Archive for the ‘Bp. Fulton Sheen’ Category

Blessed are the Clean of Heart

November 3, 2024

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. Victor Feltes

On November 1st, Christ’s Church celebrated all the saints in Heaven. The Gospel reading for that solemnity was Jesus’ beatitudes from his Sermon on the Mount. The beatitudes describe God’s saints, and they describe Jesus Christ himself as well. We are made in God’s image and our Lord grows us into his likeness. This Sunday, I would like to highlight one of those beatitudes: “Blessed are the clean of heart…” Most Bible translations render this: “Blessed are the pure in heart…” What is purity of heart?

Our first thoughts perhaps may go to purity in regards to chastity. Obscene materials and obscene acts are commonly called the opposite of “clean.” Yet human sexuality can be a means of sanctity. The marital embrace is even a constitutive part of one of the seven sacraments Christ gave us. Rightly-ordered chastity is a source of joy and life and holiness. Chastity is part of being clean of heart, but it’s not the whole or deepest sense of this beatitude.

When one of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments,” Jesus answered with words from Deuteronomy: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” A pure heart does not contain the sludge of sin. It does not willfully coddle an affection for evil. A clean heart is receptive to receive and return holy love.

I believe the Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen once noted that the Archangel Gabriel addressing and declaring the Virgin Mary “full of grace” points to her Immaculate Conception. For if there were sin present in Mary, like inches of mud in the bottom a bucket, she would not be full of grace. But she was clean of heart and full of grace and loved God with her whole self, because our loving God is good and the source of every good.

Now to prevent people from drawing the wrong conclusions, Jesus immediately follows up sharing the greatest commandment with another command from Leviticus. He declares the second greatest commandment is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If Jesus had not cited this second commandment, some people would have misunderstood and thought loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength prohibits the love of anyone else. (After all, Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters.”) Instead, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves (and by implication, love ourselves as our neighbors) even as we love God with our whole selves. When our loves are rightly ordered, in loving God fully we will love who and what he loves like he loves them. Contrary to what some might expect, we will love ourselves and other people best by first and fully loving God.

So renew your love for God, choose him first and fully, opposed to your sins or selfish lesser loves, like those saints who lived and died before us who are now in Heaven. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.

Posted in Bp. Fulton Sheen, Chastity, Chrisitian Virtues, Christian Perfection, Homily, Love, Sunday Homilies | 2 Comments »

10 Things Catholics Don’t Believe

July 27, 2017

The Venerable Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979) Celebrating Holy Mass

Sixty-five years ago, Time magazine dubbed the Venerable Bishop Fulton J. Sheen “the first televangelist.” His Emmy Award-winning TV show, Life is Worth Living, was watched by up to 30 million people weekly, with many non-Catholics among them. Bishop Sheen once observed, “There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church — which is, of course, quite a different thing.” The cause for the canonization of Fulton Sheen, who helped lead a great untold number into the Faith, is currently being advanced by his home diocese of Peoria, Illinois.

This is a list of ten popular misconceptions and what Catholics actually believe:

  1. Catholics don’t believe St. Mary is a goddess, but that she is the holy mother of God and of all Christians.
  2. Catholics don’t believe the pope is sinless or inerrant on every topic, but that he can teach infallibly about faith and morals as the successor of St. Peter.
  3. Catholics don’t believe in worshiping lifeless statues, but that art can help us connect with our friends in Heaven.
  4. Catholics don’t believe lay people should not read the Bible, but that no one soundly interprets Sacred Scripture apart from Sacred Tradition.
  5. Catholics don’t believe we are “saved by works” or “earn our salvation,” but that we must remain faithful by cooperating with God’s gifts of grace.
  6. Catholics don’t believe purgatory is a “second chance” or “temporary Hell,” but that God’s saved, flawed friends are perfected there to enter his holy presence in Heaven.
  7. Catholics don’t believe in cannibalism, but that the Eucharist is truly the real, living person of Jesus Christ.
  8. Catholics don’t believe Jesus suffers and dies anew at every Mass, but that the Mass re-presents (makes present) his one sacrifice and applies its power here and now.
  9. Catholics don’t believe couples must have as many children as humanly possible, but that separating what God has joined in the marital embrace is both wrong and harmful.
  10. Catholics don’t believe all non-Catholics are going to Hell, but we desire everyone to come into full communion with Christ’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

Many of our Protestant brothers and sisters continue to be separated from us due to myths like these. Correcting the mistaken notions of our acquaintances about what the Catholic Church truly teaches is both a spiritual work of mercy and an important step towards the reunion of all Christians. A great harvest is to be found in this field, so let us all labor in it!

Posted in Bp. Fulton Sheen, Catholic Church, Reflection | Leave a Comment »

Mary, the World’s First Love

August 19, 2016

The Blessed Virgin Mary at Prayer    “When Whistler painted the picture of his mother, did he not have the image of her in his mind before he ever gathered his colors on his palette? If you could have preexisted your mother (not artistically, but really), would you not have made her the most perfect woman that ever lived—one so beautiful she would have been the sweet envy of all women, and one so gentle and so merciful that all other mothers would have sought to imitate her virtues? Why, then, should we think that God would do otherwise? When Whistler was complimented on the portrait of his mother, he said, “You know how it is; one tries to make one’s Mummy just as nice as he can.” When God became Man, He too, I believe, would make His Mother as nice as He could—and that would make her a perfect Mother.

She existed in the Divine Mind as an Eternal Thought before there were any mothers. She is the Mother of mothers — she is the world’s first love.”

—Venerable Fulton Sheen (1895–1979 A.D.)
in The World’s First Love: Mary, Mother of God

Posted in Art, Blessed Virgin Mary, Bp. Fulton Sheen, Motherhood, Reflection | Leave a Comment »

Almost Nobody Hates the Church

June 22, 2016
Bishop Fulton Sheen

Bishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979) was dubbed “the first televangelist” by TIME magazine in 1952. His Emmy-winning TV show, Life is Worth Living, was watched by up to 30 million people weekly. His cause for sainthood is currently being advanced by his home diocese of Peoria, IL.

 

The Venerable Fulton J. Sheen made this observation in his 1938 foreword to Radio Replies, a Catholic apologetics book:

“There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church — which is, of course, quite a different thing. These millions can hardly be blamed for hating Catholics because Catholics ‘adore statues’; because they ‘put the Blessed Mother on the same level with God’; because they say ‘indulgence is a permission to commit sin’; because the Pope ‘is a Fascist’; because the ‘Church is the defender of Capitalism.’ If the Church taught or believed any one of these things it should be hated, but the fact is that the Church does not believe nor teach any one of them. It follows then that the hatred of the millions is directed against error and not against truth. As a matter of fact, if we Catholics believed all of the untruths and lies which were said against the Church, we probably would hate the Church a thousand times more than they do.

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… 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 is accused of having a devil, as Our Lord was accused of being possessed by Beelzebub, the Prince of Devils. Look for the Church which, in seasons of bigotry, men say must be destroyed in the name of God as men crucified Christ and thought they had done a service to God. 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 is rejected by the world as Our Lord was rejected by men…

If then, the hatred of the Church is founded on erroneous beliefs, it follows that basic need of the day is instruction. Love depends on knowledge for we cannot aspire nor desire the unknown.

Our great country is filled with what might be called marginal Christians, i.e., those who live on the fringe of religion and who are descendants of Christian living parents, but who now are Christians only in name. They retain a few of its ideals out of indolence and force of habit; they knew the glorious history of Christianity only through certain emasculated forms of it, which have married the spirit of the age and are now dying with it. Of Catholicism and its sacraments, its pardon, its grace, its certitude and its peace, they know nothing except a few inherited prejudices. And yet they are good people who want to do the right thing, but who have no definite philosophy concerning it. They educate their children without religion, and yet they resent the compromising morals of their children. They would be angry if you told them they were not Christian, and yet they do not believe that Christ is God. They resent being called pagans and yet they never take a practical cognizance of the existence of God. There is only one thing of which they are certain and that is that things are not right as they are. It is just that single certitude which makes them what might be called the great “potentials,” for they are ready to be pulled in either of two directions. Within a short time they must take sides; they must either gather with Christ or they must scatter; they must either be with Him or against Him; they must either be on the cross as other Christs, or under it as other executioners. Which way will these marginal Christians tend?… Only this much is certain. Being human and having hearts they want more than class struggle and economics; they want Life, they want Truth, and they want Love. In a word, they want Christ.

It is to these millions who believe wrong things about the Church and to these marginal Christians, that this little book is sent. It is not to prove that they are ‘wrong’; it is not to prove that we are ‘right’; it is merely to present the truth in order that the truth may conquer through the grace of God.”

Posted in Bp. Fulton Sheen, Catholic Church, Reflection | Leave a Comment »

The Heights of Holiness

April 12, 2016
Tall G.K. Chesterton shakes a girl's hand

Servant of God G.K. Chesterton

How tall have the famous Catholic men and women of past and present been? Precise figures can be hard to find, but here is a sampling:

6’ 4” — Servant of God G.K. Chesterton †

6’ 0” — Venerable Pope Pius XII †

5’ 10” — Our Lord Jesus Christ (based upon the Shroud of Turin) †, Pope St. John Paul II †

5’ 9” — Pope Francis †

5’ 8½” — Servant of God Bishop Fulton Sheen † (or 5’ 7” according to his niece †)

5’ 8” — Blessed Pope Paul VI †

5’ 7” — St. Peter the Apostle (based on the bones found beneath St. Peter’s Basilica’s high altar) †, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI †

5’ 6” — Pope St. John XXIII †

5’ 5” — Servant of God Pope John Paul I †

5’ 4” — St. Therese of Lisieux †

5’ 2½”— St. John Neumann †

5’ 2” — St. Joan of Arc †, St. Junipero Serra †

5’ 1½”— St. Ignatius Loyola †

5’ 0” — Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta †

Posted in Bp. Fulton Sheen, G.K. Chesterton, Pope John Paul the Great, Pope Paul VI, Saintly People, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Mother Teresa, St. Peter, St. Therese of Lisieux | 4 Comments »

Ten Things Catholics Don’t Believe

June 15, 2014

The Venerable Bishop Fulton J. Sheen once wrote, “There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church — which is, of course, quite a different thing.”

Mending the mistaken notions of our non-Catholic friends and relatives about what we actually believe is both a spiritual work of mercy and an important step in the reunion of all Christians. Below is a list of ten common misconceptions paired with what the Catholic Church really teaches:

1. Catholics don’t believe that Mary is a goddess, but that she is the holy mother of God and of all Christians.

2. Catholics don’t worship statues, but images help us connect with our friends in Heaven.

3. Catholics don’t believe that the pope is sinless or inerrant about everything, but that he is the successor to St. Peter and can teach infallibly on faith and morals.

4. Catholics don’t believe that people shouldn’t read Sacred Scripture, but that we won’t interpret it well apart from Sacred Tradition.

5. Catholics don’t believe that we are “saved by works,” but that we must cooperate with God’s saving graces.

6. Catholics don’t believe that Jesus is re-sacrificed every Mass, but that the Mass re-presents (makes present) his one sacrifice and applies its power here and now.

7. Catholics don’t believe in cannibalism, but that the Eucharist truly is the real, living person of Jesus Christ.

8. Catholics don’t believe that married couples must have as many children as humanly possible, but that it is harmful to separate what God has joined in the marital embrace.

9. Catholics don’t believe that purgatory is a second chance or “temporary hell,” but that God perfects us to be in his holy presence in Heaven.

10. Catholics don’t believe that all non-Catholics will go to hell, but we want everyone to come into full communion with us in Christ’s one Church.

Posted in Blessed Virgin Mary, Bp. Fulton Sheen, Catholic Church, Mass | Leave a Comment »

Strive to Enter — 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time—Year C

September 2, 2010

The Emmy-winning Servant of God, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, once said that in Heaven we will have three surprises: 

  1) We’ll see people there that we didn’t expect to see…

  2) We won’t see people there that we did expect to see, and…

  3) We’ll be surprised to see ourselves there!
 
 
In today’s gospel, someone shouts out from the crowd, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” Jesus answers Him, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” Instead of giving the man a figure, Jesus gives him more valuable counsel, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for whether or not you will be saved depends (in part) on you.” Yet we are still left wondering, “Will the number saved be many, or only a few?”

On the one hand we have John’s eyewitness testimony from the Book of Revelation. When he say the worship of the saints in heaven he saw  “a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.” (Note that this ‘countless multitude’ is much larger than 144,000 which had just been counted.) It is as the Lord said through the prophet Isaiah in our first reading, “I come to gather nations of every language; they shall come and see my glory.” Based on this we can say that many will be saved.

On the other hand, in the Gospel of Matthew, in the parallel passage to today’s gospel, Jesus says, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.” The ‘few’ who find the narrow gate certainly sounds like less than the ‘many’ who don’t. Based on this we can say that many will not be saved.

My purpose in raising this topic is not to frighten you, for Jesus said, over and again, “Do not be afraid.” But I believe it is with Jesus’ heart that I urge you not to be complacent. To be complacent is to be self-satisfied and unaware of possible dangers. Jesus urges us to, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate” for many will not be able.

There is no way to know, but something in me suspects that the man who called out to Jesus assumed his own salvation to be a certainty; he was merely curious if many others would be joining him.  Jesus warned him not to be presumptuous, and this gospel has come down to us today because it’s a message meant for us too.

All of us come to church, and that’s a very good thing, but coming to church every Sunday does not guarantee our salvation. In the parable that Jesus told, the master of the house arises like the judge of our world at the end of time. People knock on the locked door and say, “Lord, we ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.” We eat and drink in Jesus’ company too, and he teaches in our streets. We eat and drink with Him here, at the Eucharist, and whenever the Scriptures are proclaimed, Christ speaks. Being a disciple of Christ, a true friend of Christ, means more than just coming to church.

We must strive to enter the narrow gate. We must pursue and embrace holy discipline for our lives, as we heard from the Letter to the Hebrews: “…Do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines…. At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.  So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.”

What in your life needs holy discipline? Do you pray every day, or is God only a bedtime afterthought? Do you pray with your spouse and your children, besides at mealtimes? Do you read and watch things that feed your soul? Do you fast and give alms? Do you treat every Friday as a day of penance and every Sunday as a day of joyful rest? What good habit do you need to begin? And what persistent sin do you need to fight, like a life-threatening cancer, for indeed it is. If you were to look back on your life someday from your deathbed, what would you most regret having left undone?

Jesus says to us in this present age, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” Are you asking, are you seeking, are you knocking? Strive for holiness while the door remains unlooked, and be encouraged, for Jesus is also striving after you. In Revelation He says, “Those whom I love, I reprove and chastise. Be earnest, therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, (then) I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me.”

Jesus knocks on the door of our hearts, minds, and souls; in our feelings, thoughts, and deepest desires. If we open our doors and welcome Him now, and strive with Him for holiness, Jesus will open for us the door to Heaven and welcome us inside.

Posted in Bp. Fulton Sheen, Christian Perfection, Discipline, Heaven, Hell, Homily, Jesus Christ, Last Judgment, Last Things, Narrow Door, St. John the Baptist Parish, Sunday Homilies | Leave a Comment »

A Veiled Beauty — The Assumption

September 2, 2010

Consider this reflection by the servant of God, Bishop Fulton Sheen:

“Just suppose that you could have pre-existed your own mother, in much the same way that an artist pre-exists his painting. Furthermore, suppose that you had the infinite power to make your mother anything that you pleased, just as a great artist like Raphael has the power of realizing his artistic ideas. Suppose you had this double power, what kind of mother would you have made for yourself?

Would you have made her of such a type that would make you blush because of her unwomanly and un-mother-like actions? Would you have made her exteriorly and interiorly of such a character as to make you ashamed of her? Or would you have made her, so far as human beauty goes; the most beautiful woman in the world; and so far as beauty of the soul goes, one who would radiate every virtue, every manner of kindness and charity and loveliness; one who by the purity of her life and her mind and her heart would be an inspiration not only to you but even to your fellow men, so that all would look up to her as the very incarnation of what is best in motherhood?”

Now if you who are an imperfect being and who have not the most delicate conception of all that is fine in life would have wished for the loveliest of mothers, do you think that our Blessed Lord, who not only pre-existed His own mother but who had an infinite power to make her just what He chose, would in virtue of all the infinite delicacy of His spirit make her any less pure and loving and beautiful than you would have made your own mother? If you who hate selfishness would have made her selfless and you who hate ugliness would have made her beautiful, do you not think that the Son of God, who hates sin, would have made His own mother sinless and He who hates moral ugliness would have made her immaculately beautiful?”

Fulton Sheen thought that Mary was, in every respect, the most beautiful woman who had ever lived. However, if we had been travelers walking through the small town of Nazareth during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, I’m not sure that we would have recognized God’s greatest creature as we passed by her. I imagine that her face may have looked quite ordinary, apart from her beautifully, loving smile. Her Son, was the all-beautiful God become man, yet it seems that Jesus was not the most handsome man alive. As the prophet Isaiah says of Him, “There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him.” (Is 53) Perhaps Jesus and Mary had ordinary physical features on earth because having extraordinary appearances would have impeded their missions.

Yet now, invested with heavenly glory, Jesus and Mary possess a beauty greater than anyone in history. The perfection of love, goodness, purity and virtue within them shines through their exterior in a way that captivates those who behold them. Jesus told St. Faustina to commission a painting of how He appeared to her. When Faustina saw the artist’s quality work she dissappointedly lamented, “[Jesus,] Who will paint You as beautiful as You are?” The young visionaries at Fatima and Lourdes we struck by how very beautiful the mysterious lady was. And when St. Bernadette visited the grotto for the last time she remarked, “I have never seen her so beautiful before.” There is more to a beauty of this kind than natural appearance.

Why does the Church celebrate Mary’s Assumption? Because this solemnity not only celebrates her, but points to Church’s future. Virgin Mary is the icon, the image, of our Church. Jesus Christ’s Church is Marian. What she did, we are called to do; and where she has gone, we are called to follow. What Christ has done for Mary, He shall do for His Church on the last day. My previous reflections on the ordinary, appearances of Jesus and Mary probably had on earth only goes to show that external appearances can veil the true reality of things. 

Men judge by appearances, and they often misjudge. Many will drive past this building this hour without realizing the wondrous beauty of what is happening here inside. Many fail to see the beauty of Christ’s one, Catholic Church, for which this world was made and through which this world is saved. Many people see the beauty of exterior flesh, but not the beauty of the soul. Yet after the Last Judgment, everyone will see the most homely saint become radiant with beauty, and the most attractive sinner become repellant.

Mary is the first and greatest member of Jesus Christ’s Church. At the end of her unassuming life on earth Jesus lifted up her up body and soul into Heaven and gave her a beauty unmatched in history. He will do the same thing for His Church someday, and He desires to do the same for each of us. You and I are called to follow Mary in following Christ; to imitate their love, goodness, purity and virtue. Despite any appearances to the contrary, in this veiling and deceptive world, we are called to share in a beauty and glory like theirs.

Posted in Assumption of Mary, Blessed Virgin Mary, Bp. Fulton Sheen, Christ the King Parish, Christian Perfection, Divinization, Feast Day Homilies, Heaven, Homily, Jesus Christ, Sunday Homilies | Leave a Comment »