[Preface: After reading from
Saint Dorotheos, and your conscience brighter, examine yourself with the
magnifying glass of the following scripture.]
Saint
Matthew 6:21 (KJV) For where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
THE CONSCIENCE
When God formed man, he breathed into him something that was divine, a hot and bright spark added to reason, which brightened the mind and revealed to him the difference between right and wrong. This is referred to as the conscience, which is the law of his being. This is to be compared with the well which Jacob dug, as the Fathers say, and which the Philistines filled. It is to this law of the conscience that the patriarchs adhered and all the holy men of old before the written law, who were pleasing to God. However when this law was buried and trampled underfoot by men through the birth of sin, we required a written law, the saintly prophets, and the teaching of our Master, Jesus Christ, to show it and raise it up and bring it to life by the keeping of the commandments that buried that spark. It is within our authority to bury it again, or to follow it, allowing it to shine and illuminate us. When our conscience tells us to do this or that we rebuke it and it speaks again and we do not do it but persist in despising it, until we at last bury it and it is no longer capable of speaking plainly to us from the depths where we have laid it. But as a lamp shining on a defective mirror reflects things dimly and darkly, so also you are unable to see the reflection of your face in murky water. We are incapable of perceiving what our conscience tells us so that we suppose we have barely any conscience. No one lacks a conscience because it is something which God implanted in us, as we have already stated, and it can never be destroyed. It always patiently reminds us of our duties, but sometimes we do not understand that we are detesting it, and trampling it underfoot. This is why the prophet laments Ephraim and says, "Ephraim is victorious over his adversary and tramples down judgment." The adversary here is the conscience. Here the Gospel states, "Agree with your adversary while you are still on the way with him, for fear he hand you over to the judge and the judge to the warden and they put you into the stocks. Truly I tell you, you will not leave that place until you have paid the last penny." Why does he refer to the conscience as an adversary? It is so called because it always opposes our wicked desires and tells us what we should and should not do, and it accuses us, and so our conscience is referred to as our adversary and Our Lord rebukes us, saying, "Agree with your adversary while you are on the way." The "way," [not THE WAY, which is Christ] St. Basil tells us is the "world" the passions.
Brothers , may we be zealous to guard our conscience as long as we are in this world and to not disregard its promptings in anything. And may we not trample it underfoot even in the smallest thing, for you can see that from the least things, which by their nature are accounted for little, we come to detest the greater things. When we start to say, "What is it if I say only these few words? What does it matter if I consume this morsel? What difference if I should look in here or there? From this manner of speaking, "What does this or that really matter?" a man takes wicked and harsh nourishment and starts to detest the greater and more weighty matters and even to tread them down in his own conscience and so, finally to destroy them, little by little. He falls into danger and finally is completely impervious to the Light of the conscience. So brother, see to it that we do not disregard small things. See to it that we do not detest them, treating them as nothing. There are no "small things," because when it is an issue of bad habits, it is really an issue of a malignant tumor. May we live with caution. May we take care to heed small matters when they are small for fear they become worse. Doing what is right and what is wrong, both start from trivial matters and progress to what is great, good or bad. So Our Lord warns us to listen to our conscience as one providing evidence of his own doings and saying, "Take heed fool, see what you are doing, agree with your adversary while you are still on the road." And he reveals the danger to be feared, "For fear he hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the executioner and he cast you into the innermost prison." And what more? "Amen, I say to you, he will not depart from there until he has paid the last penny." The conscience then forewarns us, as I said, as to what is good and what is evil and shows us what we should do and not do. For in the coming world it will indict us. So it says, "For fear he deliver you over to the judge..." While taking heed to our conscience, we must consider many different issues. A man must satisfy his conscience toward God, toward his neighbor, and toward material things. In terms of God, he must not detest God's laws, even those things which are not visible to men or those things for which one is not liable to others. One should listen to his conscience in regard to God. For example, did he disregard his prayer? If a bad thought entered his heart, was he alert and did he maintain control over himself or did he entertain it? He regards his neighbor saying something or doing something. Does he think it evil and judge him? To lay it out plainly, all the concealed things that happen within us, things which are visible to God alone, and our conscience, we must regard. This is what I mean when I speak of the conscience to God. To regard our conscience with regard to our neighbor means not doing anything that we think will trouble or hurt our neighbor in deed, word, gesture or look. Because there are gestures, as I often tell you, which harm our neighbors and there are looks which can wound him and to speak openly, whatever a man does quickly, knowing it provides his neighbor a bad thought, pollutes his own conscience because it means that he is prepared to hurt or disturb his neighbor and this is the type of thing I mean when I speak about maintaining a good conscience toward our neighbor. With respect to maintaining a good conscience in regard to material goods, it is not to misuse things, not to make them useless, not to leave things lying about, and when we discover things left out not to leave them even if they are of little value, but to pick them up and put them in their proper spot. It is not to be lazy about our clothing or to wear them out rapidly. For example, when one wears a shirt for a week or two, to desire to wash it every day and so by regularly washing it wear it out too fast, and then constantly be asking for a new one. These things are against the conscience. So also about the bed. Often when one only needs a small mattress, one requests a large one, and when one has a blanket, one would like to exchange it for a newer or better one on account of the dignity or because of heedlessness. Or sometimes a rush mat is enough, but one requests a carpet and quickly protests unless he gets it. Or one goes up to one of the brothers and says, "Why has that person got such an item and I do not?" Such a one is not on the right path. Or a man hangs his garment or blanket in the sun and by negligence leaves it there to be ruined, this is all against our conscience. It is the same with regard to nourishment. A man is perfectly capable of satisfying the necessities of his body with bread, vegetables and a few olives, but he gives up doing this and seeks something more delicious, and more expensive, and all this is against the conscience. The Fathers tell us that a monk should not give his conscience time to rebuke him about anything. It is necessary then brothers to maintain a watch over ourselves always and to keep ourselves from all these things for fear we fall into danger. Because Our Lord also will bring a charge against us, as we have stated earlier. May God make us attentive to these things, for fear the sayings of our Fathers turn out to be for us words of judgment.
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