The Bad Conscience
February 25, 2017
NOTHING is sweeter than repentance. Nevertheless, many people in the modern world think that Lent, which begins this week, is about wallowing in guilt. They see it as a grim, masochistic, uncharitable season if they think about it at all.
They know nothing of the relief that comes with revealed guilt and true repentance. They don’t understand that Lent is the exact opposite of wallowing in guilt. It is the unburdening of guilt. They know not the beauty of repentance.
But it’s hard to believe in Lent if you don’t believe in the concept of sin.
I read somewhere recently — I can’t remember where — that all we need to do in order to be good and happy is trust in our own consciences. Did the author know anything about human nature? We are so good at lying to ourselves. We are so good at deflecting pangs of conscience.
The Rev. Franz Hunolt wrote in the 18th century about the many ways in which we deceive our own consciences. His essay, “On the False Peace of a Sinful Conscience,” includes the sort of pious language that is off-putting to cold, modern sensibilities, but Fr. Hunolt makes perceptive observations about the psychology of self-deception:
It is true, my dear brethren, that at first conscience cries out in that way to every one who is guilty of sin; but what can one do to silence this voice of conscience, and to free himself from the tortures of remorse? Self-love supplies all kinds of pretexts and false arguments to pervert a man’s judgment and to persuade him that there is nothing wrong in what he is going to do, that it is even good and praiseworthy. It refers him to the example of others, who do the same thing without being ashamed of it; it encourages him to follow the advice of those who are ready to approve of everything that pleases him; it consoles him by reminding him of the devotions he is in the habit of practicing, and that are generally performed for the glory of God and the salvation of one’s soul; it allows him to be blinded by his own passions and evil inclinations; it distracts him by temporal cares and worldly business, and prevents him from watching over himself and attending to the all-important affairs of his soul; and thus it brings him at last to such a state that he imagines he is on the sure way to heaven, and that he can continue in the mode of life to which he has grown accustomed. In this Way one may lead a thoroughly un-Christian life, and yet find peace of mind. But since the conscience is deceived and betrayed, that peace is only a false one, that will surely bring with it, if not in this life, at least in the next, the gnawing worm of remorse.
The bad conscience may even give an illusory peace. Remorse is far better than false peace:
O foolish mortals that we are! Woe to us, if we put down as scruples the well-grounded anxieties and warnings of conscience with which God in His mercy enlightens our culpable ignorance, and exhorts us to amend our lives, that He may bring us back on the right road to heaven, from which we have wandered so far astray! Woe to us, if we hate and shun those lights and admonitions, and love and seek our own blindness and darkness! We have reason to pity the wretched state of those sinners who knowingly and wilfully continue in sin year after year, without doing penance, for they are blindly hurrying straight to hell; and in truth, their condition is sad enough to make one shed tears of blood. But after all, do you not think that they who try to lull their consciences to sleep, that they may enjoy a false peace, are in a still more deplorable state? The former know their misery; the latter do not; the former feel the gnawing of remorse; the latter are free from it; and therefore it is much easier for the grace of God to move the former to repent of the sins they know they have committed, than the latter, who do not know their sins, and do not wish to know them.
