Forming a sense of right and wrong guided by the Lord

It is not uncommon to hear people make statements such as: “I must follow my conscience.” “I must vote as my conscience tells me.” “I can’t do what you’re telling me because it is against my conscience.”
The Church teaches that each individual “must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1790). We cannot act against our conscience. 
There are however, two considerations about conscience which we need to keep in mind. First, conscience needs to be formed. It does not spring instinctively from within ourselves. The formation of conscience is a serious moral obligation. As the Catechism states, “Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and make erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed. This ignorance can often to imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man ‘takes little trouble to find out what is true and good …” (CCC 1790-1791)
We can fall into the error of thinking that our conscience can be formed based upon what one feels or thinks about an issue at any particular moment, but a well-formed conscience does not come about on the spur of the moment. It cannot be based upon how we “feel” about the moral issue we face, or even about what we “think” about an issue based only upon our snap judgment at the moment. Instead, a well-formed conscience must be based upon the Truth.
Our society tends not to admit that there is a Truth. Popular culture tends to teach that each person has their own “truth” and that each person must be guided by their own truth. If each person may formulate their own individual truth, there really is no truth at all. That is not the teaching of Jesus Christ who said, “I am the way, and the Truth, and the light” (Jn 14:16). When Jesus stood before Pilate, He said, “I came into the world, to testify to the Truth” (Jn 18:37) and Pilate responded in a manner very much in accord with contemporary thinking, “What is Truth?” 
Jesus made plain that there is Truth. In order to morally follow our conscience, we must first strive our best to form our conscience in accord with the Truth, and not our own subjective judgments. The word “conscience” comes from two Latin words: “con” which mean “with” and “scire” which means “to know.” A properly formed conscience knows know what is morally correct because it “knows with” one who knows the Truth. It is based on being guided by wisdom and not our own unguided assessment.
That brings us to the second consideration of this article — a well-formed conscience can only come about if we “know with” one who knows the Truth. A very helpful question for each of us to honestly examine to whom we look to in forming our conscience. Sadly, the reality is that we often look to entertainers, celebrities, public figures, bloggers or newscasts to form our moral judgments. 
Our challenge is to form our sense of right and wrong guided by the Lord. We are mistaken if we think that we can know the morally correct way without the Lord. We need to be guided by the teaching of the Lord and with the help of the Holy Spirit. We need to look to the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church in making moral decisions. Most of all, we need to bring our moral decisions before the cross and evaluate everything in the light of the One who hung upon the cross for us. It is that same One whom we will stand before one day to account for our decisions in this life.