Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen, Part 4

This is my fourth and final posts on Treasure in Clay. 

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

Part 2 can be found here.  

Part 3 here.

Summary, Chapters 17 thru 20

Chapter 17, “The Second Vatican Council”:

Sheen discusses his involvement with the Second Vatican Council and the Council’s objectives, events, and outcome.

Chapter 18, “The Lighter Side”:

Bishop Sheen speaks of his sense of humor and of a number of amusing events in his life.

Chapter 19, “Things Left Unsaid”:

Bishop Sheen provides his view of internal conflicts and of the importance of silence and restraint. 

Chapter 20, “The Woman I Love”:

Bishop Sheen speaks of his love for the Blessed Mother and of her importance in the spiritual life of a Christian.

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Comment 1:

The chapter on the Vatican II was interesting.  I have to learn more about Vatican II.  I was surprised at how monolithic the voting turned out.  The voting ran roughly 97% yes for all articles.  Would we have that today?  The recent Amazonian Synod vote was 128-41, which was roughly 76% yes.  Perhaps Vatican II was just not as controversial as I thought.  The Amazonian Synod was definitely controversial.  I thought this paragraph was insightful.

The Vatican Council was held at that period of history when it was necessary to strike a balance between two extremes both in the world and in the Church: individualism and socialism. By individualism I mean the emphasis on the right of the individual either to develop his own spirituality or economically to increase his own capital without much concern for the social good. By socialism I mean the stress on social welfare with little concern for either the individual's religion or his morals.

Here is his summary of the Council's accomplishments:

What the Council did was establish equilibrium or balance between these extremes-between evangelization and human progress, between soul-winning and society-saving, between divine salvation and human liberation. It made both inseparable. The Council decided that we must beget children of God through evangelization but not without giving witness to fraternal love and a sensitiveness to humanity's desire for freedom and justice. For the first time in the history of all the Councils of the Church, there was a chapter on "The World" in which there was stressed the unity of creation and redemption; and the truth that the dignity and freedom of the human person is inseparable from salvation. It was a master stroke under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that bishops gathered from all over the world could see the new direction the Church must take-which actually was nothing else than the old direction that Christian salvation has an earthly and historical dimension, namely, the relation of the love of God and love of neighbor.

That last sentence kind of make me wince a little.  It seems to be implying that the love of neighbor was missing.  So the Church did not advocate a love of neighbor before?  The Church did not set up hospitals, take care of orphans and feed the hungry before Vatican II?  From what I've seen historically it seems to me it did quite a bit of it.  After all there were no welfare programs.  It was the religious institutions, Catholic and others, that took care of the poor.  It would not surprise me that as a percentage of money and effort spent, the Churches did more before Vatican II and welfare systems than they do now.  That responsibility for the poor has been relieved from the religious institutions with the creation and expansion of welfare programs.

But I'm not going to say I'm an expert.

Comment 2:

I also loved the chapter on the Blessed Mother.  He is so spot on when he says this:

I think one of the major defects in world religions has been the absence of the feminine. The absence becomes more striking in a study of Christian sects where so little attention is paid to the Mother of Christ.

It has been pointed out to me that Catholicism has so much more of a feminine touch as compared to an overly masculine perspective of the Protestants, Jews, and Muslims.  I really believe it’s because we have our Blessed Mother in so prominent a role in our faith. 

I loved this quote as a parry to the criticism we worship Mary:

God Who made the sun also made the moon. The moon does not take away from the brilliance of the sun. The moon would be only a burned-out cinder floating in the immensity of space, were it not for the sun.  All its light is reflected from that glowing furnace. In like manner, Mary reflects her Divine Son, without Whom she is nothing.

This was great.

While I was still in the first grade, a suggestion was made by a good nun that we put at the top of every page the initials J.M.J., standing for dedication to “Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” In the course of my life I have written tens of thousands of pages. I do not believe I ever set my pen or pencil to paper without having put the seal of dedication on my work.

Wow, I would love to take up that habit.  I don’t know if I can at my age, but that is something that should be more promoted.  I’ll have to give it a try.

And this was very insightful. 

Devotion to the Blessed Mother brought me to the discovery of a new dimension in the sacredness of suffering. I do not believe that I ever in my life said to the Good Lord: “What did I do to deserve all these trials?” In my own heart I knew that I received fewer blows than I deserved. Furthermore, if Christ the Lord had summoned His Mother, who was free from sin, to share in the Cross, then the Christian must scratch from his vocabulary the word “deserve.”

And he elaborates on this theme further in the chapter:

If the Lord called her, who “deserved” no pain, to stand at the foot of the Cross, why should He not call me? If I had expressed a love for her as the Mother of the Priesthood, why should she not, in maternal love, make me more like her Son by forcing me to become a victim?

So if she suffered along with her Son, then we are privileged to suffer along with both.  That is quite a statement on suffering.

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Chapter 21, “The Three Stages of My Life”:

Bishop Sheen in summation divides his life into three stages: the call, the profession, the second look.

Epilogue, “Bye Now, Fulton Sheen, and God Love You Forever”:

We are provided the homily delivered at Bishop Sheen’s Funeral Mass on December 13^th, 1979.  We are also given a summation of his life, and a chronology of the events in his life.

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Comment from Celia:

Here is a quote that will stay with me a long time:

"Peter did what he did not plan to do—what he did not wish to do—what he had been warned against doing—what he declared he would never do. And they were both brought face to face with their guilt. Judas had only remorse, but Peter showed sorrow. If Judas had returned to the Lord he would have been saved by that second look, but in him there was a total and final rejection of Christ; in Peter, a loving return."

How will WE react to Christ's Second Look?

My Reply:

I noticed that quote too Celia. Good point about the tone of that last chapter. Yes I sensed it too but I couldn’t put my finger on it until you pointed it out. Is it possible that the first twenty chapters were written before his heart operation and that last chapter after. It seemed like he was so much less jovial and sensing his mortality after the heart issue. It does feel like something dramatic changed him in that last chapter. Just a thought.

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My Goodreads Review:

In a way, Archbishop Fulton Sheen spans the Catholic Church in the 20th century.  The soon-to-be canonized saint takes us through his life, his career in the media, his evangelization, his take on various theological arguments, his relationships with the various popes, his spirituality, and his engagement with the world.  All the while he passes on wonderful wisdom.  For instance, here he sums up what he learned as a teacher:

I felt a deep moral obligation to students; that is why I spent so many hours in preparation for each class. In an age of social justice one phase that seems neglected is the moral duty of professors to give their students a just return for their tuition. This applies not only to the method of teaching but to the content as well. A teacher who himself does not learn is no teacher. Teaching is one of the noblest vocations on earth, for, in the last analysis, the purpose of all education is the knowledge and love of truth.

In this autobiography, Bishop Sheen shows you all sides of his personality.  He was a funny man, and there is humor.  He was an introspective man, and he shares his inner thoughts.  He was a compassionate man, and there is much gentility, understanding, and reaching out to all who need help.  This is a wonderful read.  Four and a half stars actually.

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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen, Part 2

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

Let's start with an episode from his television show, titled "How to Improve Your Mind."

Summary, Chapters 5 thru 8

Chapter 5, “Teaching and Lecturing”:

Bishop Sheen provides some of his 25 year history as a teacher, passes on some of his experience he gained, and some of his teaching methods. 

Chapter 6, “The Electric Gospel”:

Bishop Sheen describes his transition to radio and television, his preparation techniques, and how his American audience embraced him.

Chapter 7, “Communism”:

Bishop Sheen describes the rise of communism in the middle decades of the 20^th century and some of his encounters with communists. 

Chapter 8, “Desiring the Episcopacy”:
Sheen provides details on how he became a bishop from being director of the Society of the Propagation of the Faith and he provides some insight to into the life and workings of bishops in general.

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I really loved Chapter five on his teaching and methods. I was surprised by a number of things: that it took 25 years of his life, that he taught in England for a while, that he was friends with Fr. Ronald Knox, who has published many a book and is one of the important Catholics of the 20th century. I particularly liked how he extensively researched and read beyond the necessary to be fully informed. I had never heard of a theandric action.

A theandric action is one in which both the divine and human nature of our Lord is involved.

Fascinating. I thought that advice he got from Cardinal Mercier was excellent:

“I will give you two: always keep current: know what the modern world is thinking about; read its poetry, its history, its literature; observe its architecture and its art; hear its music and its theater; and then plunge deeply into St. Thomas and the wisdom of the ancients and you will be able to refute its errors. The second suggestion: tear up your notes at the end of each year. There is nothing that so much destroys the intellectual growth of a teacher as the keeping of notes and the repetition of the same course the following year.”

On the first piece of advice, again that modernist/traditionalist split that keeps popping up. Clearly Sheen is in the traditionalist camp. As to the second piece of advice, I’m not a teacher, but I don’t think I could ever do that. It’s probably a good idea, but too much work goes into a year’s worth of notes.

I was surprised when Nikita last week mentioned that Bishop Sheen was a Lay Dominican. Perhaps this had something to do with it:

For many years our dean in the School of Philosophy was Father Ignatius Smith, a Dominican, who was not only a brilliant teacher, but also a renowned preacher. My class every afternoon was at four o’clock. Before going into the classroom which immediately adjoined Dr. Smiths, I would go in and visit with him for ten minutes. He would walk out of the office with me and tell me a funny story as I was on my way to the classroom, so that I would enter the classroom laughing. My association with Dr. Smith which lasted for years, was one of the happiest of my life.

Does he mention in the autobiography that he is a Lay Dominican? I don’t recall seeing it but this moment would have been an ideal spot to mention it.

I thought this was a particularly insightful note on education:

I felt a deep moral obligation to students; that is why I spent so many hours in preparation for each class. In an age of social justice one phase that seems neglected is the moral duty of professors to give their students a just return for their tuition. This applies not only to the method of teaching but to the content as well. A teacher who himself does not learn is no teacher. Teaching is one of the noblest vocations on earth, for, in the last analysis, the purpose of all education is the knowledge and love of truth.

Yes, a teacher does have a moral obligation toward their students.

Here is one of his observations that I don’t believe is true any longer.

I have been invited to secular universities several hundred times, many more than I have been invited to talk in Catholic universities. I have found that too often some in religion want to be secular; but on the other hand, I found the secular want to be religious. In talking in universities, I realized that the more divine the subject, the greater the response.

Secular universities have about eliminated any reference to religion, and frankly Catholic universities, except the few that are strongly traditionalist, have also tampered down religious thought. That unfortunately is the state of religion in this day and age. I don’t think Bishop Sheen would recognize today’s universities if he were alive. Of course that anecdote about the talk on chastity he mentions toward the end of the chapter to ten thousand college students runs counter him not recognizing today’s universities. But I still believe that. Maybe it’s because I’m more cynical since I live in NYC, one of the Liberal capitals of the country, but I do think conditions have gotten exponentially worse since his day.

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Summary, Chapters 9 thru 10

Chapter 9, “Missions and Missionaries”:

Bishop Sheen describes how he became National Director for the Society for the propagation of the Faith, the philosophical conflicts he encountered there, and goes on to delineate a fair number of evangelical trips he made across the world.

Chapter 10, “In Journeyings Often”:

Bishop Sheen further describes his evangelizing techniques as he traveled across the world.  The key advice he provides to evangelize as St. Paul did at Ephesus, where you use the culture of the host country to enlighten the nature of Christianity.  Sheen provides more anecdotes of his experiences in China and Japan.

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Excuse me from being absent the last few days.  I’ve been under the weather. 

You guys have hit on many of the points I would have made.  I think there is a lot packed into this paragraph from Chapter 9.

I came into this office of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith at just the moment when the Church was beginning to sense a conflict between divine salvation and human liberation, between working for personal salvation of those in a parish or in a community and having a concern about their social welfare. God never intended that individual and social justice should be separated, though they very often were divorced.  In the sixties, in particular, youth developed a passionate interest for social justice in restricted areas, but they showed very little concern for individual justice, that is to say, their own relationship to their parents and to God.

I think he is highlighting a change in the culture, a change in the Church, and a change in the way religious approached their sense of obligation.

As to the culture we know of the sexual revolution of the sixties, the counter culture, and an intellectual deconstruction of tradition.  As to the Church, Vatican II, rightly or wrongly radically changed the nature of the liturgy.  Changing from a Latin Mass where the priest faced the apse but now faced the congregation and spoke in the vernacular must have been hugely disconcerting.  As to religious obligation, it’s a little more complicated to articulate.  There were always two sides to religious duty: contemplation and activism, prayer and works.  They were always in a balance, but somewhere in the sixties the contemplative side was minimized and an emphasis was placed on works.  Not that works are bad, quite the contrary, but the unbalance creates a distortion.  It tells people that the God in the sky is less important than your neighbor.  Everything became societal and little spiritual.  And so we get this quote from Bishop Sheen:

There it was that I saw the balance between the personal and the societal, between the vertical and the horizontal, between the human and the divine.

Is it any wonder then that there has been a loss of faith?  If we only look to the horizontal, then we lose our sense of the vertical.  So all three, the culture at large, the changes in the Church, and the culture within the Church, all has brought this decline we have seen since the sixties.

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There wasn’t much else in these two chapters that could be a point of discussion, but I did think there were some good quotes.  Here’s a few.

Because of the many sufferings of our missionaries under Communist rule, there should be in the catalog of sanctity a new type of saint. “Wet” martyrs are those who shed their blood for the faith. But since the Communists did not always kill, though they tortured, a new kind of martyr arose: the “dry” martyr. What they agonized through a period of years far exceeds in pain what other martyrs suffered in a brief interval.  Each day, hour, and minute was a profession of Faith.

In Tokyo, a dinner was given to the Cardinal and his party by General Douglas MacArthur. He always looked you straight in the eye when he talked and gave the impression of authority and power. I personally believe that he was one of the greatest characters that America has ever produced. Among the reflections he offered at dinner were these: he wished he had eight hundred Catholic missionaries for every one now working in Japan to bring that country to Christianity. The world struggle, he said, is not economic or political but religious and theological; it is either God or atheism.

The more I familiarized myself with the Far East, the more I saw that the Western mind knows the world better than it knows man, but the Eastern world knows man better than it knows the world. Our Western world can tame nature, the Eastern world learned to tame itself. The former is an extrovert and produces a technological civilization; the latter is an introvert and seeks to develop wisdom through contemplation. The Western world regards the head the localization of wisdom, but the Eastern world often makes it the navel.

I have always contended in talking to missionaries that we are not so much to bring Christ to peoples as we are to bring Christ out of them.

Sometimes, the only way one can understand the poor is not by writing a check but by direct contact. I was reminded of the meaning of the Incarnation. God did not remain aloof to the agonies, pains and injustices of this world, but took a human nature like ours, in all things save sin, to prove that true love is identification—not just in the flesh, as in marriage, but in hunger and need.

Thirty years of His life He spent obeying, three years teaching and three hours redeeming.

That was the day perhaps more than any other that I learned that humility is not something that is directly cultivated; otherwise one becomes proud of his humility It is a by-product; the more Christ is in the soul, the less the “I” weighs it down.

Great quotes all.  Let me give you a thought on this quote: “Sometimes, the only way one can understand the poor is not by writing a check but by direct contact.”  I have proposed in other places that the government instituted welfare system is a sure fire way to eliminate the faith.  Government institutions and administrative practices lack a divine element.  They are sterile.  There is no God in the transaction.  True charity requires human contact.  True charity requires people helping each other, not administrative paperwork.  “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them." (Mat 18:20).  Notice throughout the Gospels how many times Christ actually touches a person to cure them.  The sterility of the welfare system, necessary as it may be, does not promote faith, it extinguishes it.  I’ve been posting that for a number of years now.  It’s good to see that Bishop Sheen had a similar insight.

Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen, Part 1

Back in September/October, the Catholic Thought Book Club read Bishop Fulton Sheen’s autobiography, Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen.  Let me present my chapter by chapter summaries, my thoughts, and my comments in the discussion of that book.  I estimate this will take about five or six posts.  I’ll spread them out here in the next few weeks.

Summary, Chapters 1 thru 4

Chapter 1, “It All Depends on How You Look at It”:

As an introduction to his autobiography, Bishop Sheen makes it clear that any record of a life is seen in three ways: (1) As I see it, (2) As others see it, and (3) as God sees it.  He can only tell of his life as he sees it.

Chapter 2, “The Molding of the Clay”:

Here Sheen speaks of his being born in El Paso Illinois, how he acquired the name “Fulton,” and of the most important decision of his early life, his parents resolve that each of their children be well educated.

Chapter 3, “The Gift of the Treasure”:

How he had always wanted to be a priest, how that was the most formative decision of his life, and he provides adice on how to determine if one has a vocation to the religious life.

Chapter 4, “After University Studies”:

His intellectual development, his development as a priest, and his assignment to the Catholic University of America as a theology and philosophy professor.

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I found the first chapter profound. Surely many people have pointed out that a life of a person can be seen from multiple points of view, how the individual sees his own life verses the ways other people see him, and if you sum total all those other people into an outside view then there are two views. That wouldn’t be original, but then Sheen adds a third view, a view from God as the true view. The other two views have a subjective quality to them. But God sees us as we really are, and while that may seem like it’s been said, I don’t think it’s ever been said in the context of a biography. That seems like a very original thought to me. Here he speaks about that God written biography:

That autobiography is the crucifix —the inside story of my life not in the way it walks the stage of time, but how it was recorded, taped and written in the Book of Life.

And Sheen goes on to peak into that book of life:

It is not the autobiography that I tell you, but the autobiography I read to myself. In the crown of thorns, I see my pride, my grasping for earthly toys in the pierced Hands, my flight from shepherding care in the pierced Feet, my wasted love in the wounded heart, and prurient desires in the flesh hanging from Him like purple rags. Almost every time I turn a page of that book, my heart weeps at what eros has done to agape, what the “I” has done to the “Thou,” what the professed friend has done to the Beloved.

He goes on with this thought experiment to delineate some of the joys of pleasing his Beloved. But what a fascinating way to start an autobiography. And then he gives an apology for this work:

What you read is truth nevertheless, but on a lower level: the narrative of a jewel and its setting, the treasure and its wrapping, the lily and its pond.

I guess one of the pitfalls of an autobiography is to come across as too self-oriented. This is about as humble a way to start as I could imagine.

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My response to Gerri on his TV show:

Well said Gerri. I was too young to be conscious of his TV shows, but I have watched several now and his communication skills are superb. I was surprised to learn he had a PhD and that he taught at universities. I find his communication techniques so nonacademic. He talks to the common man, and yet doesn't compromise intellectual substance. And he's got such charisma that you want to stay and listen. He may have been the greatest evangelist of them all.

A General Comment:

Out of curiosity, did any of you reading know before reading the book he had a PhD and taught in universities?

A Reply to Nikita on Sheen’s Obedience:

This too is very profound. "Obedience is better than sacrifice." It doesn't say we are not to sacrifice. It doesn't say that obedience is not sacrifice. But sacrifice can have an element of ego in it that obedience doesn't have. For instance I know a person who goes to great lengths to fast, and not just on Fridays. There's a sense of self-satisfaction there. [Perhaps that's presumptuous on my part. Perhaps she feels she's being called to it, and so it would be an act of obedience.] Anyway my point is that sacrifice is not necessarily an unwelcomed act. Obedience is always an act of following someone else's will over yours.

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I really enjoyed the vignettes of his growing up in Illinois.  Obviously it was such a different time from today.  Here’s a little paragraph of the rudiments of his family life:

The molding of the clay was done by great sacrifices on the part of my father and my mother, who would deny themselves every personal comfort and luxury in order that their sons might be well clothed and well cared for. Our family life was simple and the atmosphere of our home Christian. Grace was said before and after each meal; when we had visitors none of us was permitted to sit at table without wearing a coat and tie; the Rosary was said every evening; the priests of the cathedral visited the home once every week; and visits of old-country cousins were very frequent.

Can you imagine having to wear a jacket and tie when visitors arrived.  We don’t even wear jacket and tie for church now.

I also appreciated the driving principle of what motivated him in his education.  This was a fantastic answer when a professor asked him,

“What would you like to have in education?” I said: “I should like to know two things— first, what the modern world is thinking about; second, how to answer the errors of modern philosophy in the light of the philosophy of St. Thomas.” He said: “You will never get it here, but you will get it at the University of Louvain in Belgium.”

And that’s where he went.  I think Bishop Sheen was a Dominican at heart.  Scholarly, contemplative, great preacher and evangelizer. 

My Highlight of a Quote:

Great quote from the book:

"I can never remember a time in my life when I did not want to be a priest."