Listening to the Voice of Conscience

 Reflection on Today's Readings, 5th Sunday of Lent, Year B, March 21st, 2021
Texts: Jer. 31:31-34; Ps. 51: 3-4.13-15; Heb. 5:7-9; John 12:20-26
God promised to make a new covenant with His people. Prophet Jeremiah tells us what shall make the covenant new. He says, "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” In the formal covenant the law was written on a stone tablet, but in this new covenant the law will be written in our heart. The newness of the covenant comes from the fact that God will put and write His law in the heart of everyone. This means everyone will know  what God wants. The law refers to the terms of the covenant that we must fulfill. In the Old covenant the people were unfaithful to the law of God. We are to keep the law and when we keep the the law God will be our God and we will be His people. We will no longer have excuse for breaking the law of God. The part to be fulfilled by God is to  be our God. As our God He is to defend and protect us; as our God, He cares for us. As our God He will be our Father and guide us by His providence.
God will purify our consciences, that living by our consciences we will fulfil the law of the Lord. The Church says, "Conscience is man's most secret core, and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths" (GS 16). Conscience is a judgment of reason by which the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act (CCC no. 1795-1796). It is man's most secret core because the content is known to man alone, no one else could access it but God. It is man's sanctuary because that is where man hears the voice of God. "It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law" (CCC no. 1778). Being the judgment of the reason means it is built in human nature, everyone has it; it helps us to understand which action is right or wrong.
Our conscience reprimands us when we do what is wrong, that i s, when we act contrary to its principle. Hence, one's conscience has the capacity  of leading one to repentance. "Conscience enables one to assume responsibility for the acts performed. If man commits evil, the just judgment of conscience can remain within him as the witness to the universal truth of the good, at the same time as the evil of his particular choice. The verdict of the judgment of conscience remains a pledge of hope and mercy. In attesting to the fault committed, it calls to mind the forgiveness that must be asked, the good that must still be practiced, and the virtue that must be constantly cultivated with the grace of God" (CCC no. 1781).
 In the new covenant, conscience plays a major role. It calls us to inner life. "It is important for every person to be sufficiently present to himself in order to hear and follow the voice of his conscience. This requirement of interiority is all the more necessary as life often distracts us from any reflection, self-examination or introspection: Return to your conscience, question it. . . . Turn inward, brethren, and in everything you do, see God as your witness" (CCC no. 1779). We are called today to pay attention to what is happening within us. "Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths" (CCC no. 1777).

Lord Jesus, purify our hearts the more with your precious blood and grant us the grace not to disobey your voice in our hearts. Amen

Fr. Andrew Olowomuke