The Feast of the Conscience – Lazar Puhalo

Let us think of today as the feast of the conscience, because our conscience is our judge.

The holy fathers tell us that even on Judgment Day when the Lord is present, our conscience will be our judge. When we behold the glory and the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, healing all things, our conscience will tell us whether we’re sheep or goats, to the right or to the left. Our conscience stands forth, either excusing or accusing us, on the day when the secrets of man's heart are revealed.

If you think a little bit about it—how often our conscience challenges our thoughts and our actions, and how often we, with our free will decide to override our conscience—or how often we’re tempted to do something, and our conscience tells us that one we dearly love is going to be hurt if we take that action. So, both our love and the work of conscience turns us back, and we do not commit that sin.

We know that if we override our conscience too often—when it warns us about a certain deed— we can develop an addiction. For an addiction is really when our will and desire overrules our conscience. Once we do it a few times, then we will do it continuously so that becomes an addiction. In this life and through the great fast, the Great Lent, this is when we struggle to give our conscience the highest voice, the loudest voice. We’re struggling through Great Lent toward the purification of our conscience—to bring the heart and our conscience and the community in accord with one another.

Remember that your conscience is your judge when you depart this life.

Sometimes we call it "the partial judgment." It simply means that your conscience informs you of how you stand in the face of the love and glory of Jesus Christ.

The minute you depart this life, your conscience rehearses before you all the negative things all the positive things and lets you know what judgment you face on the day of the Resurrection. And on that day, when there's nothing to be seen except the love and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, like a river of fire that flows in our midst, your conscience will tell you, “You are on the left side of the river of fire or over on the right side of the river of fire.”

Will the river of fire be joy, light, and rejoicing in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ? Or will the river of fire burn your conscience like everlasting flames, that the passions you try to retain in this life will be like the worm and that never dies, that nags at your conscience forever,…until the suffering of your conscience becomes a redeeming suffering and moves us from one side of the river across to the other.

Just use this time of Lent to struggle, to strengthen your will, to abide by your conscience and strengthen yourself so you can hear your conscience more loudly, so you can hear it more clearly.

And we cannot fear because God never harms his creatures, he never harms his creation, and he not going to harm you either, neither in this life nor the life to come. He has nothing but mercy and love for his poor, benighted creatures.

Our conscience will be the scourge, so let us try to live in peace and harmony with our own conscience. Don’t make it an adversary and don't be an adversary to our conscience. But listen to the words of Our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ and try your best to abide by it, knowing that however you fall short, our Lord Jesus Christ picks you up and he makes up the difference for you.

If we believe God, it will be accounted to us for righteousness from generation to generation, as Abraham believed God and it was accounted for him for righteousness.

Brothers and sisters, try to make this fast meaningful. Try to grow spiritually through it and you’ll notice the benefits of the peace and reconciliation that come with striving. Let the fast help you to purify your conscience, purify your will, purify your soul. Make it pure for the heavenly Kingdom. The gates of the Heavenly Kingdom will open before you and our Lord Jesus Christ and the grace of the Holy Spirit will receive you.