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It’s Day 240!!
ERRONEOUS JUDGMENT
Paragraph 1790 says, “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.”
Let’s pray!!
Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we give you praise. We give you glory. We ask you to please open our minds so that we can truly apprehend the truth, we can truly apprehend the good, the beautiful. And give us hearts and wills that are strong and courageous, that can actually choose what we know is true and refuse to do what we know is evil. Help us always to turn away from evil, even in small ways, Lord God. There are some things that are obviously evil, some things that we would say are beyond the pale, we would never choose those. Lord, we ask you to please help us choose against those when they’re small. Help us choose against those when they’re little. Help us to choose against those when we just tolerate evil in our lives. Help us to not tolerate evil in our lives. Help us to not tolerate evil in our lives. The evil that we not only tolerate but sometimes we delight in. Help us to never do that. Help us to delight in you. Help us to delight in virtue. Help us to delight in truth and goodness and beauty. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”
So there we have it!!
Paragraph 1790 says, “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.”
If we KNOW something is true…
If we KNOW something is wrong…
If we KNOW something is good…
If we KNOW something is evil…
That is CERTAIN JUDGMENT
If we were deliberately to act against this, we condemn ourselves
Because we would be doing what we KNOW TO BE FALSE
Remember Fr. Mike’s story about the guy who realized that the majority of what he said in the course of his daily life was not true
He did not truly believe what he said
He realized in doing that, he is making himself weaker because he was saying things he did not even believe
HE WAS CONDEMNING HIMSELF
He was speaking against what he KNEW was true already
Paragraph 1790 continues, “Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.”
We have to follow the CERTAIN JUDGMENT of our conscience
At the same time, our moral conscience can remain in ignorance
We can make ERRONEOUS JUDGMENTS
Therefore, if we don’t know the true, the good, the beautiful, this ignorance can be imputed to one’s personal responsibility
It could actually be the case that we did not know but we had every opportunity to know it
We did not know that, but it was our job to know it
Let’s listen to Fr. Mike’s example about speeding…
If you are driving, it is your job to know the speed limit
Paragraph 1791 says, “This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man ‘takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.’ In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.”
Think about how that is us
How many times do we do something and think it’s fine?
Remember yesterday’s big question?
WHY?? (GIVE ME A REASON)
WHY do you think this is fine?
WHY do you think this is good?
WHAT IS THE REASON?
That’s what our culture says
That’s what I want to be true
Our ignorance can be our fault when we take little trouble to find out what is true and good
Sin can make us blind
Sin can make us deaf
Sin can make us numb
IN FACT…
Someone said, “Sin pricked my conscience.”
Sin does not PRICK your conscience
Sin DEADENS your conscience
Sin can blind our conscience
Sin can deafen our conscience
GOD pricks your conscience
God is the one who helps us see
God is the one who helps us hear
God is the one who wakes us up
If we have taken little trouble to find out what is true and good…
OR…
When, by degrees, our conscience is almost blinded to the habit of committing sin, then we are culpable for the evil we commit because it was our job to know
We are rational human beings made in God’s image and likeness
It is our job to find out what is true, good, and beautiful
If we choose against what is true, good, and beautiful…
If we choose the ugly and the evil, we have become blinded and that is our fault
Paragraph 1792 says, “Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.”
Not knowing the Gospel of Christ…
Ok that’s why I didn’t know what was true, good, and beautiful
That’s why I didn’t know that was the right thing to do
Bad example given by others…
Maybe I surround myself with people who were the source of errors of judgment
Enslavement to one’s passions…
Those passions are meant to be the driver, the engine in us
It gives us the fuel to reach out to the true, the good, and the beautiful
BUT…
So often, the passions are not merely that fuel
The passions are things we choose and follow as opposed to being guided by our intellect and moved by our will
We are moved by those desires
And that is how we can become enslaved to those passions
Assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience…
This is when we think we don’t need any guidance
We think we can figure it out ourselves
We think we don’t need to be taught
We think we don’t need to be formed
We think this is the case therefore, it is the case
Rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching…
That can be a source of our error and judgment
Lack of conversion and charity…
When we have not actually been conformed to even wanting to be like Jesus
Or maybe we just lack love
Remember what love is
LOVE IS WILLING THE GOOD OF THE OTHER!!
Maybe we know the good
Maybe we know the true
Maybe we know the beautiful
We just don’t care
We have a lack of love and this is at the source of our error of judgment and moral conduct
There are times when our ignorance is INVINCIBLE
Did you know that?
Paragraph 1793 says, “If-on the contrary-the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.”
In knowing my story, there is no way I could have known that
There is no way I should have known that
So my ignorance is what they call INVINCIBLE
OR…
I’m not responsible for my erroneous judgment because for whatever reason, my culpability has been mitigated and maybe even eradicated
We have to work to correct that because it remains no less an evil
We have to continue to go about the process of forming our conscience
Therefore, no one is off the hook
Even if our ignorance is invincible…
Even if there are things in our lives that are happening that make it so my guilt has been mitigated…
All of us are called to be virtuous
This is not a straight jacket
We are called to be FREE
Virtue is a call, an invitation to be FREE
To have a formed conscience is an invitation to be FREE…
To be STRONG…
To be COURAGEOUS…
To be POWERFUL…
To be AS STRONG AS POSSIBLE…
…In this world
THAT IS WHAT VIRTUE IS!!
It is not a straight jacket that binds us
It is the POWER
Remember, freedom is the POWER to do what we ought
If you had the power to do what you ought, imagine how incredibly free you would feel
You would not be afraid
If you had the power to do what you ought, you would have joy
That is what God wants for us
That is what the Church wants for us when we talk about erroneous judgment
Yes, we have to always obey the certain judgment of our conscience
AND YET…
We have to make sure that our conscience has been, and is being, formed
That is the great invitation that the Church puts out to us
Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!
Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!
I cannot WAIT to see you tomorrow!!
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