Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen, Part 3

Part 1 of my posts on Treasure in Clay can be found here.  

Part 2 can be found here.  

Summary, Chapters 11 thru 14

Chapter 11, “The Bishop in a Diocese”:

Sheen discusses his appointment as Bishop of Rochester in 1966, the social philosophy that had emerged in the 1960s, the challenges of being a Bishop of a diocese in those days, and of his retirement upon reaching the age of seventy-five.

Chapter 12, “The Hour that Makes My Day”:

Bishop Sheen speaks of his life-long practice of spending one hour per day in front of the Blessed Sacrament, on the reasons why he did so, and the graces one receives from the practice.

Chapter 13, “Reflections on Celibacy”:

Bishop Sheen provides his reasons why the priesthood should require the discipline of celibacy. 

Chapter 14, “Retreats”:

Bishop Sheen provides his methods of leading retreats both for priests and the laity, and tells of several anecdotes during retreats.

###

Bishop Sheen begins chapter fourteen, “Retreats,” by re-capitulating all his professional endeavors.  It’s worth listing so we can see them all in one place:

If I were asked which of the many activities of my life, outside of the eminently priestly privileges such as offering the Eucharist, appealed to me most, I could not answer.

Teaching would be one response because, particularly in graduate work, it enabled me not only to acquire knowledge, but also to dispense it. Every increase of truth in the mind is an increase of being. One wonders if, among all the professions open to mankind, there is any nobler and purer than that which deals with truth.

The making of converts is also satisfying because, as St. James assures us, “if we save a soul, we help save our own.”

Dedication to the missions has been equally gratifying, for it advances the Kingdom of God and it brings one in contact with dedicated souls.

Editing and writing have enabled me to communicate ideas which are bound up with the more general intention to proclaim truth.

Radio and television greatly satisfy me because they give a larger pulpit than any other activity. But they can also be the most dangerous to a priestly soul; of that I have spoken elsewhere.

I have loved every work to which I have been called or sent. But perhaps the most meaningful and gratifying experience of my life has been giving retreats to priests, not only because they brought me into contact with the priesthood, but because the very review one makes of his own spiritual life in order to speak to others helps oneself too. I really wonder if the priests who made these retreats received as much from me as I did from them.

Isn’t it surprising he considers leading retreats as his most satisfying?  After all, he’s taught at a college level, he’s made converts across the world, he’s led missionaries and diplomatic affairs across many countries, he’s written books, and has been the foremost radio and television religious personality of his day.  And yet giving retreats is his most satisfying.

I don't know why I loved this chapter so much. Perhaps because I've only been to day long retreats. I've never been to a retreat that lasted several days, where you spent time over night in what in my imagination is a monkish cell of a remote monastery. I imagine it as living the life of a monk for a few days where one sings the office in commune and going to daily Mass and doing some light labor and praying and being silent. Sort of life described in the book we just read, Mariette in Ecstasy. Has anyone actually participated in such a retreat?

Here he describes his method of leading a retreat:

The method I used in preaching retreats was the same as I used in all speaking. I never sat, since enthusiasm can be shown more in a standing position. I never read or used notes, but tried, through meditation, to absorb the ideas to be communicated and then let the actual retreat be the overflow and outreach of that contemplation.  Each conference was limited to thirty minutes, except the last conference, which was a Holy Hour, and was sometimes forty minutes in length.  The number of conferences was five a day.  I need hardly say that all the conferences were in a chapel, never in a prayer hall, so that we priests would always be in the presence of our Eucharistic Lord.

He also goes on to say,

If I were asked what detail of my sixty years of priesthood I would show to the Lord as a sign I loved Him, I would point to the Holy Hours which have been made by priests in the course of their lives as a result of my retreats.

So he was really proud of work on retreats.  It’s the signature work he would present to our Lord as his dutiful servant. 

###

Summary, Chapters 15 thru 16

Chapter 15, “Papal Audiences”:

Bishop Sheen discusses the various meetings and conversations he held with the Popes during his lifetime.  He provides his impressions of each of the Popes.

Chapter 16, “Making Converts”:

Bishop Sheen tells of the various conversions to Catholicism he has been involved in.  He makes clear that it is the Holy Spirit who does the conversion; he is but an instrument.

###

Comment 1:

"All during my life, attacks against the Church have hurt me as much as attacks against my own mother."

I know exactly how he feels. I hurt that way too. Even when I was an atheist such attacks hurt me. I may not have believed but I only lacked belief because of some sort of scientific assessment, not because of any hatred for the Church. I've always considered the Roman Catholic Church to be a loving entity toward me and always felt it had my best interest in mind. That's why this priest scandal hurts so much. It undermined an image of the ideal I held.

Nonetheless, any attack on the Church hurts me, even if it's by faithful Catholics. I have complaints, especially with the current issues, but I try not to air dirty laundry or cast my complaints in disparaging way.

Comment 2:

I found this interesting his annual conversations with Pope Pius XII interesting:

Each year I would discuss with him the subjects that I would talk about on radio for the coming year.

Isn’t that surprising, that he would discuss with the Pope the subjects of radio broadcasts that were on American radio? I found it surprising. Were his radio broadcasts international? I don’t think so. Why would a Pope be interested of what was being broadcast on American radio? I would have thought it would be too parochial.

But then Bishop Sheen gives himself a back door pat on the back:

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.

Ha! Humility forbids my foot. He said it!

Comment 3

Madeleine wrote: "Manny said, "Nonetheless, any attack on the Church hurts me,...I have complaints, especially with the current issues, but I try not to air dirty laundry or cast my complaints in disparaging ways."

...What do we do?"

My Reply”

What I do is tell the truth. I tell them that the percentage of pedophile priests matches the general population at large, which is a hand full of percent. I tell them that the same problems and issues occur across other religious leaders of other faiths and more importantly across the public school systems across the country. Public school teachers have the same rate of child abuse, it's just that they have not been stigmatized like Catholic priests. If they haven't noticed, child abuse and sex abuse is rampant across the entire world. And that the Catholic Church has made incredible reforms in the past number of years where we are now well below the average across the general population.

Comment 4

I really enjoyed chapter 16, on the conversions he had a hand in.  Before I get to the conversions, Bishop Sheen is quite clear up front that he’s only an instrument in the conversion process.

But the subject of making converts and saving souls is a very difficult one, for it is so easy to believe that we are the agents who cause the results, when actually all we are at best are instruments of God.

I really thought his explanation of the convert’s experience was very profound:

Conversion is an experience in no way related to the upsurge of the subconscious into consciousness; it is a gift of God, an invasion of a new Power, the inner penetration of our spirit by the Spirit and the turning over of a whole personality to Christ.

Some of the conversions are quite touching.  The way Bella Dodd, the Communist Party lawyer, broke down while in the church is one.  The atheist woman who was told she had two weeks to live and the leper in New York City are two others.  Some stories are rather astonishing.  The story of Fritz Kreisler and his wife is one.  He just happened to ring their bell at an apartment building and just asked if they would like to take up instructions for the Church, and they said yes!  I particularly liked the story of the young prostitute who entered the church to “kill time,” but refused to go to confession and left.  So Bishop Sheen stayed up all night praying for her, and she returned at 12:30 AM and went to confession.  Great story, but some of these were a little too farfetched for credulity.  How about the Jewish jeweler who converted.  Let me post the entire account:

A Jewish jeweler in New York whom I had known for twenty-five years or more was always very kind to me. When I would ask him the price of anything, he would always say: “It cost me…” Then he would check through his filing cabinet and be sure of the cost price; that would be the price for me. One year he went to Europe and during the trip at sea, as he was seated at the captains table, I sent him a cablegram which read: “This cost me $7.87.” He said he lost his soup in the reading of that cablegram.

One day he phoned me and said: “Would you like a large number of silver crucifixes?” I went down to see him, and in a little brown bag he had many dozens of silver crucifixes about four inches high. I said: “Where did you get these?” He said: “From Sisters. They brought them in to me and said they were not going to use them any more—wearing the crucifix separated them from the world. They wanted to know how much I would give them for the silver.” The jeweler said: “I weighed them out thirty pieces of silver. What is wrong with your Church?” I answered: “Just that! The contempt of Christ and His Cross which makes it worldly.” Those words became the channel of the Spirit working in his soul. I explained to him the cost of Redemption, the blood of Christ; he embraced the Faith and died in it.

Thirty pieces of silver?  Do you think Bishop Sheen is gilding the story?  Does a Jewish man just convert because he started talking to a famous Catholic personality? 

And what about the bank robber at the end of his life?

The pastor told me that he was given a gift of $10,000 to build a shrine altar to Our Lady. I expressed amazement that there was $10,000 in the entire parish. He said: “Well, it was given to me by such and such a woman.” My eye ran down that street, and it seemed that none of the houses could be sold for $10,000. I inquired where she could possibly have gotten the money. He said: “Her brother was a bank robber, and I think that she probably was given this money, and is now returning it to the Church in reparation for his soul.” I asked if he had ever tried to retrieve the robber, but he said he had not.

That afternoon, I called on the woman and her brother. He sat in an armchair, a very handsome, benign old man with a full head of white hair. I said: “How long has it been since you have been to Confession?” He said: “Seventy years.” I said: “Would you not like to make your peace with God?” “No. That would be cowardice. Do you know my record? I have robbed banks and post offices to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars. I have spent over thirty years of my life in jail, and have killed two men. Why should I now, at the end of my life, be a coward and ask God to forgive me?” “Well,” I said, “let us see how brave you are tomorrow morning. I will come here to your door at eight o'clock. I will not be alone; I will bring the Good Lord with me in the Blessed Sacrament. I am sure that you will not turn us both away.” When I returned in the morning, he opened the door. I heard his confession and gave him Communion—which proved to be Viaticum because he died the next day. He was not the first thief the Lord saved on his last day.

Well, I can believe that one.  I’m sure many people want to make amends at the end of their lives.

I do think that Bishop Sheen is insightful in his takeaway point from all these conversions.

Years ago souls were brought to a belief in God by the order in the universe. Today souls are brought to God by disorder within themselves. It is less the beauty of creation and more the coiling serpents within the human breast which bring them to seek repose in Christ. Oftentimes what appears to be a doctrinal objection against the Faith turns out to be a moral objection. Most people basically do not have trouble with the Creed, but with the commandments; not so much with what the Church teaches, as with how the Church asks us to behave.

Yes, I would agree with that.  Today I think people convert not from seeing an error in their lack of belief but because the dysfunction of their lives leads them to seek solace.  “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt 11:29).  Christ is still what brings us to peace.