The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 239: The Formation of Conscience (2025)

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

Together, with Fr. Mike, we unpack the formation of our conscience. Fr. Mike emphasizes that a well-formed conscience is one that is both “upright and truthful.” He also highlights the idea that a well-formed intellect is vital to having a well-formed conscience. We cannot just say something is either right or wrong, we have to understand why we think that. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1783-1789. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in the Year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture, and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in Ears is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 239. We are reading paragraphs 1783 to 1789. As always, I am using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach. But you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

You can also download your own catechism and a year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y. You can also click follow or subscribe on your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Today is going to be the day. I think it's the second time I made that joke. I don't even know the song. It's from the 1990s. day 239 and it is 1783 to 1789 it even followed through on the joke it's today is going to be the day I'm going to make it back to you is that like I don't know it's a British band I can't remember anyways day 239 goodness gracious we're talking about conscience we've been talking about conscience for a little bit now and we're going to continue to talk about the formation of conscience and the fact that we already said this before is that we have a right to act in conscience and in freedom so as to personally make moral decisions that's what we have no one can force us to do something and yet consciousness has to be formed. It can't be forced, but it has to be formed. It can't be coerced,

but has to be formed. And so what is it informed with? It's informed with not only the intellectual formation. Our conscience is also formed by personal formation. What I mean by that is, we all know what it is to know the right thing, but to do the wrong thing, right? We know what it is to have the intellectual knowledge about this. But conscience, remember, conscience is different. It's distinct from simply intellect and distinct from simply will. It's It's a whole kind of, I want to say, other thing. And so, yes, conscience is a reasoned action, so it's intellectual, but we realize it's also action, meaning it's connected to the will. Because of that, we recognize that the formation of conscience isn't merely intellectual formation.

It's also, you say, like, I don't know, moral formation, really in so many ways. Because, again, let's go back to this. We're going to say this a couple times today. It is one thing to know the right thing to do. and it is another thing to do it for our conscience to be formed well, we have to be the kind of people who are formed not only in knowing the good, but also choosing the good. And so we're going to talk about that today as well as some other things, the fact that education of conscience is a lifelong task and some other things like this. Okay, in order to dive into today, hopefully this

has been, last couple days, have been hopefully a real big blessing, but also maybe even a challenge and maybe that's even a good thing, right? Sometimes I keep going back, oh, I'm sorry, guys, you know, this is kind of a tough thing, but maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it's true that it is important for us to do hard things and to face hard truths and hard teachings and actually let the Holy Spirit, not only console, as we said before, but also let the Holy Spirit convict. And so we're going to pray for that grace today as we pray. Father in heaven, we give you praise and we call upon your name. We call upon the name of your Son, Jesus Christ. We ask your Holy Spirit to be sent upon us this day that we can truly know the good and our minds be formed our intellects

our reasons be reason be formed to the truth but also that our our will is conformed to the good that also we have the strength to do the good not simply know the good but to choose the good and so we ask you please lord god console our conscience where we need to be consoled convict our conscience where we need to be convicted and help us to become the kind of people that can live in this world, this complicated and complex world like saints. In your name we pray, amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Today is 200 and 39.

We are reading paragraphs 1783 to 1789. The formation of conscience. Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the creator. The education of conscience is indispensable

for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings. The education of the conscience is a lifelong task. From the earliest years, it awakens the child to the knowledge

and practice of the interior law recognized by conscience. Prudent education teaches virtue. It prevents or cure fears fear, selfishness, and pride, resentment arising from guilt, and feelings of complacency born of human weakness and faults. The education of the conscience guarantees freedom and engenders peace of heart. In the formation of conscience, the Word of God is the light for our path. We must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience

before the Lord's cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church. To choose in accord with conscience. Faced with the moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law, or on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them. Man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral judgments less assured and decision difficult. But he must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed

in divine law. To this purpose, man strives to interpret the data of experience and the signs of the times assisted by the virtue of prudence, by the advice of competent people, and by the help of the Holy Spirit and his gifts. Some rules apply in every case. One may never do evil so that good may result from it. The golden rule, whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them. Charity always proceeds by way of respect for one's neighbor and his conscience. Thus, sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, it is right not to do anything that makes your brother stumble. All right, there we have it. Day 239 paragraphs 1783 to 1789. There is so much good in these brief paragraphs. And so let's

just let's kind of go back and start at the very beginning. The formation of conscience. We say this. The conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. And what is immoral conscience like? Well, it says this. It's upright. and truthful. And that's one of the things that we can even just stop right here and say, well, that seems very, very obvious. And yet at the same time, it's one of those, I think, truths that is so obvious that we could pass over it without giving it its due attention. So a well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. And we have to ask the question. I mean, I remember listening to a man who was talking about, he's examining his own self.

He was examining his own way of thinking and his own way of acting in this world. And he said, I started paying attention to what I was saying. And he said, I realized, And this is a smart guy. This is an intelligent man. And he's tried, but he also wasn't paying attention to his conscience. He wasn't paying attention to, am I actually living what I believe is true? I'm actually saying what I believe is true. In fact, he said I started paying attention to what I was saying.

And I realized that this massive percent of the day, I was saying things that I didn't believe were true. And will form conscience is upright and truthful, meaning I only say what I believe is true. and yet let's go back to just our daily lives how many times we're in the course of a day might we just go along with something even though we know it's not true no it's not good because it's easy to go along or or we don't say something that we know would be needed to say or we even say something we know is false again a well-formed conscience is upright and truthful so there's this truth truth to it goes on to say it formulates its judgments according to reason again remember we talked about our intellect now important our intellectual formation is when it comes

to our conscience so if it formally says judgment according to reason one of the things we have to have to examine and have to ask ourselves the question of okay i think this is fine you know think about any you can you can say like hot button issue of the day and you might say well i think that's fine okay great why or look at something and say i think that's wrong okay great why and if i can't give a reason why I think this is good or I can't give a reason why I think this is bad, then how about this? I don't have a reason. That is not an example of a will-form conscience. I think this is fine. Why? Because people should just be able to do what they want. Well, that is a reason. Here's the next question. Is it a good reason? Or I think it's bad because those people should be stopped,

whoever they are. Okay, wait, why? Again, with so many things that we could say in the course of any given day. Again, you know, you and I, we probably get into conversations with people all the time where we offer our opinion, we offer our perspective, and we say what we think is good or we think is right or we think is bad and we think is wrong. The great question to be able to always ask if I have a will form conscience is the question, do I have a reason? Why do I think this? Why do I think that X is fine? Why do I think that Y is bad? I need to have a reason. Next, I need to have a good reason. It goes on to say, in conformity, so it's formulated to conscience, its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good

willed by the wisdom of the creator. And so we recognize that what is good? What is the good that we've been created for? And goes on paragraph, again, this is still paragraph 1783. Every sentence is gold, though. You guys, I just think this is incredible. It says the education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences.

So this idea of the noble. savage, right? You have Jean-Jacques Rousseau and some other people who would say that, you know, left to ourselves, left on our own, we would be just fine. That it's actually culture that corrupts us. And that on our own, though, we'd be completely fine. Well, the church says, hmm, not so much. Now, there are corruptive influences. That's why it says education of conscience is indispensable for human beings or are subjected to negative influences, but it also means that we need to be educated. We need to actually be formed. Because without form, we have no shape, I guess. Without form, we have no strong. Without form, we have no

structure? Fine. Without form, without formation, the negative influences of the world around us will continue to take us off our axis, right? Without formation, we won't be strong enough. We just go with the tide. We just go with the flow. And so we recognize that, no, we're not born noble savages where everything we want is automatically good. We also are born with broken hearts and, again, dimmed intellects. So the education of conscience, formation of conscience, indispensable because, yes, we have corruptible negative influences, and we're tempted by sin. Even in our own self, it says this, tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.

I mean, does that not define or describe you and I? You and me? Doesn't that describe us? Is that we're tempted by sin to prefer our own judgment? I think this is okay. Why? Because I want to do it. I mean, that's how many times we think, oh, no, there's nothing wrong with that.

why because that's what I do okay let's stop we have to pause remember when it comes to the formation of conscience we formulate our judgments according to reason always be willing and able to ask that question and answer that question why I think this is okay why I think this is wrong why I know I've said that probably five times today but I think man if we want to keep it simple that is one way to keep it simple now going on paragraph 1784 says the education of conscience lifelong task, absolutely. From the earliest years, it awakens the child to the knowledge and practice of the interior law recognized by conscience. Remember, we talked about how conscience, Romans chapter 1, St. Paul says, yeah, there's written on the human heart. There's right and wrong.

It's a sense of right and wrong written on the human heart. And the formation of conscience, education of conscience, awakens us to this knowledge and the practice of the interior law recognized by conscience. And this is the thing, not just the knowledge, but the practice of the interior law. So I was saying at the very beginning, the kind of the intro, we realize, yes, conscience is formed by reason, right? It's exercised by our will. There are so many times when I know, I intellectually know, this is the right thing to do, but my will is not strong enough to do it. In fact, I think it's C.S. Lewis, who gives some kind of example along those lines. I'm not going to look it up. I'm just going to give you my remembrance of it, my memory of

this is he talks about there you could have someone who has been taught all of the virtues but raised by thieves like someone who's been taught like no these are what the virtues are but they've been raised in a way that no you don't have to choose those virtues but you know all of them that person could have incredible intellectual knowledge of here's what the good is but they've been raised to basically operate according to utility or operate according to preference rather than operating according to the true good. And here's what it says here in paragraph 1784. It says this education awakens the child to knowledge and practice of the interior law

recognized by conscience. What we have to, every one of us has to do is, again, like we're doing now, which is I want to learn. I want to learn what the good is. I want to learn what I need to choose, what virtue is. I want to learn what God's law tells me about the right way to live. But also, every one of us, again, remember, this is not merely about data transfer, but this is about transformation.

That we're not just trying to information transfer, but transformation. So it's not just I'm getting this intellectual formation, but as I'm getting this intellectual formation, how do I put this into practice? How do I actually choose this with my very life? We have to exercise both if we really want to have the education and formation of conscience. Now, I love what it says goes on to say. Prudent education teaches virtue. It prevents or cures fear.

So prudent education, like education and virtue. of the conscience, formation of the conscience, that I know the good and I've actually been strengthened to do it, it prevents or cures fear, cures selfishness or pride, resentment from arising from guilt, and feelings of complacency born of human weakness and faults. I think this line is worth taking to prayer, where it's worth reflecting on. You're just realizing, oh my goodness, if I had a growth in virtue, again, this growth in virtue, education and conscience would be, I know the good and I have the ability to choose the good. What would that do? Well, there's so many things in our lives that cause us to fear,

that cause us to have resentment, that cause us to be selfish, to cause us to be prideful. But if you and I, if we knew the good and we chose it, I think a lot, in so many ways, we would experience what true freedom is in so many ways the things that scare us the things that hold us back the things that elevate us with you know false pride or are they they fill us with this resentment arising from guilt they would might even be cured and i think that is it's worth it to realize wait to this education in our formation of conscience isn't just so that i feel bad about everything now like again sometimes we think that sometimes we think that if i learn all the moral laws and moral and moral commandments from the Lord that now I'm just going to feel guilty about

everything. Well, yes, that's true in as much as if I learned the commandments but then didn't keep them, yes, I would feel very guilty. But if our education and formation and conscience would help us learn the good, the true, the beautiful, and actually choose and live the true, the good, and the beautiful, how amazing would that be? It's in fact the last line in paragraph 1784 four says the education of conscience guarantees freedom and engenders peace of heart again that that's you and me that's that's us when when we actually do what we know is the right it guarantees freedom and engenders peace of heart and we get this you know this this education not only not only from our reason right not only from good arguments of you know we have the we have the philosophers who talk

about virtues and we have saints to talk about virtues but the formation of conscience of in the word of God is the light for our path, right? Psalm 119 talks about that. The word of God is a light for our path. And I love how it says, we must also examine our conscience before the Lord's cross. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord's cross. What does that mean? Well, here's what it means for me. What it means is in my life, I recognize, maybe you can recognize this too. I recognize that I can give myself a pass. Like, well, that wasn't so bad. Like, whether there was that thought, that moment of jealousy, the moment of selfishness, the moment of anger, whatever the thing was, moment of self-righteousness, think of all the things we could choose

in the course of any normal day. Like, okay, that wasn't so bad. No big deal. But examined before the Lord's cross, say, oh, but that's what love looks like. Here is Jesus on the cross. Here is God who actually deserves all of our honor, all of our love. He deserves all glory and more. And here he is pouring himself out in love. Okay, so now my conscience needs to be examined before that kind of love. Also, on the flip side, at the same time, at the same time, same side of the, or different side of the same coin. I examine my conscience, which could convict and condemn me. My own examination of my conscience could condemn me.

But examined in the light of the Lord's cross, I realize, but he took the condemnation upon himself. here is a here's yeah my sins my guilt that condemns me but his mercy frees me and so we also have this we have this this double a way that we examine our conscience before the lord's cross all right couple last things to choose accord with one's conscience paragraph 1786 it says this faced with the moral choice we can either make a right judgment accordance with reason and divine law or on the contrary errone's judgment right we know we can do that yet paragraph 1787 highlights this this reality it's not always simple it's not always straightforward it's not always easy. He says man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral judgments

less assured and decision difficult. And that is true. We can find ourselves not only where it's complicated, but also how to do the right thing in this situation would be very, very costly. Yet, we must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed in divine law. So yes, we're going to find ourselves in a complicated world and complex decisions that are not always super easy and decisions that can become very, very difficult. And yet, to this purpose, we strive to interpret the data of experience and the sign of the times assisted by the virtue of prudence, the advice of competent people, the help of the Holy Spirit and his gifts. And yet we, basically, the church is saying, yet we have to try. And we're going to try this

by doing what? By reformed by God, again, the light of God's law and the will of God expressed through the church and also interpret our experience. As we grow in wisdom, as we're growing an experience. Hopefully we're growing in wisdom. And then also the advice of competent people and the help of the Holy Spirit and his gifts. And that is so key. We're going to continue to talk tomorrow about erroneous judgment. What is that? When we make those, we make a wrong judgment of conscience. We make a wrong decision. At the same time, we realize there are things that apply in every case. And these are the last three kind of like, these are statements. These are essentially rules that are always true. They always apply in every case. Number one, one may never do evil so that good may result from it.

Always, always true. Even in a complex world, one may never do evil so that good may result from it. Now, sorry, I know I said this would be the end, but let me give an example. Sometimes people have this complicated. I actually, I remember one of my sisters at one point it said, okay, what about this? What if there was someone who kidnapped all the, every member of the family, and you had to, talking to me, she said, and you had to shoot one of us. So the rest of us would go. That's what the kidnapper said, that if you kill one of us, everyone else can go free. And if you don't, then they're going to kill all of us. Which one would you choose? And I remember thinking, is it because you think I'll choose you?

Like, no, I love you. But I was like, I would choose nobody. She said, then you'd be killing all of us. No, that's not true. The kidnapper would become the murderer. Like, right, I wouldn't be killing any of you. No, but if you killed one of us, then everyone else would go free. And I'm like, yeah, but one may never do evil so the good may result from it.

I may never kill one of my siblings so that my other siblings could live, right? Because the evil action is on the murderer. to take that evil action upon myself, even to save someone else, right? Because that, that would always be wrong. One may never do evil, so the good may result from it. And that's second rule, the golden rule, whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them. And the third rule is this, charity always proceeds by way of respect for one's neighbor in his conscience. Here's the quote from Matthew chapter 7, verse 12. This is the quote, thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, it is right not to do anything that makes your brother

stumble. It's right not to do anything that makes your brother stumble. That's called scandal. We could actually cause our brothers, our sisters, our little ones to stumble. We must never ever do that. I know it's a lot to ask, but at the same time, we have to be up to the challenge and up to the task because the Lord is calling us to this. We can't do it our own. Remember, the church keeps saying, we do this by the Holy Spirit, by His Grace, and by growing in the gifts in life of the Spirit. That's what this is all called. It's called the life in Christ, life the spirit. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.