Loving God, send your Holy Spirit to ignite my heart with your love and to open my mind so that I might follow you more closely.
What do you do to continue learning about your Catholic faith? What would you like to do?. What steps do you try to follow when making an important moral decision?. How can guilt be a healthy thing when it comes to forming a conscience?. Who has been a major influence in your life in terms of forming your conscience?. What does it mean to say that a conscience is less like a voice and more like a pair of eyeglasses?. Meditation Song: “Lead Me, Guide Me” Reflection QuestionsĬhoose one of the following questions, and share your thoughts with your fellow retreatants by adding your comments below this post. On the contrary, our faith calls us to have our eyesight corrected so that we learn to see as God sees. Catechesis is a huge part of being Catholic, because following Jesus is an eyes-wide-open experience. Too many of us miss the imperative that says we are responsible for informing our consciences. To follow one’s conscience is not to be equated with simply doing what one feels like doing. Every choice we make, no matter how small, is an opportunity to be prudent. It is an interior search that seeks to align our own wills with the will of God so that we can learn what God is calling us to do and become. To discern is to honor the place of God’s will in our lives. Ignatius of Loyola used the word discernment to describe the process of making a decision based on deep thought and prayer. This flies in the face of today’s mentality of “Just do it!” While there is something to be said for spontaneity, some of our choices in life require deep thought, prayer, and consideration, lest we find ourselves facing the consequences of a poor decision. Prudence is the habit of thinking before acting. 
To the roar of audience laughter, Leno bluntly asked, “What were you thinking?” Most of us would agree that Grant had not been thinking at all! Many of us have been on the receiving end of this question, most likely when we were children and our parents asked us this question after we had done something stupid.
One of the most famous questions asked on late-night television was on The Tonight Show in 1995, when Jay Leno interviewed actor Hugh Grant, not long after Grant had been arrested for soliciting a prostitute. (We should be number one in religious literacy!) Catholicism has a rich heritage of deep and profound thinkers who have taught us that faith and reason must work together. One of the reasons that I find Catholicism so compelling is because we are not told to check our brains at the door. We may disagree with their conclusions however, we have to give them credit for grappling with the big questions. Atheists, on the other hand, have often done their homework, devoting a great deal of thinking to their stance.
Why doesn’t it surprise me? Because too many of us Christians approach our faith as simply a cultural reality that requires little thought. In truth, I would say that it disappoints me more than it surprises me.
Everything is yours do with it what you will.ĭo you know who scores highest on religious literacy tests? Catholics? Protestants? Mormons? Jews?ĭoes that surprise you? It does and it doesn’t for me.
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