Robert Barron - The Voice of Conscience
Peace be with you. Well, friends, we've come through the Christmas season, and we commence now with the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time. And our first reading is just one of my favorites in the Old Testament. It's from the First Book of Samuel, the account of the call of Samuel, this young kid who hears the voice of the Lord for the first time. Now remember, first of all, that Samuel is the son of Hannah. Hannah, who was begging for a child from God and then receives this great gift. But then, very early on, Hannah gives him back to the Lord. She returns him to the temple in Shiloh and to Eli, the priest who then cares for him.
So it's a beautiful story. It's a strange story. It shows you what this mother is willing to do. She received a gift from God and then she gives that gift back. So we know this kid is going to play some very important role in the history of salvation. Indeed, he does. And this is the account now of his call. He's with Eli, his mentor and protector, and where are they? They're in the temple. That's where Hannah left him. But listen how it begins: "Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was".
Now, I've said this to you before. Sleep in the Bible is not a positive image. Sleep is a negative image. It means the lack of spiritual attention. We just heard that at this time, revelation from God was rare. Now, is that because God was unwilling to reveal himself? I don't think so. The reason it was rare was people were "sleeping" in the temple. You're in the temple, you're in the place of worship, and you're not paying attention. You've fallen asleep. Friends, how like our own time, this is, I think. Where, especially in the West, an awful lot of people have fallen asleep.
This bland secularism, this materialism, "There's no God. God doesn't exist. Don't worry about God. Just live your own life on your own terms". That's the equivalent of being asleep in the very presence of God. Then we hear this, "The Lord called to Samuel who answered, 'Here I am.'" Now, again, in the history of salvation, in the lives of the saints, I think occasionally God really does speak in a voice that can be heard, but I think what's being signaled here, though, when the Bible speaks of hearing the word of God, hearing the voice of God, they typically mean hearing the voice of the conscience.
You have that great scene about Elijah. Elijah is fleeing from Jezebel and he comes into the desert and then he finally comes to the mountain of the Lord and there's a great earthquake, and then there's a flame, and then there's wind and all these dramatic things, and then finally he hears this tiny whispering voice and he knows it's the Lord. Well, I submit to you, we've all heard that tiny whispering voice. It's the voice of the conscience. John Henry Newman referred to the conscience as the "aboriginal vicar of Christ" in the soul. That's a wonderful description. Even before the pope is the vicar of Christ, the aboriginal, the first vicar of Christ in the soul, is the conscience, is the conscience, the voice of God, the still small voice that communicates to us God's will and purpose.
Let me say a couple more things about conscience. I think the first dimension of conscience is the summons to be a righteous person. Now, think about that everybody. At some point in life, we all have to make a decision. What kind of person am I going to be? Someone that just seeks pleasure, a hedonist. Someone that just seeks a high position; be ambitious. I'm going to be a successful professional person; I'm going to be a money man. Those are paths we can take. Or we can say, at the prompting of our conscience, "No, I'm going to be a righteous person".
Listen now, even if that means I'm not going to be rich, even if that means I'm not going to be famous, even if that means they're not going to like me. The most fundamental move of the conscience is to say, this is the kind of person I want to be, a righteous person. Then, I think, a second dimension of conscience is: conscience, that still small voice, tells us in the particular situation what to do and what not to do. Now, think about this for a second. Isn't it curious in a way that we refer to the conscience as a voice, which is to say, something belonging to a person.
Let's say I'm a gifted art connoisseur and I have a refined taste in regard to paintings and sculptures, and I can tell the difference between a really fine work of art and a klutzy one. Okay, I refer to that maybe as my taste or my artistic sensibility. There's a woman I knew in California who was a very gifted interior designer. She can go into a room and she just knows how to make that room look beautiful. She knows what's tacky and what's classy. I don't have that taste at all. I'm not that good with colors. I'm a little bit colorblind and I'd probably put just a recliner in front of a TV and I think, okay, I'm happy with that room. She has a taste, a sensibility. Fine. Or friends of mine who are really good at golf, and they can just sense, they know in their body what makes the golf swing right and they can kind of correct the flaws.
I don't have that great gift. That's why, like most amateurs, I struggle with golf. My point is we all have these sensibilities, sensitivities, intuitions, taste, but we don't refer to those as voices. But when it comes to the assessment of our moral lives, the kind of people we're going to be, the sort of acts we're going to perform, we indeed speak of the voice of conscience. Now, why? Because, in the moral order, we know that when we do the right thing, we are pleasing someone. When we do the wrong thing, what our conscious is telling us not to do, it's not just, "Oh, aesthetically I made a faux pas. I revealed my bad taste in the moral order".
No, no. I feel as though I've offended someone, and those intuitions, everybody, are right. They're right because conscience is indeed the voice of God. God summoning us to be a righteous person and God summoning us to right moral action and warning us off of wrong moral action. I'm with Cardinal Newman here, that that's the way most of us most vividly sense the presence of God. So Samuel hears the voice of God and beautifully responds, "Here I am". Good. That's the right answer. When you sense the presence of God, you know what God wants, the right response is "Here I am".
Now, there's a curious feature here, and it's interesting actually, that he goes to Eli, thinking, "Oh, it's Eli who called me". And Eli goes, "No, no, I didn't call you. Go back to sleep". And then the Lord calls again and the kid thinks, "Oh, it's Eli calling me". And once again, the old man says, "No, no, I didn't call you". And only on the third time does Eli say, "Okay, I know what this is. This is the Lord". Well, here's the thing, everybody. You see, when we're little kids, our parents sort of play the role of conscience. With a young kid, a parent will say, "No, don't do that" or "Do that".
And then that voice, as the kid gets older, becomes more internalized. It's like I have got my father or my mother inside of me telling me what to do. Then finally, though, as I come of age, I realize that's not just the voice of my father. That's not just my memory of my father's voice. That's the voice of God. So just as Samuel mistook God's voice for Eli's, well, okay, we move toward an appreciation of conscience through various mediators. Fair enough. That's the way it works as we come of age. But finally, as Eli correctly intuits, "No, no, that's the Lord. That's the Lord. So go listen to what he says".
Now, here's something else, and the story ends here, so it ends in a way on a very positive note, but keep reading this account in the Bible. What do you find? God tells little Samuel something kind of awful. That because of Eli's corruption and the corruption of his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, he's going to visit destruction upon Israel. It's a terrible message that he gives this young kid to communicate to Eli. Okay. Does the conscience always tell you to do wonderful, pleasant things? Not last time I checked. My own ego, my hedonistic self will always tell me, "Yeah, take the easy route. Do what's pleasant for you, avoid suffering and make life pleasant for you". But not the conscience. Am I right, everybody?
Not the conscience. Conscience, which is the aboriginal vicar of Christ in the soul, often summons us to very difficult work and warns us away from deeply attractive possibilities. You know what I'm talking about, fellow sinners, right? You know exactly what I'm talking about. "I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame, and every time I pass that way, I always hear my name". That's Bob Dylan. But that's right, isn't it? I'm always feeling the pull of temptation, and conscience saying, "No, no, don't go that route, even though I know it's attractive. I know that looks pleasant to you, but don't go that route". Or on the other side, "Here's what you need to do, and I know it's going to cost you. I know it's going to be painful. I know people will dislike you, but that's what you've got to do".
You remember the story of Jonah? Jonah hears the word of the Lord, right? "Go to Nineveh, the great city and speak out against its wickedness". Well, there's Jonah hearing the voice of his conscience, hearing the aboriginal vicar of Christ in his soul, telling him what to do. What does Jonah do? The exact opposite. "Go to Nineveh, go east by land". Jonah goes west by sea. He goes to Tarshish, he tries to sail to the end of the world. But see, you can't sail away from your own conscience.
That's the point of the story of Jonah. The Lord swallows him up and carries him right back to where he wants him, because the conscience is in you. You can't sail away from it. You can't run away from your conscience. So obey it. Obey it. "Samuel, Samuel", "Here I am". That's beautiful. Stay with that little phrase. "Here I am". "All right, Lord, I'm ready. Speak. I'm listening Speak. and I'm willing to do your will. Speak, Lord, I'm listening. Plant your word". How's that song go? "Plant your word down deep in me". Good. That's the right attitude whenco nscience dictates to us, when the word of God comes to us. Spend maybe a little bit of time with this little passage from First Samuel. It's telling us a lot about how to hear the word of God about how to hear the And God bless you.