Category: Fulton Sheen

The new morality resolves itself into this: You are wrong if you do think you do not feel like doing, and you are right if you do something you feel like doing. Such morality is based not only on “fastidiousness” but “facetiousness.” The standard of morality then becomes the individual feeling of what is beautiful instead of the rational estimate of what is right.

Purity does not begin in the body but in the will. From there, it flows outward, cleansing thought, imagination, and, finally, the body. Bodily purity is a repercussion or echo of the will. Life is impure only when the will is impure.

Two principles inspire much of the personal and social dealings of many a citizen in our land: “What can I get out of it?” and “Can I get away with it?” Evil is confused with good, and good is confused with evil. Revolting books against virtue are termed “courageous”; those against morality are advertised as “daring and forward-looking”; and those against God are called “progressive and epoch-making” It has always been the characteristic of the generation in decay to paint the gates of Hell with the gold of Paradise. In a word, much of the so-called wisdom of our day is made up of that which once nailed our blessed Lord to the Cross.

Weak men in high positions surround themselves with little men, so they may seem significant by comparison.

The Church knows too that to marry the present age and its spirit is to become a widow in the next.

Though the Son of Man expressed His federation with humanity, He was careful to note that He was like a man in all things save sin. He challenged His hearers to convict Him of sin. But the consequences of sin were all His as the Son of Man. Hence the prayer to let the chalice pass; His endurance of hunger and thirst; His agony and bloody sweat…His endurance of worry, anxiety, fear, pain, mental anguish, fever, hunger, thirst, and agony during the hours of His Passion-all these things were to inspire men to imitate the Son of Man. Nothing that was human was foreign to Him.

A man who makes himself a god must hide; otherwise, his false divinity will be unmasked.

He has mercy on those who fear Him, from generation to generation. Fear is here understood as filial, that is, a shrinking from hunting one who is loved. Such is the fear a son has for a devoted father and the fear of Christian has of Christ. Fear is here related to love.

To love what is below the human is degradation; to love what is human for the sake of the human is mediocrity; to love the human for the sake of the Devine is enriching; to love the Divine for its own sake is sanctity.

Conscience, Christ, and the gift of faith make evil men uneasy in their sins. They feel that if they could drive Christ from the earth, they would be free from “moral inhibitions.” They forget that their own nature and conscience make them feel that way. Being unable to drive God from the heavens, they would drive his ambassadors from the earth. In a lesser sphere, many men sneer at virtue-because it makes vice uncomfortable.