A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Our lord said to his disciples, do not let your hearts be troubled. Have faith in god. Have faith in me. In my father's house, there are many dwelling places.
Otherwise, how could I have told you that I was going to prepare a place for you? I am indeed going to prepare a place for you, and then I shall come back to take you with me. That where I am, you also may be. You know the way that leads to where I go. So Thomas spoke up and said, lord, we do not know where the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my father also. From this point on, you do know him. You have even seen the father. Lord, Philip objected, show us the father and that will be all we need.
Philip, our lord replied, after I have been with you all this time, you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the father. How can you say, show us the father? Don't you believe that I am in the father and the father is in me? The words that I speak are not spoken of myself.
It is the father who lives in me accomplishing his works. Believe me that I am in the father, and the father is in me. Or else, if you don't believe that, believe the works that I do and that you have seen. I solemnly assure you, the man who has faith in me will do the works that I do and greater far than even these works. Why?
Because I go to the father. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. And lest I forget, let me offer my good wishes and prayers for all mothers. I would die a really sad death if I didn't pull that in here this morning some way or other. So that has been said.
Today, I wanna use the same text that you heard in today's gospel and I've been using, as you all will recall, I'm sure, for the last two Sundays. That our lord himself said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and that if you don't go through me, you cannot go to the father. In other words, you're lost. Now whether we like it or not, that's what Jesus said, and he either meant it or he didn't mean it. And he said, you are not of this world.
Because if you take Christ literally, that he is the way, that he is the truth, that's the point I'm making, and the way and the life, you certainly are not going to be of this world even though you can't escape being in it. We're in that bar, that barrel of tar or pitch, and it's only by the grace of god, Jesus Christ, that we can escape being soiled and sullied and destroyed by it. Only through him. Now the whole business is where is Jesus Christ today? And back of my well chosen remarks for the last few Sundays on this matter of conscience, I am talking about his living voice, the church, Jesus Christ.
And there you find our lord's viable presence as the way, the truth, and the life. And if you don't go through him, you cannot go to the father, he said it. Now one of the great phenomenons of the day is that every man and woman is his own theologian. We, if we're sick, most of us with any sense, get try to get proper medical attention. We don't go to a bricklayer if we feel a pain around our in our chest.
I may be an excellent bricklayer, but I don't pretend to be a physician. If I get entangled with the law, I go to a lawyer. And a lawyer, if he gets entangled with the law, gets another lawyer if he has any sense. But when it comes to moral theology today, everybody is his own moral theologian. And this court of supreme appeal is what people call their conscience, whatever it is.
Now this is my third talk on that extremely important subject. And the first one was, what is conscience? And I tried to point out that it's nothing mysterious. It's just a practical judgment. When I look at the carpet, say the carpet needs cleaning.
It's not theoretical. It's a practical judgment. It has to do with action. And it has to do with a specific action, not generalities or universal principles. It has to do with a situation that I'm faced with here and now.
And I have to make a decision. This is obligatory. I must do it. This it's obligatory that I must not do it. Therefore, I must not do it.
But people confuse conscience with moral principles. Conscience isn't the principle. It's an action of my practical intellect. Just as much as saying I want toast for breakfast. I'm hungry.
Conscience doesn't create moral principles. It discovers them, it learns them, it acquires them, just like you acquire any other kind of a knowledge. An engineer doesn't become a real good engineer by drinking his mother's milk or by some osmosis effect. He has to work at it. He has to learn.
He he goes in back and he has to know what the best experiences of the past have been. He goes to books, believe it or not. But when it comes to this matter of moral theology, everybody's his own theologian, you know. So the question then is, where do I get those moral principles? They are not innate.
They are not individually revealed. I have to learn them. I have to acquire them. And they are universals. And conscious is simply an action of my reasoning where I appeal to the principle, apply it to this particular instance, and draw the conclusion that I must do this or I must avoid it.
That part of it is simple. I suppose well, there's nothing simple about conscience, really, in act in actuality. It's a very complex situation because all our emotions, our sentiments, our desires, our indigestion, our good digestion, all of this enters into it just as they enter into every other judgment. It's nothing new. Now last Sunday I I pointed out, I referred to Robert Coles, this child psychiatrist who seems to be quoted on everything these days, but he's a very brilliant fellow from Harvard.
Now, he made he and an associate made a very detailed study of all students in school from the first to the through the fourth year high, and trying to find out what they appeal to for their moral judgments. Where do they get them, if they get them at all? Because as he pointed out, a fairly good percentage don't have any. Nothing. Absolute opportunists.
But of course, they will appeal to their conscience, whatever that is. They don't know what it is either. Now, I pointed out that only about 18% of these of these students, national, all all schools, private and public and parochial, only about 18% or less appeal to any outside authority, god, the bible, the church, the synagogue. All the rest, in effect, appeal to themselves. What makes me comfortable?
What is useful for me? What what helps me in a situation. Pure utilitarianism, pure empiricism, nothing else. Nothing else. You can give it all the fancy names you want, but it comes back to little old me.
Where if morality has any worth, it has to be objective. Not what I think, not what my opinion is, not what I like, not what I dislike, but what is the authority outside of me? Is there one? Of course, plenty of people today say, you know, there isn't. And that's what we're fighting because when you talk about morality, you're talking about truth.
And truth today, we say, is impossible. There are no absolutes. No blacks or whites, just a grave. You hear it all the time. And I quoted that young high school boy from, from sister McAuley's study when he when he told the interviewer, who's God to tell me what to do?
Hope God heard him and is not displeased, unhappy. But this that's that's arrogance carried to the nth degree. Now I'm not saying that is is is very general, but that is what one Catholic high school boy said. Who's god to tell me what to do? Of course, who tells him what to do?
I wager you, he would say my conscience. What in the world conscience's goodness knows? He doesn't know. Now today I want to give some illustrations. Bring it down to good solid terra firma.
First, I want to appeal to a little 12 year old girl. Never went to school because she was too poor, because her father died at a very early age. She had to stay home in order to run the house to take care of the kids while her mother went out into the fields to work. She was born and raised just a little south of Rome and her name was Maria Corretti. Maria Corretti.
She is now a saint. She died shortly after she made her first Holy Communion at the age of 12. When a neighborly boy at age 19 by the name of Alessandro came over to her house, she's only 12, had just made her first communion, never spent a day in school, couldn't read or write, to seduce her. But just to make sure that he could persuade her by rational syllogisms, he brought along a good big carving knife. So he proposed told her what he wanted to do, and this little girl of 12, completely illiterate, although she'd made her first holy communion and had been instructed by the pastor of this little village, what was her reply to his, commands?
Because he then threatened her with a knife, said, if you don't submit to me, I'll kill you. He's 19. She's 12. She replied in the translation, Now listen, no. God does not wish it.
Notice that appeal to an objective standard. She doesn't say, I don't want you to do it. It'll make me uncomfortable and all that malarkey. She says, no. Don't you do this.
God. She appeals to the divine law, this little ignorant girl who has the wisdom of the universe. She says, don't you do this. God does not wish it. It's a sin.
Notice, she even uses that word sin. You can tell she's about as obsolete as the dodo bird. She died in 1902. It's a sin and you'll go to hell for it. Notice there that that's an enormous statement.
She's got authority. She's got the the penalty for the crime. She's got the whole works of a philosophy of law is there, if you think about it. So he carried out. He just took the knife and carved her up.
They caught him and he went to jail. And to them when he got out of jail, he devoted his life to trying to do penance and to try to encourage young people to be chased. Now look at this. She is faced with a choice. I submit to this guy or I don't.
Now notice there's nothing wrong here about sexual intercourse. Get this straight. We do never want, we never will evil. But the God's law says you cannot have that kind of pleasure and satisfaction except in marriage. Fornication and adultery are wrong.
This little girl probably didn't even know the words. Fornication and adultery. But she knew what this guy wanted, and she says, no, God does not want this. It's a sin. Therefore, I can't do it.
She appeals to a universal law. Extramarital intercourse is evil. Therefore, I can't do it because I I'm not I'm obliged not to do evil. See how that works? There's conscience.
But her conscience, this practical judgment in replying to saying no to Alessandro, that saying no is the consequence of a syllogism of which the major premise is marital intercourse outside of marriage is wrong. She didn't know that. All she knows is it's against god's law. She knew the 10 commandments, or at least she knew this one somehow or other. See?
So this is the way it works. But I do want to impress upon you that we never make any judgment exclusively and isolated from the whole human being. It's not my intelligence that makes that judgment, It's me, the whole being, with all my emotions and prejudices and biases and loves and hates and everything. And don't forget my indigestion and my and the pains I'm having in my because of my rheumatism or something. So there's a very simple example from a very uneducated, as we would say today, she never went to school.
Oh, what's the well, that's another point. Now I wanna go to the supreme, our blessed lord. After he spent forty days in the desert, after an in without eating anything. And then we are told it's very mysterious. We are told that the devil tempted him.
Tempted him. Temptation, you know, is not a sin or immoral. So the first temptation this is in Mark and in Luke. The first temptation, the devil says to Christ, if you are the messiah, turn these stones to bread. Our blessed lord replies, it is written, one does not live by bread alone.
Notice what our lord first says. It is written, He's appealing to an objective law, not to mine, not to what I think, not to what makes me comfortable, not to what my opinion is. It is written, and it's written in Deuteronomy, a book of the Old Testament, that man does not live by bread alone. You see how it works? Our blessed lord appeals to a universal principle.
It is the god's law in Deuteronomy. You don't live by bread alone. Therefore, there's no need for me to change these stones into bread. There's something more important than that. The second temptation.
Alright. He we're told that the devil takes our lord up into a huge mountain, shows him the whole universe with its power and its richness and its magnificence. And he says, I'll give all of this to you if you bow down and worship me. And that may be only worshiping a $100 bill in our lives or a better job that I have to pay an unchristian price for. What does our lord say to that?
It is written. Again, this is from Deuteronomy. I, you will worship the lord your god and him alone. So see, our Christ appeals to an objective law. It is written, and it's in Deuteronomy.
He doesn't say it, but that's where it's from. Deuteronomy says, I am the lord your god. You shall not worship any other gods. Objective law, objective standard, I simply apply it to this specific concrete instance and draw the conclusion, I cannot do it. That part of it is relatively simple.
Then the third temptation, he takes Christ up on the temple. You know that on one side of the of the big, height on which the temple was, it's a straight drop. That's where the weeping wall is. So he takes Christ up to the temple and says, look. It is written.
The devil is quoting god himself. The devil says that it is written that angels will take care of you even when you fall. That's from Ezekiel. Our blessed lord replies, it is written. Again, he appeals to an objective law.
He doesn't appeal to what is useful, what is comfortable, what is utilitarian, what is pragmatically feasible. He appeals to an objective law. It is written. It's in the book of Ezekiel. You shall not tempt the lord your god.
This is temptation. Therefore, I can't do it. That's what that's conscience. But notice, conscience has these two very important components, a major premise or a major principle, which is a truth. Truth and morality go together, you know.
That's the way I mean, that's the way it used to be, and that's the way it is before god. So you have a principle which you don't create, which you which you don't imbibe, which is not innate, which but which you have to learn. You have to come to know it. You have to discover it. And then you make a judgment of how that principle applies to this concrete situation.
And then you draw the conclusion, I must do it or I must not do it. I want to give one more very another very simple example. Here we have, let us say, somebody working with a lot of cash in a bank. I was going to say a building and loan, but I don't believe they have any cash anymore. So here's a young man or a young woman handling a lot of cash.
They desperately need a thousand dollars. Now notice there's nothing wrong with a thousand dollars. Anything that more anything more than is wrong with sex. Sex is a gift of God, and money is also part of what we have in more directly or indirectly. Money is good.
Depends what you do with it. It just happens that this money belongs to the bank. It doesn't belong to me. There's nothing wrong in my wanting the thousand dollars. There's nothing wrong in my thinking of what I could do with that thousand dollars.
There's nothing wrong in my admitting how I need the thousand dollars. This is all good. The question is, may I take this thousand dollars here and now? See, it's a concrete specific instance. It's not theory.
It's not a universal. It's not general. It's a very concrete situation. Can I take this thousand bucks or can't, or must I not take it? Now the person, if they have a sense, if they've been properly instructed in Christian morality, notice if they've learned it, they don't get it by their mother's milk, will say taking other people's property is wrong.
This is somebody else's property, therefore it's wrong. I must not do it. That's conscience. That's the way it works. Now this doesn't guarantee he won't take the thousand dollars.
It only tells him what he has to do. I pardon me. I I didn't want to use that word tell because this business of talking about the voice of conscience is a is is what my dear friend Lewis would call moonshine. Moonshine. Conscience is no voice.
It's an act of my reason, the same reason that I use in the practical affairs of life, whether I buy a Ford or a Chevrolet, for example. Same thing. Where do you get these first principles? Where do you get the strength to live up to them when you know them? Our lord has the answer.
I, he said, am the way, the truth, and the life. The great problem is for us to discover Jesus Christ and then to obey his voice, which we pray and we work that our conscience will reflect in its principles. In the name of the father, the son, the holy spirit. Amen.