During the week of March 1st
through March 7th, we release
9 of 50: “Divinity of Christ”
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…”
002 • Conscience
“Peace be to you. A man of the theater came to see me a few years ago, and his reason was this…”
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…”
004 • Human Freedom
“Peace be to you. No one is born an atheist, as no one is born a skeptic. (That is to say, one who doubts the possibility of ever discovering truth.) These attitudes are made, and they are made less by the way one thinks than by the way one lives. If we do not live as we think, we soon begin to think as we live. We suit our philosophy to our actions; and that is bad…”
005 • Good and Evil
“Peace be to you. This universe of ours is a free universe. It is a universe of character-making, of soul-making…”
006 • Christ Foretold
“Peace be to you. Throughout the course of history, there have been many who have appeared upon its stage and declared that they came from God and were messengers of God.”
007 • Miracles
“Peace be to you. It will be recalled that we said there were three motives of credibility; that is to say, three reasons why one might believe in anyone—in particular, in the Person of Christ…”
008 • New Testament Revelation
“Peace be to you. In the last lesson, we studied the Old Testament prophecies, showing that Jesus Christ alone was pre-announced. Now we must study the New Testament documents concerning His life…”
009 • Divinity of Christ
“Peace be to you. You’ll remember that in a previous instruction we said that Our Blessed Lord called Himself both Son of God and Son of Man; that He was both God and Man. This is indeed a great mystery…”
010 • Humanity of Christ
“Peace be to you. We have emphasized to a great extent the divinity of Christ and rightly so; but it often happens that we forget the humanity of Christ, and it is of that that we would speak…”
011 • Most Holy Trinity
“Peace be to you. We have now come to a point where we propose to discuss the Trinity, but as I was preparing something to say about the Trinity, there came to my mind…”
012 • The Mother of Jesus
“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. We will try to give (first of all) some evidence for this…”
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—with a good deal of confidence—that he knows the faith well.
