Taking care of our conscience

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

CONSIDERING that our conscience plays a very important role in our life, we have to see to it that we take utmost care of it. It is supposed to be where we hear the voice of God who tells us what is right and wrong, what is good and bad. It is our immediate guide as to how we have to think, speak, act and react.

But we should see to it that it is truly God’s voice that we hear and not just our own ideas or the voice of another entity, which if it is not God, then it is something that is opposed to God.

We are reminded of this aspect of our life in that gospel episode where Christ was confronted by some leading Jews, accusing him of not following the Sabbath law because he cured a man who was ill for 38 years on a Sabbath. (cfr. Jn 5,1-16)

For our conscience to truly hear the abiding promptings of God, we need to always anchor our mind and heart on God. We have to remember always that we are meant to live our life with God. We should be wary of our tendency to live our life on our own, especially when we are quite gifted with intelligence and other talents.

Such gifts should never take God away from our mind and heart. Rather, they should work to make our consciousness of God’s constant presence and interventions in our life sharper.

When we notice that we are already relying more on our own powers and are slowly distancing ourselves from God, we should immediately correct it. The ideal condition for us should be that we be sharply aware of God’s presence and interventions. There should be no moment when we are not aware of God in our life.

This, obviously, will require a certain discipline, considering that we have this strong tendency to be on our own. In fact, right at the beginning of human history, during the time of our first parents, Adam and Eve, who were created in the state of original justice, that tendency already occurred. That is why they fell into sin, causing all of us to be born with original sin, that is, not in the state of grace as God wanted it for us in the beginning.

Again, for us, to contain this tendency, we need to truly live by faith, which would require of us total obedience and humility before God. This is the constant challenge we have to tackle. But while it certainly requires great effort and sacrifice, we should remember also that God always gives us the necessary grace so we can do what he wants us to do. We just have to correspond to that grace through obedience and humility.

The goal to pursue is that even though we may feel very awkward and unworthy about this, we should feel God’s presence all the time, we should somehow see him, have a living encounter with him, engaging him in a continuing dialogue of love. To be sure, he initiates that dialogue with us. We should just learn how to correspond.

Yes, to be keenly aware of God in our life, and to discern his constant promptings should be the normal thing in our life. When we realize that we are more aware of our thoughts independently of God, we should realize that we are taking the wrong track and, therefore, should correct ourselves promptly.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com