As the blade of a knife is sharpened by a stone, so the conscience is sharpened by Christ: it is enlightened by study and refined by the fulfillment of the Gospel commandments.

A conscience enlightened and refined by the Gospel shows a person in detail and clearly his sins – even the smallest ones.

Do not do violence to your opponent – your conscience! Otherwise, you will be deprived of spiritual freedom: sin will captivate you and bind you. The Prophet laments on behalf of God about those who trample on their consciences, who slander themselves: "Ephraim overcame his rival, trampled down judgment, for he began to walk after the vain ones" (879).

The edge of conscience is very tender; It must be stored and stored. It is preserved when a person fulfills all the requirements of conscience, and the violation of any requirement, due to weakness or infatuation, is washed away with tears of repentance.

Do not think of any sin as unimportant: every sin is a violation of the Law of God, an opposition to the will of God, a violation of conscience.

From trifles, from seemingly insignificant sins, we gradually pass to great sins.

"What does this mean? Is this sin great? What kind of sin is this? This is not a sin! — this is how the one who cares about his salvation thinks when he decides to eat the food of sin forbidden by the Law of God. Based on such an unfounded judgment, he constantly tramples on his conscience.

Its point is blunted, its light is dimmed; darkness and coldness of negligence and insensibility spread in the soul.

Insensibility finally becomes an ordinary state of the soul. Often she is satisfied with it; often recognizes it as a state pleasing to God, peace of conscience, and this is the loss of the sense of one's sinfulness, the loss of the sense of grace-filled spiritual life, the slumber and blindness of conscience [880].

In such a state, with terrible darkness and insensibility, various sins freely enter the soul, making a den for themselves in it. Sins, ossified in the soul, turn into habits as strong as nature, and sometimes even stronger than nature. Sinful habits are called passions. Man does not notice this, and he is imperceptibly bound everywhere by sin, in captivity to it, in slavery.

Whoever, constantly ignoring the reminders of conscience, has allowed himself to fall into the slavery of sin, will only with the greatest difficulty, with the help of God's special help, be able to break the chains of this slavery, to conquer the passions, which have turned into natural qualities, as it were.

Most beloved brother! Guard your conscience with all possible attention and diligence.

Guard your conscience in relation to God: fulfill all the commandments of God, both visible to all and invisible to anyone, visible and known only to God and your conscience.

Guard your conscience in relation to your neighbor: do not be satisfied with the mere plausibility of your behavior towards your neighbors! seek from yourself that your very conscience be satisfied with this behavior. It will be satisfied when not only your deeds, but also your heart are placed in the relationship to your neighbor commanded by the Gospel.