Arcbishop Fulton J Sheen

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If there was one individual that has had the most significant impact upon me – truly bringing me back to the Catholic faith, it was Fulton Sheen. I’d heard his name mentioned many times on EWTN, but never really knew anything about him. I was a kid when he was alive and never had the opportunity to really appreciate him (or the Church for that matter).

I listened to quite a few of his sermons on TV and online and when I heard him speak, it was more than the talk you get from modern day televangelists. I heard the voice of Christ. The Holy Spirit was indeed present in his words.

Copied below is a funny excerpt from his autobiography-- which I believe captures the good nature of Bishop Sheen:

“In the early days when I was on national radio, a man came into St Patrick’s Cathedral one Monday morning and, not recognising me, said: “Father, I want to go to Confession. I commute from Westchester every day. I had three friends with me - all Protestants. I became very angry and spoke most disparagingly and bitterly of that young priest that is on radio, Dr Fulton Sheen. I just cannot stand him. He drives me crazy. I am afraid that I probably scandalised those men by the way I talked about a priest. So, will you hear my confession?” I said: “My good man, I don’t think you committed a serious sin. There are moments in my life when I share exactly the same opinion about Dr Sheen that you do. Go to Communion and reserve your confession for another day.” He left very happily, saying: 'It certainly is wonderful to meet a nice priest’” (p. 298).

To make a long story short, I believe it was him – or the Lord speaking through him–that evangelized me, bringing me back to the faith that I had not so long ago, forsaken.

Who has had the greatest spiritual impact upon you?
 
There are many…one stands out in a unigue way…she was a poor girl who ,when her father died,left her in charge of the family…her mother having to work in the fields to help support the family…I call her.'The original Cinderella" then it happened…a girl who could not go to school,was a young mother to her brothers and sisters was attacked…she would not compromise with evil and fought back.the mans lust turned to rage and he stabbed her time and time again…she lingered for a day…asked to see one more time her brothers and sisters and mom,she forgave the would be rapist and died…not yet 12 years old…and so St.Maria Goretti is a light in a darkened sky of love of flesh and momentary pleasure. I have a first class relic of hers and always pray with it in my hands daily…
 
I’m actually in the same boat as you, treadhead–between Archbishop Sheen and my dear departed grandmother, it was only a matter of time before I decided to join the Catholic Church!

I bet they’re in Heaven right now congratulating each other on a job well done! 👍
 
I just recently caught Sheen on EWTN. It was a re-run of Life Is Worth Living. Sheen looked spooky like a vampire in his library in that old black and white show, so much so that I was amused by it and drawn to watch it.

By the time the program ended I was amazed and frankly awestruck by the man. I couldn’t believe I had never heard of this man or his show before. Here was this spooky vampire dude alone his study, talking, that’s it, yet pulling off some of the greatest television I’ve ever seen. And the Lord knows, unfortunately, that I’ve seen a lot of television.

If that one show I caught is any indication, and I’m going to watch more to see if it is, this man should be truly praised.

Glued to the tube for more!
 
i also adore bishop sheen- he is spectacular- truly a man of God! i would say he was a very big influence on my conversion. i do wish that EWTN would go back to broadcasting his show at a later time like they used to. 6 am is just too early for me, so i do feel i am missing out on him as of late. i think i may have to buy the whole collection from the catholic resource center.

God Bless Fulton Sheen! I am very excited to see what happens with his cause for canonization 🙂
 
Does anyone k ow where I can get Sheen’s talks on CD so I can listen in the car?
 
melissaP said:
i also adore bishop sheen- he is spectacular- truly a man of God! i would say he was a very big influence on my conversion. i do wish that EWTN would go back to broadcasting his show at a later time like they used to. 6 am is just too early for me, so i do feel i am missing out on him as of late. i think i may have to buy the whole collection from the catholic resource center.

God Bless Fulton Sheen! I am very excited to see what happens with his cause for canonization 🙂
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His Excellency is a Brilliant, humble, holy man with a wonderful sense of humor.

Next to my bible, his “Life of Christ” is my favorite Catholic book.

I should’nt mention it, but I even liked it more than that other Saints book, with the same title:blushing:.

Two brief quotes that I always recall:
  1. He tells us the Jesus was born barring a Cross. “So we ask, what kind of cross can a tiny infant bear? The Cross of abject humility and proverty, he replies.”
  2. In another section he talks about the effects of the sun shinning down on side by side candles and clay pots. Equal amounts of sun reach both, but melts the one and hardens the other. That is of course, the way of grace from the Son, some of us are made better, and some of us just become harder, more obstinate.
The entire book is filled with example after example of his humble wisdom, and insights on Christian living.

May he rest in peace!:signofcross:

Oh, how I miss him:):getholy:
 
Wasn’t it Sheen who said, “Hearing nuns’ confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn”?

He did have a great sense of humor.
 
Definitely the Archbishop! His cause for canonization is one of my three standard intentions prayed at every Rosary I say, and at every Mass.

My other influence in coming home was His Awesomeness B16.

I was at the point intellectually where I thought I could believe in God, but wasn’t quite there yet (atheist for 25 years). After a lot of exposure to “my Archbishop”, as I think of him, I was able to make that leap to belief. It struck me that while I couldn’t look directly at the Light while still in this world, I was able to see His Light reflected on the faces of Archbishop Sheen and B16.

After seeing His reflected light, I was (and remain) in awe of what His Beauty must be.

I really really wanted to get confirmed Fulton, but his cause had not been submitted to Rome yet. So instead, I chose Pius (as in Pope Saint Pius X).

(Ms.) Sheeniac
 
Sheeniac said:
Definitely the Archbishop! His cause for canonization is one of my three standard intentions prayed at every Rosary I say, and at every Mass.

My other influence in coming home was His Awesomeness B16.

I was at the point intellectually where I thought I could believe in God, but wasn’t quite there yet (atheist for 25 years). After a lot of exposure to “my Archbishop”, as I think of him, I was able to make that leap to belief. It struck me that while I couldn’t look directly at the Light while still in this world, I was able to see His Light reflected on the faces of Archbishop Sheen and B16.

After seeing His reflected light, I was (and remain) in awe of what His Beauty must be.

I really really wanted to get confirmed Fulton, but his cause had not been submitted to Rome yet. So instead, I chose Pius (as in Pope Saint Pius X).

(Ms.) Sheeniac
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My dear Sister in Christ,

Awesome:clapping:perceiptive:yup:and true:extrahappy:

May his Excellency continue to intercede for you!

May God hold you in the palm of His hand, until you meet Him face to face,
May Mary our Mother continue to be our guide.

Very beautiful, thank you:heaven:
 
i am seeking some info re: ABFJS but first…my saintly grandmother watched him religiously [no pun] and she was my inspiration. i am reading his book, LIFE OF CHRIST and especially the last part as part of my YBLE [your best Lent ever]…we have a local retired priest in Orlando that i thought would be a great TV personality much like Bishop Sheen but alas, he is 80 and not willing to DO IT AGAIN… this priest has some terrific tapes on DEATH AND DYING though…

MY QUESTION: i wrote to EWTN trying to get a schedule for Archbishop Sheen on their channel but never received a reply. anyone know where to get it? thanks and God bless…
 
thanks but…i am looking for the TV show re-runs of Archbishop Fulton Sheen on EWTN…the schedule of the re-runs. i have a few books already. thanks again.
 
Here are some saying of Bishop Sheen I collected several years ago. Hope you enjoy them as I did.

I feel it is time that I also pay tribute to my four writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Hearing nuns’ confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.

Too many people get credit for being good, when they are only being passive.

An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.

Three possible destinies await you at death: Hell: Pain without Love. Purgatory: Pain with Love. Hell: Love without Pain.

Atheism, nine times out of ten, is born from the womb of a bad conscience. Disbelief is born of sin, not of reason.

The conflict of the future will be between a God-religion and a State religion, between Christ and the anti-Christ in political disguise.

Nothing is more destined to create deep-seated anxieties in people than the false assumption that life should be free from anxieties.

There are only a handful of Americans who hate the Catholic Church, though there are millions who hate what they think is the Catholic Church.

If you want to know about God, there is only one way to do it: get down on your knees.

In history the only causes that die are the ones for which men refuse to die.

To believe in the brotherhood of man without the Fatherhood of God would make men a race of bastards.

There are two kinds of “atheism”: the atheism of the right, which professes to love God and ignore neighbors; and the atheism of the left, which professes to love neighbor and ignores God.

If you do not worship God, you worship something, and nine times out of ten it will be yourself.

Have you noticed that as men lose faith in God they become selfish, immoral, and cruel? On a cosmic scale, as religion decreases, tyranny increases; as men lose faith in Divinity, they lose faith in humanity. Where God is outlawed, there man is subjugated.

Neither theological knowledge nor social action alone is enough to keep us in love with Christ unless both are preceded by a personal encounter with Him.

Mind my words … the laity will save the Church in the United States.

Notice that the heavenly messenger did not tell Mary that she would conceive a fetus. No! She would conceive and bear a Son, a person, a child of the Most High God. It was inconceivable to her that because of her poverty, the overpopulation in Bethlehem, inadequate housing, and the shame attached to the unusual nature of her conception, that she would thwart the life within her, as some women do today. Life is sacred.
The Church is not a continuous phenomenon through history. Rather, it is something that has been through a thousand resurrections after a thousand crucifixions. The bell is always sounding for its execution which, by some great power of God, is everlastingly postponed.

A Catholic may sin and sin as badly as anyone else, but no genuine Catholic ever denies he is a sinner. A Catholic wants his sins forgiven – not excused or sublimated.

Pride is an admission of weakness; it secretly fears all competition and dreads all rivals.

Bad temper is an indication of a man’s character; every man can be judged by the things which make him mad.

… the difference between a man and a machine is the difference between a must and an ought.

A religion that does not interfere with the secular order will soon discover that the secular order will not refrain from interfering with it.

Baloney is flattery laid on so thick it cannot be true, and blarney is flattery so thin we love it.

A football coach who does not produce a winning team is forced to leave. Old generals may fade away – but poor teachers are just handed on. Teaching often becomes a communication from the norebook of the teacher to the notebook of the student without passing through the minds of either.

A new crime is arising in the world today; be prepared for it. The crime of being a Christian. The crime of believing in God.

People are running away from Christianity to day not because it is too hard, but because it is too soft; not because it demands too much, but because it demands too little.

Tradition is the memory of society, and without that tradition society cannot think.

Right is right if everybody is right, and wrong is wrong if everybody is wrong.

It is easy to find the Truth. It is hard to face it; and harder still to follow it.

There are two kinds of unbelief; those who say something is not true because they wish it were not true, and those who say something is not true because they wish that it was. The latter kind is curable.

In the days immediately following Vatican Council II, seminaries rightly began training seminarians in social and pastoral activities, but wrongly neglected discipline and the spiritual life. The result was that no sooner were the young chicks hatched than they ran with the foxes.

… it is still true that the twentieth century is closer to God than the nineteenth century was. We are living on the eve of one of the great spiritual revivals of human history. Souls are sometimes closest to God when they feel themselves farthest away from Him, at the point of despair.

Judas was more zealous in the cause of the enemy than he was in the cause of Our Lord… Men who leave the Church in like manner seek to atone for their uneasy consciences by attacking the Church…. The Church makes them uneasy in their sin and they feel that if they could drive the Church from the world they could sin with impunity.

Love, I say, forgives everything except one thing, and that is the refusal to love.
 
Archbishop Sheen, in one of the episodes of Life is Worth Living said something to the effect that at the end of our lives, we would be asked “Show me your scars… Show me your hands…”

This is very critical especially today. We are reared by the world to worship success and money. These are mere distractions. In the end, they mean nothing.

True success is finding God’s love and mercy. It means understanding that we are all sinners and need forgiveness – badly. It means finding humility and rejecting pride.

In the end, we won’t be asked for a financial portfolio or a bank statement. The only measure of our lives will be our mercy, love and compassion for others. It will be the pain that we have endured following in the footsteps of Christ. It will be the measure of our hearts.

As Bishop Sheen so beautifully described… “Show me your scars…”
 
Who has the greatest spiritual impact on me? I’d struggle between Mother Angelica and St. Faustina. I learned pretty much everything through EWTN, which would not have existed without Mother Angelica. But St. Faustina’s Diary has helped me dive into the spiritual life like no one else does. You know what, I think I love all the saints equally! Mother Mary, Archbishop Sheen, Father Groeschel, Father Mark on EWTN, and so many others. Everytime I read a saint’s story or listen to some saintly people on EWTN, I cry. I just love them! God is so wonderful.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
The conflict of the future will be between a God-religion and a State religion, between Christ and the anti-Christ in political disguise.
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The future is now.

By the way, didn’t the actor Martin Sheen change his name from Estevez in honor of Fulton J. Sheen?
 
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