ULTON J. SHEEN wrote in his autobiography: “We kept a record in our office of the mail received every day. For years it averaged between 15,000 and 25,000 letters per day.” On page 73, Sheen wrote: “It would have been interesting to have kept the hundreds of thousands of letters of soul-searching and reaching out for Divinity which came to our office, but I felt I owed it to the writers to destroy their letters.” What a wonderful reminder to each of us that we’re only on this earth for a short time and you can’t take it with you. I’m absolutely convinced that most of us would have hoarded much of that fan mail—if it were written in praise of us—owing to our vanity.
24-Hour Catechism • When I was in high school, my grandmother gave me a terrific series of cassette tapes by Bishop Sheen. It contained more than 24 hours of talking. I listened to the tapes so frequently I had them virtually memorized. I’ve been ‘re-listening’ to this series with my daughter. I wanted to share it with our readers,* so I’ll release one video each week on this blog until the complete series is available.
001 • Philosophy of Life
“Peace be to you. This is Bishop Fulton Sheen talking, and this will be the beginning of more than 24 hours of talking…”
Here’s the direct URL link.
002 • Conscience
“Peace be to you. A man of the theater came to see me a few years ago, and his reason was this…”
Here’s the direct URL link.
003 • God in Search of Man
“Peace be to you. Up to this point we were talking about conscience as an unbearable repartee and about the meaninglessness of life…”
Here’s the direct URL link.
004 • Human Freedom
“Friends: Peace be to you. At this point in the unfolding of the Divine Mysteries in Christian doctrine, we come to some very important words in the CREED: viz. that our Blessed Lord was born of the Virgin Mary…”
Here’s the direct URL link.
How To Listen • The “24-Hour Catechism” is best heard in a dark room. Simply reading a transcript of each video would not allow one to appreciate properly these presentations. Sadly, our society has lost the ability to sit quietly and listen to an excellent speaker. We must regain it!
Final Thoughts • For the record, no one has been able to ascertain for certain when this “24-Hour Catechism” was created, but it seems to have been recorded in the late 1950s. It’s estimated that Sheen reached about 30 million people each week during that decade. If that doesn’t sound impressive, consider that ten years later (in 1968) RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON was elected president by getting 31 million votes.
* Someone who carefully listens to this entire series can say truthfully that he knows the faith.
