I read a book recently titled Knowing Right from Wrong by Fr. Thomas Williams. In the book the author gives a solid explanation of the “experience” of what conscience is like.
If you are like me, you probably grew up thinking conscience was the enemy. An annoying little voice that told you you were doing something wrong. It made you say you are sorry and outright stopped you from doing certain actions.
Then I went to university and learned that my conscience was really all those ideas of right and wrong that your parents gave to you. But then I realized that my parents were wrong some of the time, and so my conscience could be wrong as well. By the time I was done university I had implicitly bought into the idea of some thinkers who held that the conscience was simply something that held us back from doing what we wanted to do.