Do I Have a Good Conscience?

[Music] hi my name is father Mike Schmitz and this is ascension presents so I always think about this how strange it is when we have our fast days and we have like our days of the standing from me particularly during Lent that how many people have trouble with it like how many of us like I'm not as those people like how many of us like this is tough this is a tough day no think about this yep standing for me on Fridays during Lent is not that difficult fasting on the too fast days we have an entire church here is not difficult I mean you know what the church rules for fasting are are what you can eat two small meals and one regular sized meal that it's the quantity of the food you take in is does not exceed the two smaller meals combined it's the foot it's not you can eat a lot but in fact I think that what what you would be alike allowed it to eat on a fast day as least as Americans could potentially be more than 99 percent of the rest of the world eats on a feast day so so here's the interesting thing it's not difficult but it's often difficult right so it's not difficult to how many days that we probably go in our lives without eating meat and don't give it a second thought on Fridays during Lent oh my gosh it's so tough our same kind of thing with Ash Wednesday Good Friday like no just the lighter meal day it's not even that it's not challenging it's not painful why is it so hard here's why I think it's so hard at times because those other days I am not eating meat because I don't want to eat meat on those other days I'm just eating less because I chose to eat less on Ash Wednesday Good Friday on the Fridays during Lent it's hard to do those things because someone else is telling us we have to do that that's the key it's only difficult because someone else is telling us we have to do it on that day the church comes in and says if this is if you're Catholic this is what you have to do there's not an option you must do this and that just grates on our ego writing grates on our pride because why because you and I are the same we'd like to do what we like to do I want to do what I want to do and here comes the church and says no listen you have to do what I say mmm is tough so if if I was given an escape clause right if I was given a way to get out from underneath the authority of scripture or the authority of scripture sacred tradition the authority of the church then I would be we would probably be probably be really tempted to take that escape clause now into this situation enter the term conscience right because I'm sure we've all heard the idea of like you know you must follow your conscience you have to obey your conscience in fact if you're kind of in I can informed Catholic you would realize that the Catholic Church puts a high value on conscience John Henry Cardinal Newman he's oh sorry Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman he called conscience the Aboriginal Vicar of Christ which means that the original the Aboriginal voice of God in the person in the individual and so we take that I bet one phrase that Cardinal Newman gave and we run with it right my gosh well it conscience is the voice of God himself then I must obey my conscience because that's God talking to me now here's the here's that here's the table of troubling thing or the difficult thing is that Cardinal Newman went on to say a bunch more stuff about well forming your conscience about what it is to have a conscience that actually bends in is is shaped by God himself and by the church so there's all these other pieces here so I can't just pull out the term conscience and say well if my conscience tells me that this is okay then it's okay because that's not how conscience works and that's also not what conscience is so what is conscience and what is conscience not what is not conscious what is what is it what is it not okay here here's what it's not a cop my conscience you're our conscience isn't our personal preference right our conscience isn't our opinion like so we look at this thing and say why I know the church says that that's wrong but I don't I don't I don't see anything wrong with it no this is very important because that happens a lot well the church says the ex is wrong but I don't see anything wrong with it I don't see why therefore I can do X that is not one that's not following one's own conscience that is doing what one wants to do that is very very very clear very important to understand this in fact a well-formed conscience will more often convict a person of their sin and more often I guess we might say like compel a person toward repentance and affirm them and what their actions are right so this is important a lively conscience will more often convict you of what's wrong and call you on to do what's right then we'll just kind of affirm you in doing like oh yeah this seems this seems right in fact even more the voices voices inside of us right like is that is that my conscious is that the original Aboriginal Vicar of Christ it also could be the voice of the flesh which is my fallen human nature it also could be the voice of the Evil One the liar it can be the voice of the world that's influenced me so to such a degree that yet the world says this this thing is not a sin so clearly it's not a sin I have no problem with that if the our conscience is gonna be the aboriginal Vicar of Christ it's me the void voice of God living inside of us that necessitates a couple things well one Ignis that states we understand who we are and who we are is we were born out of relationship with God I bet this is it this is well we're gonna talk some original sin here we're none of us are born in right relationship with God it's the result of the original sin or the original wound that were we all inherit so we're born out of right relation to God we have to be brought into right relationship with God we are not born under the dominion of Jesus himself as the Lord we have to submit ourselves and surrender ourselves to Jesus in faith and hope and love with him as our Lord in fact even st. Paul goes so far as this well Jesus cuz the scripture goes so far as to say then you actually have to die like the old you has to die those old desires they have to be converted into into new desires those old ways of thinking have to be transformed in fact what st. Paul says he says do not conform yourself to this president but be transformed by the renewal of your mind now that is a painful process it means I have to stop thinking like myself in some ways stop thinking like the world and has to start thinking like God again it involves a death and so if I would say like only I'm like my conscience is well-formed but I haven't undergone a death like I haven't undergone the decision to place myself my mind my actions my twill everything under Jesus Christ's dominion then it is very unlikely that my conscience is well formed it's very unlikely that the Aboriginal Vicar of Christ the voice of Christ is going to be loud enough in my own heart again keep this in mind a well-formed conscience is not just like yeah we know I know what the Catechism is I know what the Bible is more or less a concha wolf own conscience means that I have spent time in prayer listening to God's voice reading his word letting his church form the way I think and look at myself look at God himself look at the world I've allowed this to happen and again here's this key thing I have died to myself in this process like I have died to myself in this process that is absolutely required if I haven't done that again this this is kind of one of those key things if I haven't done that then my conscience is likely not very well formed even further if my conscience or what I think like what what I think basically comes into conflict with what the Church teaches or what Scripture teaches and reveals then in those cases it is very its most like likely that my conscience needs the forming not the church is teaching meeting changing does that make sense again again this is so critical our conscience more often binds us to something to do something than it does release us from the obligation and then this is really important I said that's why I guess our conscience more often is concerned with our duties or our responsibilities than it is with our rights like I get to do this in fact a well-formed conscience is more preoccupied with the question what does God want then with the question what do I want a welcomed conscience is more preoccupied with the question what does God want then with the question what do I want because we realize this our conscience we can feign ignorance like we can feign like I didn't know that's what God wanted we could also have a hardness a hardness of heart inside of us that says well I know but I just damn can't seem to bring myself to this right just can't see it we all have this fallen human nature we all have this desire why because we all have the pride we all have the ego we realize right we are conscious we can feign ignorance we can pretend like oh I didn't know what God wanted right didn't know that was that serious or we can even have hardness of heart and this is that sense of like well I don't think it's a big I think I want to do what I want to do why because we're all the same we all have the same stupid ego and the same stupid pride that just doesn't want someone else telling us what to do and so conscious is not an escape clause conscience in fact is is is almost giving giving us the research in pointing out conscience is giving us the responsibility to say actually you have a duty of responsibility you know to act in a certain way that is accordance with how God has revealed himself in a Sacred Scripture and in sacred tradition and through the teaching of the church it does not give us permission to make ourselves the exception as we've talked about in another video this all whole thing reminds me of at the end of the day what something G K Chesterton had said he was a convert to the Catholic Church a bunch of years ago and one of the things he said was we don't want we don't need a church that is right when we're right we need a church that is right where we're wrong and that's what I think all of us need this whole idea that like I can say like well I can dismiss with this church teaching or that church teaching because what my conscience tells me that's okay then it's just baloney also here's the other thing here's a quick last thing um you saw I've talked to people who say well the priest told me that was fine so priests told me we should go ahead and do this thing and so we did the thing and now here we are and it's it's fine though because the priest told me to do it no no just like our consciousness can be malformed there a priest that can be malformed and if then you know what the Church teaches and this priest says don't but the church teaching will change in the future do not listen to him please please please please I know that we should be able to trust the teaching of our local pastors and all that kind of stuff but if you ever hear either your interior voice or the voice of a priest or someone in authority saying in this case you're the exception in this case go ahead and do the thing the church will change its teaching just turn around walk away and get some better advice I'm so sorry about that because I know it's that big that kind of bad advices destroyed the lives of so many people yeah Wow I kind of ended a real sour note didn't we well we certainly did but at least it's nice outside and we're in the middle of Lent right now or whenever you're watching this video I want to invite you to like or subscribe or smash the like button I already said that smash like we just click the like button we're always here to since representative oh my gosh we're all from all I can say it from all this year it doesn't represents - all that Mike god bless oh my goodness I just don't even know there's so long wasn't wasn't super long my gosh tab

Channel: Ascension Presents

Views: 115,962

Rating: 4.9551415 out of 5

Keywords: Fridays during Lent, abstaining from meat, no meat Fridays, Catholic conscience, aboriginal vicar of Christ, G.K. Chesterton quotes, Blessed John Henry Newman, Cardinal Newman, Jiminy Cricket, conscience, well-formed conscience, good conscience vs bad conscience, abstaining from meat during lent, no meat on fridays lent, catholic conscience formation, catholic conscience definition, moral conscience catholic, conscience catholic teaching, abstaining from meat on fridays

Id: C5uUqpA3jqY

Length: 11min 42sec (702 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 03 2019