The Wisdom of Fulton Sheen December 11-20

Short videos discussing the Wisdom of Fulton Sheen

The nice people do not come to God, because they think they are good through their own merits or bad through inherited instincts. If they do good, they believe they are to receive the credit for it; if they do evil, they deny that it is their own fault. They are good through their own good-heartedness, they say; but they are bad because they are misfortunate, either in their economic life or through an inheritance of evil genes from their grandparents.

O Key of David,
opening the gates of God’s eternal Kingdom:
come and free the prisoners of darkness!

Look for the Church that is hated by the world, as Christ was hated by the world. Look for the Church which is accused of being behind the times, as Our Lord was accused of being ignorant and never having learned. Look for the Church which men sneer at as socially inferior, as they sneered at Our Lord because He came from Nazareth…Look for the Church which the world rejects because it claims it is infallible, as Pilate rejected Christ because he called Himself the Truth. Look for the Church which amid the confusion of conflicting opinions, its members love as they love Christ, and respect its voice as the very voice of its Founder, and the suspicion will grow, that if the Church is unpopular with the spirit of the world, then it is unworldly, and if it is unworldly, it is other-worldly. Since it is other-worldly, it is infinitely loved and infinitely hated as was Christ Himself.

O Root of Jesse’s stem,
sign of God’s love for all his people:
come to save us without delay!

If I were not a Catholic, and were looking for the true Church in the world today, I would look for the one Church which did not get along well with the world; in other words, I would look for the Church which the world hates. My reason for doing this would be, that if Christ is in any one of the churches of the world today, He must still be hated as He was when He was on earth in the flesh. If you would find Christ today, then find the Church that does not get along with the world..

O Leader of the House of Israel,
giver of the Law to Moses on Sinai:
come to rescue us with your mighty power!

When you think of the condition the world is in now you sometimes wish that Noah had missed the boat.

The modern atheist does not disbelieve because of his intellect, but because of his will; it is not knowledge that makes him an atheist…The denial of God springs from a man’s desire not to have a God–from his wish that there were no Justice behind the universe, so that his injustices would fear not retribution; from his desire that there be no Law, so that he may not be judged by it; from his wish that there were no Absolute Goodness; that he might go on sinning with impunity. That is why the modern atheist is always angered when he hears anything said about God and religion–he would be incapable of such a resentment if God were only a myth.

If bringing of children into the world is today an economic burden it is because the social system is inadequate; and not because God’s law is wrong. Therefore the State should remove the causes of that burden. The human must not be limited and controlled to fit the economic, but the economic must be expanded to fit the human.

Very few people believe in the devil these days, which suits the devil very well. He is always helping to circulate the news of his own death. The essence of God is existence, and He defines Himself as: ‘I am Who am.” The essence of the devil is the lie, and he defines himself as: “I am who am not.” Satan has very little trouble with those who do not believe in him; they are already on his side.

Any book which inspires us to lead a better life is a good book.

The world blesses not the meek, but the vindictive; it praises not the one who turns the other cheek, but the one who renders evil for evil; it exalts not the humble, but the aggressive. Ideological forces have carried that spirit of violence, class-struggle, and the clenched fist to an extreme the like of which the world before has never seen.

(Repose) reminds us that all actions get teir worth from God: “worship” means “admitting worth.” To worship is to restore to our workaday life its true worth by setting it in its real relationship to God. Who is its end and ours.


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