Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Archbishop Sheen Novena

 DAY 1 “How God will judge my life I know not, but I trust he will see me with mercy and compassion. I am only certain there will be three surprises in Heaven. First of all, I will see some people whom I never expected to see. Second, there will be a number whom I expected who will not be there. And - even relying on God’s mercy - the biggest surprise of all may be that I will be there. When the record of any human life is set down, there are three pairs of eyes who see it in a different light. 1. As I see it. 2. As others see it. 3. As God sees it.” Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Lord, help us to focus on You as Fulton Sheen did so that we may be humble when looking upon ourselves, so that others will see You when they look upon us, and so we can see our lives as You see us.

Prayer of Canonization, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be 


DAY 2 “Protestants, Jews and Catholics have God, morality, and religion in common. In the name of God, let us - Jews, Protestants, and Catholics - do two things: 1. Realize that an attack upon one is an attack upon all, since we are all one in God; it is not tolerance we need, but charity; not forbearance but love. 2. Begin doing something about religion, and the least we can do is say our prayers; to implore God’s blessings upon the world and our country; to thank Him for his blessings; and to become illumined in the fullness of His truth. There is entirely too much talk about religion and not enough action.” Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Lord, Fulton Sheen reached out to people of every religion. Help us to focus on what we have in common instead of our differences.

Prayer of Canonization, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be


 
DAY 3 “In every friendship hearts grow and entwine themselves together, so that the two hearts seem to make only one heart with only a common thought. That is why separation is so painful; it is not so much two hearts separating, but one being torn asunder.” Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Lord, help me to build up spiritual friendship in my life so I can become one with them as we will all be one in heaven. Above all, help me to realize that separation from You means an empty heart for me.

Prayer of Canonization, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be


 DAY 4 “The great tragedy of life is not so much what men have suffered, but what they have missed. And what greater tragedy is there than to miss the peace of sin forgiven? There is not a man living who, if he willed it, could not enjoy the spiritual food and drink which God serves to all who ask.” Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Lord, Fulton Sheen led so many to peace of soul by introducing them to your forgiveness. Help us to share your gift of peace to others by introducing them to Your true loving forgiveness and gift of Confession.

Prayer of Canonization, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be


 
DAY 5 “All love on this earth involves choice. When, for example, a young man expresses his love to a young woman and asks her to become his wife, he is not just making an affirmation of love; he is also negating his love for anyone else. In that one act by which he chooses her, he rejects all that is not her. There is no other real way in which to prove we love a thing than by choosing it in preference to something else. Word and signs of love may be, and often are, expressions of egotism or passion; but deeds are proofs of love. We can prove we love our Lord only by choosing Him in preference to anything else.” Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Lord, Fulton Sheen loved you above all things. Help us to choose to put you first in our lives so that we may learn what true love is.

Prayer of Canonization, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be


 
DAY 6 “Burning the candle at both ends for God’s sake may be foolishness to the world, but it is a profitable Christian exercise for so much better the light! Only one thing in life matters: Being found worthy of the Light of the World in the hour of His visitation. We need have no undue fear for our health if we work hard for the Kingdom of God; God will take care of our health if we take care of His cause. In any case, it is better to burn out than to rust out.” Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Lord, even when tired and sick, Fulton Sheen worked unceasingly for your Kingdom. Help us to learn how to tirelessly work for You through Fulton Sheen. Help us to know that there is no rest until we rest in You.

Prayer of Canonization, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be 

DAY 7 “Mary is not only mother of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, but she is also our mother, and this is not by a title of courtesy, not by legal fiction, not by a mere figure of speech, but by the right of bringing us forth in sorrow at the foot of the cross....Mary, by sacrifice and obedience, regained for us the title, Mother of the living. What a destiny to have the Mother of God as my Mother and Jesus as my brother.” Archbishop Fulton J Sheen

Lord, Fulton Sheen learned obedience at the school of Mary. He had such a great relationship with her; he knew that when he went before the judgment seat of Christ You would say ‘I heard my Mother speak of you.’ Help us to better know Mary so we may gain insight into such great obedience, love, faith and hope.

Prayer of Canonization, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be


DAY 8 “If we followed the same rules for health that we do about religion, we would all be bedridden. It is not enough to talk about the necessity of health; we must do something practical about it - for example, eat, exercise, and rest. So it is with religion. We must nourish ourselves with the truths of God, exercise our spiritual muscles in prayer, mortify ourselves of those things which are harmful to the soul, and be just as scrupulous in avoiding moral evil as we are in avoiding physical evil.” Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Lord, Fulton Sheen did not ask others to go to confession or visit our Lord an hour a day without doing it himself. He practiced what he preached. Guard us from hypocrisy and help us to lead others to you through our actions.

Prayer of Canonization, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be


 
DAY 9 “The better we become, the less conscious we are of our goodness. If anyone admits to being a saint, he is close to being a devil. Jean Jacques Rousseau believed that of all men, he was the most perfect, but he had so many cracks in his soul that he abandoned his children after their birth. The more saintly we become, the less conscious we are of being holy. A child is cute so long as he does not know that he is cute. As soon as he thinks he is, he turns into a brat. True goodness is unconscious.” Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Lord, Fulton Sheen always thought of himself as an unworthy servant and never thought himself a saint. Help us to be humble in our service and

to realize as Fulton Sheen realized that all good works come from You.

Prayer of Canonization, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be



PRAYER FOR CANONIZATION

Heavenly Father, source of all holiness, You raise up within the Church in every age men and women who serve with heroic love and dedication. You have blessed Your Church through the life and ministry of Your faithful servant, Archbishop Fulton J Sheen. He has written and spoken well of Your Divine Son, Jesus Christ, and was a true instrument of the Holy Spirit in touching the hearts of countless people.
If it be according to Your Will, for the honor and glory of the Most Holy Trinity and for the salvation of souls, we ask You to move the Church to proclaim him a saint. We ask this prayer through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.



Friday, October 9, 2020

Pope Pius XII

 Pope Pius XII died on Oct 9, 1958

"EACH YEAR I WOULD DISCUSS WITH POPE PIUS XII the subjects that I would talk about on radio for the coming year. During one audience this noble, aristocratic Pontiff stood up at his desk; I, who was seated alongside him, stood up also. He placed before himself a paper in his own handwriting and began reading. I was struck by the unusual nature of the procedure and was surprised both at the contents and the manner in which he addressed me. Humility forbids me to reveal all that he said about my being a ‘prophet of the times’ and that ‘you will have a high place in heaven.’ Nothing that he said was infallible, of course, but his words gave me much consolation.”
(Fulton Sheen’s Autobiography Treasure in Clay)



Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Domestic Prelate

 On 12 August 1935, Bishop Schlarman wrote to Cardinal Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) a request that 40-year-old Fulton Sheen be made a domestic prelate. The list of reasons for this honor had been true then and ever after. The letter is one of the special possessions of the Archbishop Sheen Foundation and museum. In 1935, Fulton Sheen was the youngest, but much respected professor at the Catholic University in Washington, D.C.



Tuesday, May 12, 2020

5/12/2020 Celebrating Archbishop Sheen

May 12th is an important day in the life of Archbishop Fulton Sheen.  On May 12, 1895 he was baptized Peter John Sheen at St. Mary Church in El Paso, IL by Rev. Jeremiah H. Quinlin.  His God Parents were John and Theresa Fulton.  On May 12, 1907 Fulton Sheen had his First Communion by Fr. Joseph Kelly.  When the young Fulton Sheen received his first communion he made the conscious dedication of himself to Mary.  His First Communion book (which is located in the Archbishop Sheen Museum in Peoria, IL) contained the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, which he began that evening to  recite every night until his death.   Since Sheen had a very close relationship with Mary we are asking that everyone pray the rosary on May 12th for Archbishop Sheen's Cause.  The reflections Sheen wrote for the Sorrowful Mysteries are contained in this blog post.  God Love You!

To order a Sheen Commemorative Rosary click hereROSARY 



THE SORROWFUL MYSTERIES – reflections by Archbishop Fulton Sheen


Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in God, the Father almighty creator of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father almighty. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.”

Our Father:
3 Hail Mary’s
Glory Be


Agony in the Garden:
“As a kind person in the face of pain seeks to relieve the sufferings of his friend, so does moral kindness in the face of evil take on the punishment which evil deserves.  Every mother would willingly, if she could, bear the aches of her child.  A father will pay the debts of his wayward son as if they were his own.  Our Lord, though guilty of no sin, nevertheless in His agony in the garden permitted Himself to feel the inner effects of sin, as on the cross He experienced also the external effects of sin.  These internal effects were sadness, fear, and a sense of loneliness.  ‘I looked for one that would grieve together with Me, and I found none.’  He permits His head to feel blasphemies as if his lips had pronounced them; His hands to feel the sins of theft, as if He had stolen; His body to sense the guilt of defilement, as if it were the cause.  Innocence knows sin better than the guilty, because the guilty are already part of it.  Sin is in the blood.  The drunkard, the libertine, the tyrant have registered sin not only in their souls, but in their brain, the cells of their body, and the very expression of their faces.  If, therefore, sin is in the blood, to atone for it, blood must be poured out.  Our Lord never intended that any other blood than His own should be shed in expiation for sins.  Because men have not invoked the blood of Christ for their sins, they are now at war shedding one another’s blood.  The agony in the garden is not a triumph of the plans and the schemes of betrayers and enemies, but is permitted by divine decree.  This is your hour, our Lord said to His enemies.  Evil has its hour, but God has His day!” Archbishop Fulton Sheen (The Fifteen Mysteries) 

Scourging at the Pillar:
“Seven centuries before, it had been foretold that our Lord would be so wounded for our sins that we would have ‘thought Him as it were, a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted.’  The time has come for the fulfillment of that prophecy.  Omnipotence is bound to a pillar in the hour of His death, as He was bound in swaddling clothes in the hour of His birth.  The scourging at the pillar must have been terrible, because whenever our Lord foretold His passion, He always made particular reference to His scourging, as if to emphasize the outrage of His suffering.  St. Peter, after the Resurrection, recalling how he stood in the outer court listening to the fall of thongs upon His flesh, and yet heard our Lord not complain, wrote: ‘Who when He was reviled, did not revile; when He suffered, did not threaten.’  The scourging is an act of reparation for the excessive cult of the body.  ‘The body is for the Lord.’  In expiation for self-indulgence, His body, as the second Ark of the Covenant, is disclosed to profane eyes, as the Spouse of souls now becomes the plaything of mockers.  How many strokes He received, no one knows.  The prophet foretold that he would be so scourged that the bones of His body would be numbered.  We are saved by other stars and stripes than those on the flag; namely, by the stars and stripes of Christ, by whose stars we are illumined – by whose stripes we are healed.”  Archbishop Fulton Sheen (The Fifteen Mysteries)

Crowning with thorns:
“As the scourging was the reparation for the sins of the flesh, so the crowning with thorns was the atonement for the sins of the mind – for the atheists who wish there were no God, for the doubters whose evil lives becloud their thinking, for the egotists, centered on themselves.  The soldiers cursed as the thorns pricked their fingers.  Then they cursed the Lord, as they drove the crown of thorns into His head, as a mockery of a royal diadem.  Into His hands they placed a reed, the symbol of His kingdom, presumed to be false and unstable like the reed.  His flesh, already hanging from Him like purple rags, is now covered with a purple robe to ridicule His claim to kingship of hearts and nations.  Blindfolding Him, they struck Him, asking Him to prophesy, or tell whom it was that delivered the blow.  They then bowed down before Him in mock reverence, spitting in His face, that all the subsequent Mindszentys, Stepinacs, and martyrs of the world might have courage in their hour of martyrdom.  In this Mystery is verified the truth of our Saviour’s warning: ‘If the world hates you, be sure that it hated Me before it learned to hate you.  If you belonged to the world, the world would know you for its own and love you; it is because you do not belong to the world, because I have singled you out from the midst of the world, that the world hates you.’  He who expects to preserve His faith without being mocked by the world is either weak in it, or else not so bold in goodness as to draw upon himself the mocking insults of another purple robe and a torturing circle of thorns.”  Archbishop Fulton Sheen (The Fifteen Mysteries)

Carrying of the Cross:
“Any cross would be easy to bear if we could only tailor it to fit ourselves.  Our Lord’s cross was not made by Him, but for Him.  Crosses and burdens are thrust upon us.  Our acceptance makes them personal.  Our Lord even said that there would be at least seven crosses a week: ‘Take up your cross daily and follow Me.’  Crosses are of two kinds: pure ones, which come from the outside, such as pain, persecution, and ridicule; and inner, or impure crosses, which come as the result of our sins, such as sadness, despair, and unhappiness.  These latter crosses can be avoided.  They are made by contradicting the will of God.  The vertical bar of the cross stands for God’s will; the horizontal bar stand for our wills.  When one crosses the other, we have the cross.  Our Lord never promised that we would be without a cross; He only promised that we would never be overcome by it.  St. Peter so loved the cross, that when the time came for his execution he asked to be crucified upside down.  May He who was found guilty of no other crime than that of the excess of love, make us hate the load of sin that made His cross.  The whole cross borne in union with His will and following in His footsteps is easier to bear than the splinters against which we rebel.”  Archbishop Fulton Sheen (The Fifteen Mysteries) 

Crucifixion:
“Our Lord spent 30 years of His life obeying, three years teaching, three hours redeeming!  But how did He redeem?  Suppose a golden chalice is stolen from an altar and beaten into a large ash tray.  Before that gold can be returned to the altar, it must be thrown into a fire, where the dross is burned away; then the chalice must be recast, and finally blessed and restored to its holy use.  Sinful man is like that chalice which was delivered over to profane uses.  He lost his Godlike resemblance and his high destiny as a child of God.  So our blessed Lord took unto Himself a human nature, making it stand for all of us, plunged it into the fires of Calvary to have the dross of sin burned and purged away.  Then, by rising from the dead, He became the new head of the new humanity, according to which we are all to be patterned.  The cross reveals that unless there is a Good Friday in our lives, there will never be an Easter Sunday.  Unless there is a crown of thorns, there will never be the halo of light.  Unless there is the scourged body, there will never be a glorified one.  Death to the lower self is the condition of resurrection to the higher self.  The world says to us, as it said to Him on the cross: ‘Come down, and we will believe!’   But if He came down, He never would have saved us.  It is human to come down; it is divine to hang there.  A broken heart, O Saviour of the world, is love’s best cradle!  Smite my own, as Moses did the rock, that Thy love may enter in!”  Archbishop Fulton Sheen (The Fifteen Mysteries) 

Glory Be
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Oh My Jesus
O my Jesus, forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy. Amen.
Hail Holy Queen 
Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our Life, our Sweetness, and our hope. To thee we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears. Turn then most gracious advocate, Thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this, our exile, show unto us, the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary. Pray for us O Holy Mother of God, That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Amen.
Final Prayer
Let us pray. O God, whose only begotten Son, by His life, death, and resurrection, has purchased for us the rewards of eternal life, grant, we beseech Thee, that meditating upon these mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise, through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen.
Make the Sign of the Cross.

To Order a SHEEN Commemorative Rosary click here: Rosary


Picture courtesy of Karsh Foundation



Friday, May 8, 2020

Happy Birthday Archbishop Fulton Sheen