscience.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraph 1776 (quoting the Vatican II document Gaudium et spes) states:
 

Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey.  Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment.  […In his conscience] he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.

Our conscience is the voice of the Good Shepherd.  But too often, we now refer to our conscience as what we simply want to do, which may bear no relationship to what God tells us.  It is not a law unto itself, but the law given to humanity by God, to help a person know how to follow God in each particular circumstance.
    In order to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd in our hearts, we have to know what that voice sounds like.  How do we familiarize ourselves with His voice, to make sure that it’s not merely our own?  We read the Scriptures; we learn what the Church, the Body of Christ, teaches, since Christ cannot teach one thing through the Church, and yet tell us to do something different in our hearts. 
    Part of recognizing the voice of the Good Shepherd is recognizing that He calls us by our name.  In the Gospel of John, on Easter Sunday, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb but does not see Christ, but just the empty tomb.  Later that day, after telling the other disciples her experience, she returns to the tomb and sees a man, whom she presumes is the gardener, but it is really the risen Christ.  It is not until Christ calls her name that she recognizes Him as the same Jesus she saw die on the cross.  I think about the times when I was younger and in a crowd of family and/or friends.  If I was trying to get my mom’s attention, I might try saying “mom” a few times, but if that didn’t work (because there were lots of moms there), it always worked when I called out “Sue.”  She heard my voice and she heard her name and responded.  Jesus has that personal connection to us, and calls us by name.  Another example is that in the last moments of a pope’s life, if they are examining the pope to see if he is still alive, they will use his baptismal name, knowing that the name he was called by his parents would beckon him if he is still alive.
    Another important aspect of the voice of the Good Shepherd and calling us by name is that He doesn’t call us by our failures.  The thieves and mercenaries who want to steal the sheep and lead them away to bad pastures remind us of the wrong that we’ve done in order to keep us in that pain and hurt.  Jesus will identify our sins, when we have not chosen to follow God, but He doesn’t identify us with our failures, but still calls us by name, even as He calls us to repent.
    When it comes to our conscience, the voice of the Good Shepherd, we are not deciding what is right and what is wrong.  We have no power to call good: bad; or bad: good.  What our conscience helps us to do is to take what God has shown us is good or bad, and apply it to this particular situation in which we find ourselves.  If we find our conscience telling us to do something that God has forbidden, then we have not formed our conscience well; we have not accustomed ourselves to the voice of the Good Shepherd, but decided to wander off to other fields and listen to other voices rather than God’s voice.  As I said earlier, God will never contradict Himself.  So if we think something is right which the Bible or the Church says is wrong; or if we think something is wrong that the Bible or the Church says is right, we need to go back and evaluate to whose voice we have been listening. 
    If we are living a Christ-centered life, then we will hear voices every day of our lives.  No, not crazy voices, but the voice of God, helping us to choose the good and avoid the bad in all the circumstances of our life, which we call the conscience.  If we are following the voice of thieves and robbers, then we will miss the gate to eternal life which is Christ.  But if we follow the voice of the Good Shepherd, even if we have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death with Him, we know that we will make it through the sheep gate and “dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come.”

Don't Forget the Holy Spirit!

Sixth Sunday of Easter

No one likes to be ignored.  But if there’s one Person of the Blessed Trinity that we often ignore, it’s the Holy Spirit.  We tend to always remember the Father in our prayers, especially the Our Father, or sometimes we’ll just refer to Him as God.  Jesus, as the one who took flesh and was our means of being reconnected to the Father is usually at the front of our minds as well.  But the Holy Spirit tends to get left out.  How many prayers do we being with some form of: Dear Holy Spirit…?  Probably not many, if any, while we are very comfortable with beginning prayers with: Dear God… or Heavenly Father… or Lord Jesus.  

It’s important, then, that in these last few Sundays of our Easter Season, the Church really focuses in on the Holy Spirit.  Of course, every Mass we begin with the Holy Spirit, and He’s mentioned in the Gloria, and our opening prayers always say “in the unity of the Holy Spirit.”  But the readings in these weeks also remind us that the Holy Spirit is God and guides the Church in a special way since the Ascension of Jesus.

Our first reading reminds us of the role of the Holy Spirit in guiding what we are to believe as Catholics and how we are to live as Catholics.  Having discussed whether or not the Gentiles (the non-Jews) had to be circumcised and follow Judaic laws, and with the testimony of St. Peter, St. James sends a message to the Jews who had become Christians about what is required for Gentiles to become Christians.  And he writes specifically, that it was “‘“the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities, namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage.”’”  It was not simply a group of old men getting together and thinking of the most pragmatic thing to do.  It was the Holy Spirit, the love shared between the Father and the Son, who guided the apostles to decide that Gentiles did not have to become Jewish and follow those laws to become Christians.  In other words, every time you eat a cheese burger or bacon (which Jews cannot do because it’s contrary to kosher laws), you should thank the Holy Spirit.

But the Holy Spirit did not stop guiding the Church with this decision.  Throughout the 2,000 year history of the Church, the Holy Spirit has continued to guide the successor of St. Peter, the Pope, and the successors of the apostles, the bishops, in making decisions about what we are to believe and how we are to live.  Some of those teachings are crystallized in the Creed.  But also in all the 21 Ecumenical Councils, from Nicaea I in AD 325 to Vatican II in the 1960s, and even in Papal pronouncements in between, the Holy Spirit has continued to teach the Church everything and remind the Church of what Jesus told us.  He has guided us on how many books to have in the Bible; who Jesus is; how many Sacraments were instituted by Jesus; Mary’s Immaculate Conception and Assumption; that only men can be ordained priests; that marriage is between one man and one woman for life; all these are part of Jesus’ words, which the Holy Spirit has helped us to understand and which the Holy Spirit has guided the Pope and the bishops to proclaim as being what is necessary to be believed if we wish to truly call ourselves Catholic.  The Holy Spirit and the successors of the apostles, the foundation of the heavenly Jerusalem, work together to continue Jesus’ teachings into new times and new cultures.

But the work of the Holy Spirit is not limited to the Pope and bishops.  The Holy Spirit wants to give us life.  He helps us to understand what is right and wrong in our conscience.  We receive the Holy Spirit in baptism, and a new gift in the Sacrament of Confirmation, to help us as individuals know what is God’s will in our daily actions and in the major decisions of life: what vocation we should choose, how to use our gifts and talents in a job, how to educate and raise our family.  Of course, the Holy Spirit would never contradict Himself, and we as individuals do not have the gift of infallibility, as the bishops in union with the Pope, and even the Pope by himself on matters of faith and morals has.  So if our conscience is ever telling us to do something that is contrary to what the Church officially teaches as to what we need to believe or how we need to live, we should do some major research on what the Church teaches and why, because it is more likely to be right than what we think our conscience is saying.  But the Holy Spirit is in us, too, and wants to make our living of the Gospel a joy-filled experience.  The Holy Spirit wants to give us the power to say yes to God and no to our fallen nature and to evil.  And by virtue of our Baptism, all we need to do is ask the Holy Spirit to strengthen us.  

It may not come as naturally, but may we also pray to the Holy Spirit, especially when we are making choices.  We can pray in our own words, in conversation with the Holy Spirit, or we can also use that wonderful prayer to the Holy Spirit that we said as a Diocese a few years ago, and which I will lead today.  Please join in if you remember: Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faith, and enkindle in them the fire of your love.  Send forth your spirit, and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.  O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that, by the same Holy Spirit, we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations.  Through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Human Freedom by Bishop Boyea

        Moses is pretty clear with the people about what they are to do--they are to observe all the commands which he will give them from God; he adds “you shall not add to what I command you nor subtract from it.  Observe them carefully.”  This is exactly what the Pharisees were doing in the gospel reading from St. Mark.  They were observing the commandments of the Lord very carefully and thus they asked Jesus why his own disciples did not wash their hands before eating, something required in the law.  

Jesus then teaches a new form of morality.  It is not the following of a set of rules and regulations, but rather it is conversion of heart.  What comes out of a person is what constitutes goodness or impurity.  Jesus notes that evil comes not from washing or not washing the hands, but from an evil heart.  Jesus is telling us that what really matters is what is within us.

In essence then, Jesus is appealing to our human freedom.  Because we are free we are responsible for our actions.  We are responsible to shape our lives so that they attain truth and goodness, that is, so that they attain God.  The trouble is, as Jesus was well aware, all too often we do not choose to do the good, but rather we choose to do evil.  That was certainly the case with our first parents, Adam and Eve, but it is also true of each of us.  We are, in a sense, slaves to sinfulness because we keep choosing sinfulness.  

Because we are free, it is clear that we are responsible for this condition.  We need more training in how to choose good rather than sinfulness.  Our actions are good when two conditions are met: the thing we choose to do itself must be good; and, secondly, our intention or reason for doing it must also be good.  Thus something is not good unless both these conditions are met.  If we do the wrong thing (and somethings are wrong in themselves) for the right reason it is still the wrong thing to do (thus the end never justifies the means); if we do the right thing for the wrong reason it is not a good action we are performing, there may actually be a good which results, but that goodness is not credited to us since we have done it for a bad reason.

Jesus also wants us trained to do good, to be good and thus offers us a way out of our choosing sinfulness.  He offers us the true freedom to choose to be God’s children rather than the false freedom to choose to stay in sin.  It is when our hearts rest in Jesus that we are most open to his grace and the true exercise of our freedom.

This openness on our part is what is called our conscience.  This is not just some intellectual thing, for it is also something of the heart.  In our heart can be found our passions or our feelings.  These can help us to do the good.  If we have the most fundamental passion, love, then we are drawn to the good and we take joy in the presence of the good and then we do the good. This same feeling of love will mean that we hate evil and seek to avoid it and we feel sad in the presence of evil.  In a sense we learn to hate what God hates—sin.  Thus what fills our heart will have a direct bearing on what we decide to do, how we exercise our freedom, and thus these passions are part of our conscience.

But conscience is also an act of judgment; it is when we spend enough time to recognize with our intelligence that something is good.  We need to take time to look into ourselves in order to hear this voice.  This voice helps us to see the truth and to apply that truth in specific circumstances.  It is what allows us to be responsible for our behavior.  In order for this reasoning part of our conscience to work correctly it needs to be formed, to be instructed.  This takes a lifetime.  The Gospel and Christ’s cross must be our teachers from our earliest days.  We are helped in this when our passions or our feelings push us in the right direction; we are also helped by the light of the Holy Spirit; and we are helped by the guidance of the Church.  Sometimes our conscience is faced with difficult choices; then we need the help of all three of these.

So, if we, my sisters and brothers, are to follow a moral life as Jesus wishes us to, not merely by following a list of laws, then we must have a change of heart.  We need to do two things: we need to open our feelings or our passions to the Lord so that he can fill us with his divine love; secondly, we need to educate our decision making process so that we will choose the good at all times, even in difficult circumstances.  Jesus listed a lot of evils that come from within us; if he looks deep inside me, what does he see?  A well of love which will lead to good, or an abyss of confusion which will lead to evil?

GOD BLESS YOU ALL

Catechism, #1730-1802