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The Quotable, Venerable Fulton Sheen: On Revolution

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This is the choice before us: either try to revolutionize the world and break under it or revolutionize ourselves and remake the world.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Crossways.

There are so many great quotes from Fulton Sheen that I am posting a selection here and there this month.   You can read some of the prior quotes here  and here , or you can search the “Fulton Sheen” label and all the quotes will come up.

I have some of my own quotes, but the wonderful and sadly out of print The Quotable Fulton Sheen (I reviewed it in my September column here) has a lot of great ones to share, as well.

"Sheen is Still Relevant" : Guest Post by Emily Hurt of Theological-Librarian

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In this month of celebrating all things Fulton Sheen, I’m delighted to share a guest post today from a very young blogger who admires and write about Peoria’s own Venerable Fulton Sheen.


Recent college graduate Emily Christine Hurt  writes about Fulton Sheen and other topics (including her job search) at Theological-Librarian.

I first encountered Emily’s writings on the Facebook page for the Catholic Bloggers Network.  Even though she writes about Fulton Sheen prolificially, I have to say that one of my favorite posts is when she describes an interview at the Library of Congress.  That’s partly because my husband and I married at St. Peter’s Church on Capitol Hill, adjacent to the Library of Congress, but also because I secretly I would love to be a librarian and find that a cool profession.


Emily, thank you for guest posting today, and sharing your love of Fulton Sheen.

About me and my blog:


I’m a 2012 graduate of Christendom College with a Bachelor’s in Theology.  I love Fulton Sheen, and if I were to ever pursue further theological studies, I would like to focus on Sheen.  I was born and raised mostly in Louisville, Kentucky, but lived in California for eight years.  I came back to the East Coast to go to Christendom College, in Front Royal, VA.  My work-study job in college was as a library page and desk attendant.  Since I loved it so much (enough to name my blog “Theological-Librarian” ),  I spent the first couple of months after college looking specifically for a library job that does not require a Master’s Degree.  Now I am now looking for any job that I can find.  I am also discerning whether graduate school is for me.
I started blogging in April/May 2011 while wrestling with the problem of suffering and our beloved History Professor’s cancer diagnosis.  For reasons still unknown to me, I felt the need to get my thoughts out to a bigger audience than just my journal.  
A lot of those earlier posts were more personal—they would only interest my friends or the Christendom College community—and frankly, I’m a little embarrassed when I look back at some of them.  Caroline Pollock, over at My Daily Diatribes also inspired me to blog and share my thoughts about something that was touching both of us. 

How I met Sheen and why I love him:

I first heard about Sheen in 2003, probably through some cassette tapes by Fr. Groeschel that my mother was listening to at the time. That Christmas, I read my first Sheen book, Life of Christ.  I was impressed by his writing style, his emphasis on the centrality of the Cross, and his unique explanation of Our Lord’s words to Nicodemus, the Beatitudes, and more.
I kind of fell in love after that, and read everything I could get my hands on by Sheen: Peace of Soul, Go to Heaven, This is Rome, This is the Holy Land, These are the Sacraments, The Way to Inner Peace.  His books on the priesthood (Those Mysterious Priests and The Priest is Not His Own) gave me a strong admiration of and respect for the holy priesthood.
My sophomore year in college (Spring 2010), I had to write a History paper about someone who influenced modern history.  I first chose Jacques Maritain, for I don’t know what reason (I stink at philosophy), but then got permission to write on Sheen, even though someone else in my section was also writing on him.  
In my paper, I said Sheen influenced history through: a) his anti-Communism, 2) his tele-evangelization, and 3) his missionary work with the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.  My History Professor (not the Awesome one mentioned often on my blog) told me about Thomas Reeves’ biography of Sheen, America’s Bishop, which I used in my paper and read for enjoyment.
I realized how much I loved Sheen, declared my major (Theology), and determined to write my Senior Thesis on Sheen.
During the last semester of my Junior Year (Spring 2011), because of many events in the life of the college (two of our chaplains leaving due to ill-health within 3 days, and our beloved History Professor getting cancer), I began to wrestle with the problem of suffering.  I waded through pages and pages of Sheen during Summer 2011, particularly his words on the redemptive nature of suffering.  I tried to internalize those words  and to believe that this would all turn out okay.  This helped me not to ask “Why?” too much.
By August 2011, I’d narrowed down my broad topic of “something from Sheen’s writings” to: a) his Christology, 2) his views on the priesthood, specifically on the priest as a victim, 3) suffering, or 4) the Mass.  I even thought in my over-ambition about going through Sheen’s books chronologically to see how his Christology developed.
By September 2011, however, I had chosen my final topic: “Redemptive Suffering in the Theology of the Servant of God Archbishop Fulton John Sheen.”
In Chapter One, I looked at Sheen’s view of Christ as a Savior who came to suffer, and not just a moral reformer, and at his presentation of the Cross as always present in Our Lord’s Life in his masterful Life of Christ.  In Chapter Two, I looked at Sheen’s writings on the sufferings of the Mystical Body, how they resemble the sufferings of Christ, the intensity of love and hate directed toward both Christ and His Church, and how the world hates the Church because She teaches that suffering can be redemptive.  In Chapter Three, I looked at how Sheen views the Cross as the symbol of suffering, and love and the Crucifix (the cross + Christ) as the solution to the problem of suffering.
 I concluded by saying that Sheen is still relevant, because men will always have to suffer, and Sheen’s answer to the problem of suffering will always be relevant.  (This response  was partially to answer a college chaplain telling me that  Sheen was “outdated.”)
Why I write about Sheen on my Blog:
I love Fulton Sheen, I find inspiration in his writings; and reading Sheen has helped me to grow in my faith.  This past summer, I turned to my blog as a means of explaining for my own benefit and that of my friends Sheen quotations that puzzled my friends or people on the Fulton Sheen Facebook page.  I want to spread that love and explain some of his tricky statements—similar to what are known as the “hard sayings” of Our Lord—such as his argument that “We become like that which what we love,” and the assertion that “Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them.”  This last quote is part one of a series, “God is Not the Author of Your Heartbreak,” with Part Two on Sheen’s words that God “kept a small sample of [the human heart] in heaven,” and Part Three on how love can transform our pain.
As I end all my posts on Theological-Librarian, borrowing from Archbishop Sheen:  God Love You!

The Quotable, Venerable Fulton Sheen: On Procrastination

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God has promised men pardon if they are penitent, but not if they procrastinate.

Fulton Sheen, Peace of Soul.

There are so many great quotes from Fulton Sheen that I am posting a selection here and there this month.   You can read some of the prior quotes here  and here , or you can search the “Fulton Sheen” label and all the quotes will come up.

I have some of my own quotes, but the wonderful and sadly out of print The Quotable Fulton Sheen (I reviewed it in my September column here) has a lot of great ones to share, as well.

Quotable, Venerable Fulton Sheen: On Anti-Semitism

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For a Catholic, to be anti-Semitic is to be un-Catholic.

–Fulton Sheen, Love One Another. 

There are so many great quotes from Fulton Sheen that I am posting a selection here and there this month.   You can read some of the prior quotes here  and here , or you can search the “Fulton Sheen” label and all the quotes will come up.

I have some of my own quotes, but the wonderful and sadly out of print The Quotable Fulton Sheen (I reviewed it in my September column here) has a lot of great ones to share, as well.

Peoria Pride Video

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A minor digression from our month celebrating Archbishop Sheen here at Reading Catholic.  I just discovered (because remember, no one tells me anything, that my editor at The Catholic Post, Tom Dermody, wrote a song about Peoria that is featured in this great new YouTube video.  In addition to being a kind and patient editor, and putting out the award-winning The Catholic Post every two weeks, he is a songwriter and video-maker!  That’s what I call multi-faceted.

My husband and I have lived in the Peoria area for nearly 20 years, and yet I don’t think of us as “Peorians” even though we clearly are at this point. But I was surprised at how emotional I got watching the video and seeing all the great landmarks, people and nature that make up central Illinois.

Enjoy this!  If you’re here in central Illinois, what are your favorite places?

Sheen Mass of Thanksgiving, Part 2: The Mass

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Yesterday, in Part 1, I shared what happened before the Mass of Thanksgiving.

Today, Part 2  is all about the Mass itself at the Cathedral on Sunday to celebrate local son Archbishop Fulton Sheen being named Venerable, one more step on the path to sainthood.

Oh how I wish this were a better photo of Monsignor Stanley Deptula!  Monsigor gave the terrific homily at this Mass to celebrate Fulton Sheen (here is the video link to that sermon), and he has been.  I snapped this photo in the sacristy as we were walking through to process through the Cathedral.  My photo of him giving the sermon is very far away, so this is the best it gets.  Monsignor Deptula has been on the forefront of Archbishop Sheen’s cause, as it is near and dear to his heart.  The most popular tweet of Monsignor Deptula’s sermon (that I saw later), was from Alexis Walkenstein of The Maximus Group, who tweets as @spokeswmn: “When God works a miracle, it is an expression of his love” – Monsignor Deptula.  Nice!
Here is the opening prayer led by Bishop Jenky.
The Mass had a lot of media coverage.  I neglected to get a photo of a half-dozen photographers on the other side of the church from here, right in my sightline, but here is Anna Yee, a local newscaster, who filmed just beside where we were seated.
There was a lot of “Catholic papparazzi” present– here is Lisa Hendey taking photos.  I tried several times to snap a photo of my editor at The Catholic Post, Tom Dermody, who was very active taking lots of photos, but was unsuccessful.  All of my photos of him are blurs.  Here is Tom’s excellent CNS version of the story of the Sheen Mass.
After Communion, I noticed my husband reading some after-Communion prayers in a book.
I read several of the prayers along with him, and then asked him to let me take a photo of the front of the book.
It’s a small prayer book put out by the Melkites, an Eastern rite (but in union with Rome) Catholic Church, thus the different looking font on the front.  The prayers themselves are also very … Eastern Catholic.  Here’s a little more about the spirituality of it.  
Interesting Eastern Catholic/Fulton Sheen trivia:  did you know that Fulton Sheen was something called “bi-ritual,” which means he could celebrate both Roman Catholic Mass and Byzantine Catholic Liturgy?  You can read all about that here.
After the Mass, Monsignor Deptula explained more about the positio, the large box of materials that were submitted to the Vatican for Archbishop Sheen’s cause.  Copies of the positio were given to various donors and supporters of Sheen’s cause.
I was right behind a pillar, so it might be a little hard to see here the positio box (a small brown box) being given here.
Tomorrow, Part 3, will be a lot more lighthearted as I share an epiphany I had about Catholic online life through the course of the weekend.
Do you have any memories to share from the Sheen Mass?   I’d love to know how others saw the Mass.