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Examination of Conscience
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Youth Article Index

We've Come This Far By Faith: St. Augustine Parish Youth Ministry About St. Lawrence Abstinence Education Notre Dame's First Black Valedictorian Reconciliation and Holy Eucharist: Two Sacred Sacraments and Blessed Acts Who Am I My life serving in the African American Catholic Community African American Young Adult Ministry is an act of Social Justice It's Time to Walk the Walk Your talents: Gifts from God and a call to action. A Purpose-Driven Life Not My Own Abstinence Saves Lives Our Forgotten Children "Prayer Changes" Pro-Life Pilgrimage If You Don't Know Where You're Going, Any Road Will Take You There Transitioning from High School to College Examination of Conscience PRE-CANA Archdiocese of New Orleans's IMANI Team

Youth Article Index

Article I. Conscience

Section 1.01 What is the conscience?

"No matter where you stand on Earth, you can hold a compass in your hand and it will point toward the North Pole. What an unbelievably neat and amazing thing! Imagine that you are in the middle of the ocean, and you are looking all around you in every direction and all you can see is water, and it is overcast so you cannot see the sun... How in the world would you know which way to go unless you had a compass to tell you which way is "up"?" ⁱ Likewise the conscience is an interior compass that leads you toward or away from God depending on the formation of the conscience.

Section 1.02 What is our duty regarding the formation of our conscience?

This current life is a journey toward Heaven or Hell. The journey to Heaven is a perilous one that requires us to work and fight to gain Heavenⁱⁱ. Since your conscience is your compass amidst this warfare, then you had better make sure it is pointing toward God and that you follow the direction in which your properly formed conscience leads you.

Please note that we cannot have a properly formed conscience if we are in direct contradiction to the established and defined teaching of the Church.ⁱⁱⁱ

We should learn what God teaches us through His Holy Catholic Church. How do we do this? Read the Catechism and the writings of the Doctors of the Church.^iv Read scripture from a Catholic Bible, other Bibles are missing books that the Church has identified as divinely inspired, and read faithful interpretations of the Scripture.

We should also pray "[s]ince prayer places our intellect in the brilliance of God's light and exposes our will to the warmth of his heavenly love, nothing else so effectively purifies our intellect of ignorance and our will of depraved affections. It is a stream of holy water that flows forth and makes the plants of our good desires grow green and flourish and quenches the passions within our hearts."^v

Section 1.03 Why should we care about our conscience?

We should care about our conscience because when it is formed properly it helps us make morally acceptable choices and actions.

We are responsible for the good or evil of our freely chosen acts. Any evil, freely chosen by us, degrades who we are and cuts us off from the spiritual life God gave us at Baptism.^vi

We are spiritually dead when we freely choose to do grave evil. Freely accepting evil and refusing to repent and to turn away from sin leads to the loss of Heaven and the gain of eternal misery. In The Dialogue by St. Catherine of Siena, a Doctor of the Church, she recounts what God the Father reveals to her about the fate of the damned. The Father says to her, "The fire of divine justice torments them the more, burning without consuming; and in their torment they feel themselves being eaten by the worm of conscience, which eats away without eating up - for the damned for all their torment cannot cease to exist. Indeed, they beg for death but cannot have it: They cannot cease to exist. By their sin they can lose the life of grace, but not their very being."

One of the principal torments of Hell is not being able to see the face of God. God the Father recounts to St. Catherine in The Dialogue, "This is so painful for them [the damned] that if they could they would choose the sight of me along with the fire and excruciating torments, rather than freedom from their pains without seeing me."

Let not the fear of the pains of Hell be the primary motivator for seeking to form your conscience properly but rather the offense we give to God, who is all good and worthy of our love. Consider all the blessings God has given to you - a healthy body, a sound mind, and all the goods provided for your good health. He has, without any need of you, created you out of love. Arouse in yourself a love of the Merciful Lord and realize that sin is a rejection of this loving God. Who would reject so good a friend and turn away from His face?

Also please know that the concepts of good and evil are not determined by our individual passions, fleeting feelings, emotions, whims, or limited human understanding, but are determined by God Himself. So it may not feel good to do what is right and it may cause you to be unpopular within the world and you may even be wrongfully labeled as uncaring or mean but what matters is God's judgment of what we do.^vii

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