Word of the Week

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Conscience: Syneidesis (Gk.): means “knowledge within oneself; moral sense”

Conscience is the interior voice of a human being that prompts us to do good and avoid evil. It bears witness in a prudent act to the inner law that is inscribed upon our hearts (CCC 1777). Conscience is a judgment of practical reason about the moral quality of a human action that is past, present, or future (CCC 1778). This often demands that we listen to the interior voice of truth in introspection or an examination of conscience (CCC 1779).

Conscience is used 30 times in the New Testament. It refers to the voice of reason that either praises actions (2 Cor.1:12) or condemn them (Wis.:17:11) (Hahn and Minch, 36). By virtue of Baptism, we receive a “clear conscience through the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:21) and our hearts are “sprinkled clean…and bodies washed with water” (Heb.10:22). That being said, one must distinguish the practical effect of sin and its impact upon man’s capacity to reason. Perpetual sin dulls the senses and can make sinners responsible for their own inability to separate right from wrong (Tit.1:15) (Hahn and Minch, 36). The Ignatius Commentary of Paul’s letter to St. Timothy reminds us that the clear working opposite is to “serve God with a clear conscience is to listen to its guidance and act in accord with its directives (Acts 24.16; Heb.13:18) (Hahn and Minch, 36).

The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time is an exhortation to let go of our fears when we are looking into the eye of the storm or the fault line of an earthquake. We are called to abandon the fears that bind us in slavery and in turn attach ourselves to the love of God and the strength that we have in the right to call God, “Abba” (Rom.8:14-17). A profound revelation for us as Christians, God is no loner “I am” (Ex.3:14), but ‘Abba’--Father. In this inheritance of divine adoption by grace are conscience is no longer held captive by Satan but free to choose the greater good, the highest good!
We must set our conscience to Truth just as we set our clocks to standard time. In antiquity, conscience was synonymous with the heart. Furthermore, it was always understood that the heart was the locus and center of all action; the primary mover of justice and mercy. A formed conscience is rooted in the Natural Moral Law and pledges every circumstance and situation to Truth, namely Truth as a person in Jesus Christ not some mathematical principle. In this way, our conscience acts as a lens that enables us to reach out to our neighbor and build up the kingdom of God.  Indeed, we must insert every aspect of our lives into our stream of consciousness set upon Truth.

“Conscience is a messenger of him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us in a veil, and teaches and rules us by his representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.”

John Henry Cardinal Newman

Primary Texts Consulted

• Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.
• Hahn, Scott and Minch, Curtis. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The Letters of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians, Timothy, and Titus, RSV 2nd ed. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006.

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