Category: Fulton Sheen

As the desire for the world and things increases in us, God makes less and less appeal. We hold back, our fists closed about our few pennies, and thus lose the fortune He holds out to us. That is why the initial step of coming to God is so hard. We cling to the nursery toys and lose the pearl of great price.

We shrink therefore from God, knowing that He wants to enrich our being, rather than our having–that He wishes to elevate our nature, not submerge and lose it in trifles. He has called us to the superior vocation of being His children, of partaking of His nature, and of being related to Him as branches to a vine. Few of us complete want that elevation; it is our petty desire to have more, not to share the glory of being more. We want the poor shadows, not the light–the sparks, and not the sun–the arc, and not the circle.

He often chooses weak instruments in order that His power might be manifested; otherwise it would seem that the good was done by the clay, rather than by the Spirit.

God does not always spare the good from grief. The Father spared not the Son, and the Son spared not the mother.

Blessed finally are the poor in spirit intellectually. Blessed are the humble, and the teachable who like the Shepherds know they know nothing, or like the Wise Men who know they do not know everything.

Let those souls who think their work has no value recognize that by fulfilling their insignificant task out of a love of God, those tasks assume a supernatural worth. The aged who bear the taunts of the young, the sick crucified to their beds, the ignorant immigrant in the steel mill, the street cleaner and the garbage collector, the wardrobe mistress in the theater and the chorus girl who never had a line, the unemployed carpenter and the ash collector–all these will be enthroned above dictators, presidents, kings, and cardinals if a greater love of God inspires their humbler tasks than inspires those who play nobler roles with less love.

So when God pulls down the curtain on the drama of the world’s redemption, He will not ask what part we played, but only how well we played the role assigned to us.

Our Blessed Lord used an illustration of this mystery, “You cannot understand the blowing of the wind, but you obey its laws and thus harness its force; so also with the Spirit. Obey the law of the wind, and it will fill your sails and carry you onward. Obey the law of the Spirit and you will know the new birth. Do not postpone relationship with this law simply because you cannot fathom its mystery intellectually.

An unsuffering Christ Who did not freely pay the debt of human guilt would be reduced to the level of an ethical guide.

What is the difference between work and play? Work has a purpose, play has non, but there must be time in life for purposeless things.