Category: Fulton Sheen

The wicked fear the good because the good is a constant reproach to their consciences. The ungodly like religion in the same way that they like lions, either dead or behind bars; they fear religion went it breaks loose and begins to challenge their consciences.

A man who has taken poison into his system can ignore the antidote, or he can throw it out the window it makes no difference which he does, for death is already on the march. By the mere fact that we do not go forward, we go backward. There are no plains in the spiritual life; we are either going uphill or coming down.

It was the thief’s last prayer, perhaps even his first. He knocked once, sought once, asked once, dared everything, and found everything. When even the disciples were doubting, and only one was present at the Cross, the thief owned and acknowledged Him as Savior.

A dying man asked a dying man for eternal life; a man without possessions asked a poor man for a Kingdom a thief at the door of death asked to die like a thief and steal Paradise. One would have thought a saint would have been the first soul purchased over the counter of Calvary by the red coins of Redemption, but in the divine plan it was a thief who was the escort of the King of kings into Paradise. If Our Lord had come merely as a teacher, the thief would never have asked for forgiveness. But since the thief’s request touched the reason of His coming to earth, namely, to save souls, the thief heard the immediate answer.

“But there was no room at the inn”; the inn is the gathering place of public opinion; so often, public opinion locks its doors to the King.

Wars come from egotism and selfishness. Every microcosmic or world war has its origin in microcosmic wars going on inside millions and millions of individuals.

The worldly are willing to let anyone believe in God if he pleases, but only on the condition that a belief in God will mean no more than believing in anything else. They allow God, provided that God does not matter. But taking God seriously is precisely what makes the saint.

Those who think they are healthy but have a hidden moral cancer are incurable; the sick who want to be healed has a chance. All denial of guilt keeps people out of the area of love and, by inducing self-righteousness, prevents a cure. The two facts of healing in the physical order are these: A physician cannot heal us unless we put ourselves into his hands, and we will not put ourselves into his hands unless we know that we are sick. In like manner, a sinner’s awareness of sin is one requisite for his recovery; the other is his longing for God. When we long for God, we do so not as sinners but as lovers.

The nearer Christ comes to a heart, the more it becomes conscious of its guilt; it will either ask for his mercy and find peace, or it will turn against Him because it is not yet ready to give up its sinfulness. Thus He will separate the good from the bad, the wheat from the chaff. Man’s reaction to this Divine Presence will be the test: either it will call out all the opposition of egotistic natures or galvanize them into a generation and a resurrection.

The evil in the world must not make me doubt the existence of God. There could be no evil if there were not God. Before there can be a hole in a uniform, there must be a uniform; before there is death, there must be life; before there is an error, there must be truth; before there is a crime, there must be liberty and law; before there is a war, there must be peace; before there is a devil, there must be a God, rebellion against whom made the devil.