My dear parishioners,

            Peace! In other bulletins (4 December, 2016-11 June, 2017) we have considered the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on “conscience.” We then turned to Saint John Paul II’s encyclical letter Veritatis splendor (6 August, 1993) which addresses fundamental moral issues, including “conscience” more than one hundred times.  These reflections were begun earlier (6 April, 2018-30 May, 2018). Here we now consider a passage from Veritatis splendor, 58.

            Saint John Paul II (+2005) when considering the “judgment of conscience” teaches that “Moral conscience does not close man within an insurmountable and impenetrable solitude, but opens him to the call, to the voice of God.  In this, and not in anything else, lies the entire mystery and the dignity of the moral conscience:  in being the place, the sacred place where God speaks to man.”  Here the Holy Father was citing an earlier General Audience (17 August, 1983)  which was separate from his catechesis on Man and Woman He Created Them, A Theology of the Body, which addresses “conscience” more than twenty-five times.

            The mystery of conscience is a part of our human mystery.  We may well know our parents, where and when we were born, who our siblings are… but we are more than all that.  We may know our names and where we went to school and what sort of work we do… but we are more than that.  We may know how tall we are or how much we weigh… but we are more than that.  To be made in the image of God, who is mysterious, makes us no less mysterious (cf. Genesis 1:27; John 4:24).  That the mysterious God has etched His eternal law upon our very hearts is no less mysterious.

            The dignity of conscience comes in no small part because it is God who is speaking to us.  If human dignity (dignitatis humanae) is something (and it is), God’s dignity is all the more so!

            Conscience is the sacred place where God speaks to us. Even if we are blind and cannot read Sacred Scripture or deaf and cannot hear the Word of God proclaimed, God is still able to communicate interiorly with us thanks to our very human nature which we have received from Him.  We are “hard wired” for virtue.  When we act viciously it is attributable to our fallen nature and tendency to sin (“concupiscence” is the formal term for this tendency).

            The omnipresent God and the communion of saints are real.  If we feel alone we should recall the truth and reality of God’s omnipresence and the communion of saints.  Sin, on the other hand, separates us from God, the communion of saints, one another and even from ourselves.  God’s grace and mercy are our hope.  He is willing to forgive us our sins, identified by a well-formed conscience.  Are we sorry for them?  Are we willing to listen to the voice of God, His call to holiness?

            God bless you!           

            Father John Arthur Orr