Procinctu

Militant Monday | Conscience

Posted August 8, 2016

This week’s Militant Monday is a 24 minute audio clip, recorded in the 1960’s, by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. It should play automatically from this page. The following is a summary of this Monday’s topic, Conscience.

Conscience is that which makes you feel good after, and when wrong, that which makes you feel bad after. We know where we are, and where we ought to be. We know the ideal, and the actual reality. Yet, man will cover up his conscience by turning to untrue ideologies, pills, alcoholism, atheism, vices, hyper-criticism, etc.

As an example of hyper-criticism, man who won’t right himself, has to right and ridicule everyone else. Everything needs to be in order to him, except himself.

We find a variation of the revolution against conscience through psychosis and neurosis in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. Lady Macbeth washed her hands every half hour, projecting her guilt on her hands, rather than cleanse her soul. Macbeth saw the onset of paranoia and madness….they both perished.

We see revolt against conscience when one reacts disproportionately upon merely hearing truth. Bad conscience often shows itself as an attack upon religion. But that will satisfy an uneasy conscience for only a moment…. it will continue to eat away.

Archbishop sheen likens the conscience to the government structure of the United Stated of America…which has a legislative, executive, and judicial branch.

We have a congress. Thou shalt, thou shalt not….So we have a law. This law does not come from ourselves, nor society. Society may praise when conscience condemns, and conscience may praise when society condemns.
Executive side says you were there, you did it. “I saw you.”
Then we have judgement. When we do good, we feel good as if praised by a father or mother. When we do wrong, we feel bad, sometimes as if we have broken a bone on the inside. That is like the conscience being not where it ought to be.

Most problems we see today, stem from a revolt of the law that we have written on our hearts. We are after peace of soul, and we can have it.

Conscience can be a gentle voice, yet freedom is not destroyed. We feel the sweet summons, but just strong enough that we would listen. Our freedom is respected. When our Lord knocks, it is up to us to open the door for the Lord from the inside.