Vigils Reading

GUARDING OUR CONSCIENCE

From the writing of St Dorotheus of Gaza

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When God created man, he implanted in us something of his own divinity,

in the way of a more ardent disposition, with a shining spark of reason to

illuminate our minds and teach us the difference between good and evil. This is

called conscience, which is the natural law. It was by submitting to this law, that

is, to the conscience, that the patriarchs and all the faithful in the days before the

written Law were well-pleasing to God. But since conscience was clogged and

trampled on by humanity in general through successive sins, we needed the

written Law, we needed the holy Prophets, and we needed the coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ to uncover and awaken it, and to bring the buried spark back

to life through the observance of his holy commands.

So it is now up to us either to keep it buried, or to allow it to shine in us and

illuminate us if we obey it. For when our conscience tells us to do something and

we ignore it, and it speaks again and we still do nothing but trample on it, we

finally bury it, and it can no longer speak clearly to us because of the weight

pressing on it.

Let us take the greatest care, then, brothers, to guard our conscience as

long as we live in this world, and not allow it to convict us of any wrongdoing,

nor despise it even in the smallest matters for any reason at all. For, as you

know, from scorning such small and supposedly unimportant things we are led

to despise even great things. Both living a good life and living a life of sin grow

from small beginnings, to end in either great good or great evil.

Then we must guard our conscience in relation to God, in relation to our

neighbour and in relation to material things. In relation to God, so as not to

despise his commands, even if no one sees us or expects anything of us. We

guard our conscience for God in secret, for instance, when we do not neglect

prayers and, when our mind is inflamed with passion, we agree to calm down

and relax; and, when we see our neighbour talking or doing anything, we refrain

from suspecting and condemning him for appearing to be up to no good.

Guarding our conscience in relation to our neighbour means to do

nothing at all which we know will distress or frighten our neighbour, either by

deed, word, gesture or look. For, as I have often told you before, even a gesture

can upset a neighbour, and so can a look.

Guarding our conscience in relation to material things means not to

misuse anything, nor let anything be wasted or left lying about, but if we see

anything lying about not to ignore it, even if it is something quite unimportant,

but pick it up and return it to its right place; it also means not to neglect our

clothes. Equally with food: you can satisfy your needs with a small amount of

vegetables or lentils, or a few olives; but to refuse to do so, and to insist on

having either pleasanter or more expensive food – all such things are against

conscience.