Bishop Barron preaches at the vigil Mass for the beatification of Fulton Sheen
A Vespers homily delivered by Bishop Barron on the eve of Fulton Sheen's beatification, exploring Sheen's holiness through the lens of Isaiah's prophetic call.
Summary
Bishop Barron delivers a Vespers homily on the vigil of Fulton Sheen's beatification, describing Sheen as one of the most pivotal figures in modern Catholic history and the premier preacher in the English language in the twentieth century. Drawing on Sheen's autobiography Treasure in Clay and the call narrative of the prophet Isaiah, Bishop Barron structures his reflection around three stages of the spiritual journey: the breakthrough of grace, the acknowledgement of sin and need for purification, and the call to mission. He argues that Sheen's holiness was rooted above all in his daily holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament, his candid self-awareness of his own weaknesses, and his tireless apostolic outreach through radio, television, and worldwide travel. Bishop Barron concludes by presenting Sheen as the patron saint of the new evangelization, a forerunner of the missionary emphasis that has defined the Church from Vatican II through to the present pontificate.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening and Introduction
Bishop Barron: Archbishop Roznanski, Eminences, Excellencies, my brother bishops and priests, deacons, religious, lay faithful, friends in Christ — I consider it one of the signal privileges of my life to be able to preach this homily on the vigil of Fulton Sheen's beatification.
From the very beginning of my own work in evangelization, Sheen has been my model and inspiration. I do indeed consider him one of the pivotal players in the modern history of the Catholic Church, for he opened the door to the evangelization of the world through the electronic media. There was an extraordinary intellectual, literary, and spiritual revival within Catholicism in the middle years of the last century. We think of such figures as Graham Greene, Dorothy Day, Jacques Maritain, Henri de Lubac, Thomas Merton, Evelyn Waugh, and many others. Sheen was very much a participant in that renaissance, and he was arguably the most famous and influential of that entire group of luminaries. Billy Graham referred to him simply as "the great communicator." By common consensus, Archbishop Sheen was the premier preacher in the English language in the twentieth century. At the height of his influence, Sheen had a television audience of thirty million every Tuesday night and received twenty-five thousand letters a day from all over the country.
But my purpose this evening is not to speak so much of this aspect of Sheen's life and work, but rather of what made him blessed — a saintly man of God. My suspicion is that Sheen himself would have said that a blessed, holy person is someone who is a friend of Jesus Christ. Over and again throughout his career he insisted that Christianity is not an abstract philosophy or a set of moral convictions, but rather a relationship to a living person — indeed, to the one who said to his apostles the night before his death, "I no longer call you servants, but friends."
The Three Stages of the Spiritual Journey
So what does friendship with the Son of God look like? There is a very instructive passage in the third chapter of Sheen's autobiography, Treasure in Clay, in which he speaks of his vocation to the priesthood. His presentation, I think, provides a template for anyone's relationship to the Lord. He uses the famous story of the prophet's call from the sixth chapter of the Book of Isaiah.
The first stage in divine friendship — I am quoting Sheen now — is "a sense of the holiness of God, of God's awful transcendence, of his majesty, beauty, and power." Isaiah had a vision of the Lord seated upon his throne, with the angels singing, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts." The authentic spiritual journey, Sheen knew, never begins with what I want, with my projects and plans and achievements, but rather always with the breakthrough of grace and the consequent surrender to what God wants to achieve in me and through me.
The second stage follows from the first. It is, in Sheen's words, "a profound sense of one's unworthiness." Just as the smudges on a window appear fully only in the glare of direct light, so sin is more — not less — apparent in the light of grace. As Sheen puts it, "God is holy. I am not. Woe is me." Isaiah expressed it this way: "I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips." So God does the long work of purification, and then the third stage commences.
Here is Sheen again: "After the purging, Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord asking, 'Whom shall I send?' And Isaiah answered, 'Here I am. Send me.'" The third path in the spiritual journey for everybody is that of mission — of being sent as a bearer of grace to others.
So I would like to explore, however briefly this evening, Fulton Sheen's holiness in terms of this tripartite template.
The First Stage: The Breakthrough of Grace
Let us look first at the breakthrough of grace. Sheen's life was marked through and through by signs of unmerited divine love. In fact, they proved the anchor for his entire spiritual journey. He received his Catholic faith as a gift when he was baptized in the Church of St. Mary in El Paso, Illinois. He sensed the providence of God when he heard that remarkable prophecy from Bishop Spalding in the sanctuary of the Peoria Cathedral when he was an eight-year-old altar server — I am quoting: "Tell your mother that when you're big, you will go to Louvain, and you will be as I am." He tasted it one afternoon when, as a seminarian at St. Paul's Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, while listening to a conference given by the spiritual director, I quote Sheen here: "my mind seemed to be suffused with light. I had the overwhelming conviction of the certitude of the faith." And this certitude was not simply a matter of the intellect. It was grounded, Sheen said, in his love for the Church. And the Church found personal expression in the successor of Peter. Therefore, Sheen knew the holiness and grace of God every time he had an audience with the pope. It is fascinating to note how Sheen saw each of his encounters with the pope as practically a mystical experience.
Under this great rubric of grace, how could we not speak of Fulton Sheen's relationship with the woman whom the scriptures describe as kecharitomene — full of grace? Mary, as it were, haunts the spiritual life of Fulton Sheen. From his baptism in the Church of St. Mary, to his ordination in the cathedral dedicated to Mary, to his deep devotion to the rosary, and finally to his more than thirty journeys to Lourdes to visit, as he put it, "the woman I loved." Along with the mainstream of the Catholic theological tradition, Sheen saw Mary as the prime instance of a human being receiving the unmerited love of God. Therefore, in this singular vessel of grace, in this definitive ark of the covenant, in our tainted nature's solitary boast, Sheen appreciated to the fullest degree the holiness of the gift-giver.
The Holy Hour
Nowhere was Fulton Sheen's rootedness in the grace of Christ more apparent than in his practically lifelong dedication to the holy hour — the daily, uninterrupted, hour-long prayer in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Though he said he often brought a writing pad to these sessions in case a good idea for a homily or article might come to him, these holy hours were not really times of achievement or accomplishment. They were an opportunity to bask in the presence of the Lord Jesus. Here is how he puts it:
"Looking into a sunset, the face takes on a golden glow. Looking at the Eucharistic Lord for an hour transforms the heart in a mysterious way, as the face of Moses was transformed after his companionship with God on the mountain."
Sheen surely treasured the line attributed to the Curé of Ars. When asked what happens during Eucharistic adoration, the great saint said, "He looks at me and I look at him." The holy hour also prepares one for mission. Shifting metaphors, Sheen said that the one who sits dutifully before the tabernacle is like "a dog at the master's door, ready in case he calls."
Though it took some time, Fulton Sheen's encouragement of the daily holy hour has now taken deep root in the lives of priests, seminarians, and lay faithful around the world. I will humbly admit that I learned the practice from my students at Mundelein Seminary, who knew Sheen well and who witnessed powerfully to the efficaciousness of the hour before the Lord. I now savor the holy hour that I do in my private chapel every morning before commencing my workday.
The Second Stage: Acknowledgement of Sin and Purification
The second great path on the spiritual journey, as we saw, is the frank acknowledgement of sin and one's need for forgiveness and healing. Though I had read it a number of times before, I reread Sheen's great autobiography in preparation for this sermon. What struck me particularly upon this latest reading was how ready Sheen was to admit his failures, his bad judgments, his personal weaknesses. Indeed, the title of the book fairly gives away the game: Treasure in Clay. He knew how precious was the treasure he bore, and he knew how fragile was the vessel.
So he admits to a certain amount of vanity. I am quoting him here: "When I was a priest, I thrilled at being called 'Father.' I found the title of 'Monsignor' mellifluous." He grants further, I am quoting again: "I also confess to the joy at the privileges that are given to a bishop — his place at the table, the extra soft prie-dieu, and the reverence born of faith." He adds, "I enjoyed the prestige of being a university professor." And he admits finally: "I was popular. I was sought after. I was a friend to both royalty and the masses. But how close was I to the cross?"
Now, we must remember the story of Isaiah's call. It is precisely in the wake of the prophet's intense experience of God's majesty that Isaiah becomes aware of his weakness. We should recall in this context another biblical story close to Sheen's heart — that of the call of the first disciples in the Gospel of Luke. After the luminous encounter with the glory of the Lord in the miraculous draft of fishes, Peter falls to his knees and says, "Lord, leave me. I am a sinful man." It is none other than the one who stands in the light who sees his sin clearly. The self-exculpation so typical of our time — "I'm okay, you're okay, don't tell me I'm doing something wrong" — is an indication not that we are flawless, but rather that we have wandered far from God. Fulton Sheen's deep immersion in grace permitted him to acknowledge what was fragile and flawed in himself.
One of the Archbishop's heroes, G.K. Chesterton, caught this paradox beautifully: "There are saints in my religion. That just means men who know they are sinners."
Now, in the Isaiah account, an angel takes a burning coal and sears the unclean lips of the prophet, preparing him for mission. So Fulton Sheen appreciated the sufferings that came to him from both inside the Church and outside as the harsh, burning work of the angel of purification. Here is how he put it: "Since I would not take up the cross, the Lord would lay it on my back." Like St. John Paul II, he never saw suffering as dumb or meaningless. Rather, it was the way that he — already a priest — would become a victim as well. Through pain, the offerer of sacrifice would become the sacrifice offered, and in the process he would become more thoroughly conformed to Christ Jesus.
The Third Stage: Mission
The third path in the spiritual journey is that of mission. Once bathed in grace, once purified, the follower of Christ is sent. After his confession of sin, St. Peter hears the Lord say, "Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching people." This is indeed the path that involves response — our true cooperation with grace.
And friends, was there anyone in the twentieth century who walked this path more effectively, more joyfully, more enthusiastically than Fulton Sheen? As he embarked upon his studies in Louvain, he said that he wanted to read St. Thomas Aquinas, to be sure, but his purpose was primarily apostolic, not contemplative, for he wanted to bring St. Thomas to bear on the great questions and dilemmas of his day. Following the advice of Cardinal Mercier, he assiduously studied all during his years of teaching at Catholic University the art, science, philosophy, and literature of the secular world. Since he always wanted his teaching to have an outward-looking, mission orientation, he enthusiastically responded to the invitation to be a principal speaker during the Catholic Hour radio broadcast. Why? He knew this would expand the walls of his classroom exponentially.
What he undoubtedly kept hearing all during these years was the Lord's command: Duc in altum — go out into the deep. Those words continued to echo in his soul as he seized the opportunity to address the entire nation through television. When many in academic circles wondered at the prudence of taking the complexity of Catholic teaching to such a popular audience, Sheen did not hesitate. He was of course more than qualified academically, but he was also endowed with splendid gifts for popular communication. And he proved that a sophisticated presentation of the faith could play on the widest stage possible.
From 1950 to 1966, the great evangelist was also national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, and in this capacity he was drawn into the missionary activity of the Church all over the world. His journeys in support of the Church's mission took him to New Guinea, Borneo, the islands of the South Pacific, China, Uganda, Australia, Pakistan, Kenya, and many other countries. Pretty good for a kid from El Paso, Illinois. Duc in altum — out into the deep.
All his lifelong and all over the world, Sheen spoke, preached, and offered retreats. I was staggered when I came across the statistic in one of his biographies that for the bulk of his public career he traveled three times a week in order to speak — that is, one hundred and fifty trips per year, for decades, out into the depths. No one in the twentieth century walked the great path of mission with more flair and dedication than Fulton Sheen.
Sheen as the Saint of the New Evangelization
So finally, everybody — blesseds and saints are for the Church. What we do tomorrow does nothing to increase Fulton Sheen's sanctity. It does not make his place in heaven any higher. Rather, what we do tomorrow affects the Church, for it brings this holy man in a powerful way before the attention of the world.
I believe that Fulton Sheen is par excellence the saint of the new evangelization. John XXIII conceived of Vatican II as a missionary council. Its purpose was to bring the lumen gentium — the light of Christ — to the nations, to move the Church beyond its self-protective walls and to put it in contact with the wider society. Pope Paul VI took up this theme with verve, writing in Evangelii Nuntiandi that the Church by its very nature is a mission. John Paul II, who was a participant in the synod that gave rise to Evangelii Nuntiandi, made the new evangelization central to his papacy. And Benedict XVI, Francis, and Leo XIV have continued to ring the changes on that theme.
Fulton Sheen participated in the Second Vatican Council and took up its motifs with passion upon his return. But I believe that through the entire course of his ministry, he also anticipated this central emphasis on an evangelization that, as Pope John Paul II put it, is new in method, new in expression, and new in ardor.
So everybody — anyone who seeks fresh language to bring the gospel to our culture, anyone who preaches the ancient word with a heart on fire, anyone who dares to use the media of communication available to us today — is indebted to Fulton Sheen and finds in him a powerful heavenly friend and intercessor.