Has it ever happened that you are with some Catholic friends one Saturday afternoon and about 4:30 you get up to leave (your custom and habit is to go to Confession every first Saturday), and right before exiting, one of your friends asks, “Where are you going”? You reply: “Going to Church!” Your friend’s rebuttal, “Why now, this is Saturday!” Quite frankly you respond, “I am going to Confession!” His rejoinder: “What have you done that you have to go to Confession? Are you really that bad?” Your next response is: “Well, like all, I am a sinner and in need of conversion, and Confession is the best remedy. By the way, if you would like to come along with me, there is room in my car, and the priest, I am sure, would be more than willing to welcome you to receive the Sacrament of Confession.” Quite bluntly your friend blurts back: “I do not want to go, nor do I need to go to Confession because quite honestly, I do not have any sins to confess.” You wish your friend the best and off you go to encounter Jesus, the Divine Physician, through the Catholic priest in the Sacrament of Confession.
This short-story, anecdote, is very real and probably most of us have experienced this scenario in one form or another. Pope Pius XII, of happy memory, made this statement decades ago that set the stage for what is truly the moral pulse of modern Catholic society. “The sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin.” In a word, it is not that the modern man or woman has no sins, quite the contrary. Rather, it is that the modern person has indeed lost the sense of sin.
THE OBLIGATION TO FORM ONE’S CONSCIENCE. One of the greatest gifts that God has bestowed upon the human person is the gift of our conscience. That is to say, the inner voice and light that God has given to us to know what is right in order to follow it, and what is wrong, to avoid it. And when it happens that we willingly follow the wrong inner voice—we call this sin, there is remorse of conscience. If you like, it can be compared to a bee sting or thorn prick, or even walking on a small pebble lodged in your shoe. There is an inner sense of turmoil, unrest. It is incumbent upon all of us to form our conscience; and it is the moral obligation of parents to form the conscience of their children. This is an ongoing process that lasts a lifetime!
AN EXAMPLE OF THE DIFFERENCES OF ONE CONSCIENCE TO ANOTHER.
This analogy can prove extremely useful as a motivation to do the work necessary to form our conscience and that of our children. It takes God’s grace and our own good will and effort. Let’s put into full gear our imagination!
Take your bedroom from different views or perspectives at noon or midday! You are in your bedroom at noon when the sun is shining at its highest point, however drapes cover the windows leaving the room in pitch and total darkness. As you walk, you could easily trip over material objects in the room—It is literally like being in a dark cave or tunnel where there is not a spark of light by which to see anything or any way out.
Next, you open the drapes a mere crack, such that the barest minimum of light seeps into the room. Your vision perceives objects, but it is still not possible to distinguish what they are, to distinguish one thing from another. If you are not careful, you could still stumble and fall, and break a limb.
Again, you pull the drapes open slightly more. Now what is in the room can be perceived with some clarity. One object can be distinguished and differentiated from another. In fact, in all truth you perceive a table, a chair, a desk, an armchair, a bed, and the closet. You can actually name the objects in the room without bumping into them.
Arriving at near greatest clarity, you open the drapes almost fully, as well as a window. Now all that is in the room can be seen with great clarity. With this new perspective, you perceive not only the objects and their corresponding names, but also the different artistic details. The colors, the shapes, the size, the dimensions of all can be noted and determined by the trained eye. An example would be the bed. It is 18 inches above the ground. Two pillows and a bedspread adorn the bed. Even the pattern and colors of the bedspread can be seen. It is multicolored, with brown, white and beige patches sewn together in such a way that there is a variegated line that separates one section from the next. It makes one think of a chessboard, lacking only the chess pieces and players.
Finally, the curtains are drawn fully back and the windows are opened fully. It is 12 p.m. and the noonday sun is invited to take full possession of this bedroom. Accepting the invitation, the noon-day sun zooms into the room, inundating every available space. Now, in this moment, the light of truth has reached its apex! Now all can be seen without the slightest shadow of darkness. On the table can be perceived coffee stains and crumbs from a cookie. In the east corner of the room can be viewed a small cobweb where a spider has been lurking and hiding, fearful of being discovered for weeks on end. The sunshine pours into the room like a river or stream of light, enlightening the dust particles in the air that seem to emit energy and life. These little almost microscopic particles float of their own accord brilliantly illuminated by the midday sun. Your eyes are dazzled to view this beautiful artistic masterpiece of light, shape and color that has been totally unveiled for all to see once the curtains are drawn fully and totally!
The following has been a somewhat poetic but very real depiction of a room in a simple home at midday. The interesting fact is that the room was always the same, the room didn’t change. However, the various different views or perspectives changed markedly and even drastically—dependent upon the various degrees of light or the absence of light.
So it is with the human conscience that we are morally obliged to form. Our conscience can be submerged in the total abyss of darkness—blind if you like! Or there can be various degrees of light intermingled with the darkness. The best, of course, is when the conscience is totally illuminated by the penetrating rays of God’s truth, just like sunlight beaming down and penetrating the room as if it were the sun at midday! Let’s aim for the total and complete midday sun beaming and enlightening our inner world that we call our conscience so we can live according to God’s will for our lives, and make frequent and good confessions. May Our Lady, the Star of the Sea, enlighten us and obtain for us the clarity and light of the Holy Spirit.
