Conscience

Extract

In guiding ourselves in the way of our Blessed Lord, we have to a certain extent to be left to our own conscience and we can't put on to the shoulders of any one else the decision. Obedience settles much in religion, but there must always be a Margin over ‘when?'. A number of tilings in the spiritual life are left to our own judgment, decision and prudence, details outside obedience, where authority may not or cannot enter. A vast region lies under our own rule. To guide this we have a Acuity that goes by the name of conscience. It is not the voice of God, not like God whispering; it is a moral faculty. We have born in us the musical faculty. Now that is part of us, it can be trained well or ill, made to choose that which is best in music or less good; also the faculty of speech, we can speak well or ill, pronounce our words well or not. Just such a faculty is our conscience, the power of selecting what is good or what is ill.