Category: Fulton Sheen

Joy never comes to those who seek it. In the self-for-getting hour when we are touched by another’s need and sacrifice for it, we suddenly find our should aflame with glorious joy.

Here is the answer, after all these years, to the mysterious words in the Gospel of the Incarnation which stated that Our Blessed Mother laid her “firstborn” in the manger. Did that mean that Our Blessed Mother was to have other children? It certainly did, but not according to the flesh. Our Divine Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was the unique Son of Our Blessed Mother by the flesh. But Our Lady was to have other children, not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit!

Life’s temptations come most often from that for which one has the greatest aptitude.

It is not so much what people suffer that makes the world mysterious; it is rather how much they miss when they suffer. They seem to forget that even as children they made obstacles in their games in order to have something to overcome.

There are two ways of knowing how good God is; one is never to lose Him, and the other is to lose Him and then to find Him.

So it is when we measure ourselves by God, we fall infinitely short; and when we compare ourselves with many who have given us inspirations, we feel a deep sense of unworthiness. But behind it all, and despite all of this, there is the tremendous consciousness of the mercy of God. He did not call angels to be priests; He called men. He did not make gold the vessel of his treasure; He made clay. The motely group of Apostles that he gathered about Him because more worthy through his mercy and compassion.

George Bernard Shaw once said, “It is a pity that youth has been wasted on the young.” The contrary is true. It is no secret at all that the Good Lord knew that it was better to put the illusions of life at the beginning in order that as we grew closer to eternity, we might the better see the purpose of living.

Once a man ceases to be of service to his neighbor, he begins to be a burden to him.

To those who rejected Him, righteousness would one day appear as a terrible justice; to the sinful men who accepted Him and allied themselves to His life, righteousness would show itself as mercy.

In almost nine cases out of ten, those who have once had the Faith but no reject it, or claim that it does not make sense, are driven not by reasoning but by the way they are living.