Our Cross - Venerable Fulton Sheen

one of the tests of the success of a mission is not the crowds that come it is rather are there little children in the audience and there were young ones scattered about the altar yesterday in here this morning again and then one of the children imagined got up at 2 o'clock this morning and made for me some raisin bread greater love than this no woman hath that she should arise at 2 o'clock in the morning to make raisin bread now you heard the story of Jonah both in the epistle and in the gospel 1st and 2nd reading you did not get the whole story of Jonah now I'm going to tell you the story of Jonah and then I will give you the lesson from it Jonah is listed as one of the twelve minor prophets and God sent him to the wicked city of Nineveh well Jonah was a Jew God to him was not the God of the Gentiles why should he go to pagan people so Jonah took a boat to Spain that probably was the Tarshish that is mentioned in the gospel in the prophet and on the way a storm arose and it is interesting that as you read that story of Job now read it in your Bible it's only about two or three pages long it's the shortest book in the scripture and you often find God made a storm - a raw Rhys and God sent a fish into the sea and so forth and God arranged that the Jonah should be swallowed up when a storm came up and the sailors for the most part were pagan sailors and rather superstitions they sure so they took lots maybe they got got long and short straws and everybody on board the boat had to draw a straw and the one with the shortest straw say was the one who was guilty of the storm well Jonah got the short straw and he said yes he said God told me to go and preach to the Gentiles but I refused and I'm the cause of this storm remember the failure of one can be the cause of the failure of many as the salvation of one can be the cause of the salvation of many for example one man stole a Babylonian coat in the Old Testament and Joshua lost a battle on account of it God said into his own account of that man that you lost the battle so John is tossed into the sea and then he swallowed by a big fish it is not actually a whale that is mentioned but at any rate a big fish I know of a teacher who was asking the boys after the story of Jonah what lesson do you get from the story of Jonah and the little boy said I get the lesson that people make whales sick so June is swallowed by a big fish I was lecturing at the University of California last year and at the end of the lecture I was asked questions and one student said how was Joan in the belly of the whale for three days I said I haven't the vaguest idea but when I get to heaven I shall ask Jonah he said suppose Joan isn't there I said then you ask him so you have the prayer of Jonah in the belly of the whale and then the whale spews him out on the land and again God gives of the order go and preach penance to the city of Nineveh now that's the story that was read to you as preaching a penance and the king ordered it but the very interesting part of the story of the story of Jonah is left out Jonah wanted the people to be destroyed see God said I will destroy them if they do not do penance well John was afraid they would do penance and then he would be accused of being a false prophet and so Jonah went on a hill he was bald-headed and he went on a hill overlooking the city of Nineveh and the Sun just scorched his bald head and there was a little plant that began to grow Mabley a gourd with a big leaf and it shadowed the head of Jonah and he was calm peaceful and cool and then little worm came and ate the plant and then Jonah began to scorch again and God said to him you had nothing to do with that plant and now when it withers away you were angry and God said shall I not be mine of the 120,000 people in Nineveh who know not their right hand from their left and there are many cattle this is the story of Jonah God's concern for the Gentile people for the missions really but we find it in the New Testament see our Lord speaks about it he said as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days so the Son of Man must be in the belly of the earth for three days in other words as our Blessed Lord would be crucified and buried for three days and then rise in the dead so in the past Jonah had undergone his passion is Good Friday in the belly of the fish and then comes again to life on the shore this is what is known in Scripture as a type incidentally that's the way catechism should be taught in Bible history by types our young people should be told the story in the Old Testament and then told about how it was fulfilled by our Blessed Lord in the New Testament if you have two hours and a half I'll give you an example of it our Blessed Lord said to Nicodemus as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert so must the Son of Man be lifted up on the cross now in the Old Testament the Jews had disobeyed our Lord they were bitten by serpents God said to Moses make a serpent of brass hang it up on the crotch of a tree and everyone who looks upon that brass serpent will be cured of snakebite now there's nothing in a looking at a brass serpent that's going to cure a snakebite nothing but it was a test of their faith would they obey God and all who looked upon that serpent of brass were cured of the poisonous bite now our Lord comes along and says I'm that serpent this is one of the few instances in which the same word that is applied to evil is applied to good anothers the lion the devil is a lion our Lord is the Lion of Judah meaning that when the Antichrist comes he will act like Christ so our Blessed Lord now says as Moses lifted up the serpent so I'll be lifted up on the crotch of a tree and as that brass serpent looked like the serpent that bit fears realized but had no poison in it so our resin Lord on the cross would look as if he were guilty of sin full of the poison of human guilt but as the serpent of brass had no poison in it so our Lord had no sin in him and all who would look upon him would be healed he'll do what of guilt I always think of that whenever I pass the rest of sacrament I I have a a three room apartment I have a bedroom and then I have us what was originally a small bedroom which is the chapel with the rest of sacrament then I have a study and a tiny little kitchen which is big enough for my culinary talent and whenever I passed the Blessed Sacrament and I would do it a hundred times a day in the apartment I always think of this passage of our Lord so that I look upon the serpent on the tree our Blessed Lord to be healed of the poison of sin now this is what is known as a type and I say that's the way religion should be taught particularly the scripture because the Old Testament is full of types we we do not have time to mention a few others but just take my word for it and you'll find them fulfilled in our Lord now our Lord you see today in this gospel says Jonah is a type he's a type of death and resurrection Jony in the sea our Lord in the tomb Joan out of the sea Christ out of the tool that is the Old Testament fact in the New Testament fact now the lesson the lesson is that unless there is a cross in our lives there will never be a resurrection the Christian law of life is we have to die in order to live now I do not mean and he did not mean physically dying he made mortification self-denial the application of the Cross now is so that unless we die to ourselves we cannot live with him we do not like the cross in our lives as a matter of fact we'd like to escape it as I told you last night that's the essence of the demoniac the escape from mortification and cross and the penance on one occasion the Greeks came to our Lord and we do not know what the Greeks asked our Lord but we can guess it because of the answer of our Blessed Lord to the Greeks I think the Greek said to our Lord and this was within two weeks of his crucifixion if you stay here among these people they're going to kill you why don't you leave this lad come to Athens we're the country of the wise men we've only killed one great mind in our history and that was Socrates and we regret it ever since that we gave him that poison so if you stay here you will die if you come to Athens you will live that they must have said because our Lord could not quote for example the Prophet to him he could not quote Isaiah chapter 53 and say no it has been prophesied of me that I must undergo Good Friday in order to have Easter so he appealed to nature because the Greeks would understand that and he said unless the seed falling to the ground died is it remains alone but if it dies it comes forth unto life bears fruit then 20 and a hundredfold that was a lesson the Greeks could understand and this is the lesson of Jonah the lesson of our Blessed Lord and this is the essence of Christianity remember Christianity is not easy that's the reason we have the interest in oriental religions today because well it gives us the joy of having a religion but it does not cost us very much but Christianity costs something grace is not cheap we just cannot walk through life into the kingdom of heavens now let me see how long I've been talking to you you see I do not want to talk too long but look at the interest here so I'll tell you a story come here you in the middle come here to me the NOI boy in the middle this young man here how old are you he is four years old you're his little boy was looking up here very very interested now so you create the problem of how long how much more should I talk before will you get bored to death listen I will tell you I'll tell you a funny story about long talkers so you'll go back to your place now listen to it I was once giving a talk in San Francisco and a gentleman spoke before me and as he arose his wife who was in the front table handed him the program and she wrote on the back of it a big k-i-s-s-ec-sta-sy wasn't that nice of your wife to send you that message always said it doesn't mean what you think it means it means keep it short stupid now coming back to the lesson of Jonah arrested Lord and the Greeks we have to work out our salvation and there will be crosses in our lives that we make through mortification self-denial and then there are other crosses that are imposed on us for example sickness particularity of children now what what do we do with crosses poor health for example and then injustice from others well we have to unite it with our Lord on the cross in order to use it to purchase our eternal salvation about a year ago I was talking to Pope Paul the sixth and I said to him your well named named Paul Paul as he went from city to city was stole from Lystra to Derby to Antioch of Pisidia and so I said you are stoned by your own yes he said I opened my mail at midnight and in almost every letter is authority and when I put my head on my pillow an hour too later I really lay it on a crown of thorns but he said I cannot tell you what ineffable joy I have to suffer and then he quoted the 24th verse of st. Paul's letter to the Colossians I feel up in my own flesh the sufferings that are wanting to The Passion of Christ for the sake of his body which is the church in other words I suffer all of this for the sake of the church that's how are you suffering I think the great tragedy of this world is the suffering that goes to waste people suffer and they have no one whom they can love love does not kill pain but it diminishes it I was lecturing in a city in Florida about two years ago and I saw four or five wheelchairs in the front of the stage after my lecture I jumped off the stage and went down to talk to the people in wheelchairs well over against the wall was something that looked like a Grecian statue all white and I went over and it was a woman in an iron lung and she was swaddled in white you couldn't see the arms the only part of her body that she could move was her head and she said I'm a convert of yours I said I've never seen you before no she said it but was from it was from reading some of your books and I said you understand your cross and she said yes I do I am NOT suffering for my own soul I am suffering for other souls to save them in other words there was the death in order that there might be the life in others I have a friend who spent 14 years in the communist prison and he was tortured during these years because he always preached the gospel of the Lord the other prisoners and he would be taken out from amidst the other prisoners as he was talking about the good Lord and he would be put on a spigot and turned and then his heels would be beaten with an iron rod as they turned him and I then he said another time they put me in a cell with starving rats and I said what did you think about when you were put in a cell with starving rats well he said I thought about the words of our Lord on the cross Ailee Ailee lama sabachthani those were the aramaic words our Lord spoke from the cross my God my God why hast thou forsaken me now he said I'm a Hebrew born a Jew so I understand the language well he said these words are in the past tense past so our Lord is not saying why are you abandoning me but why in the past did you so he said our Lord was abandoned by the very fact that he was born he was abandoned by us our Lord therefore he said must have been looking to the joy of Resurrection having joy set before him he endured the cross and he said he considered therefore his crucifixion his past because he knew that he would come to life so he said that's the way I regarded the rats I have trust in the Lord I'm not going to perish here I'm in his hands I'm going to consider the rats is all finished so he said some of the rats sat down and philosophize they were too hungry to move about another's nibbled at the rags in my feet and after five days they had not touched me so the Communists took me out of the prison they knew that it was useless to keep me there with the starving rats summing it all up as Christians we have one law Good Friday Easter nothing is ever accomplished that is worthwhile without some self-denial and mortification if you have a cross buried it is his and you will be glad of it and for it some day your salvation is assured I slipped his fingers I escaped his feet I ran in hid for him I feared to meet one day I passed him fettered on a tree he turned his head and looked and beckoned me neither by speed nor strength could he prevail each hand and foot was pinion by a nail he could not run or clasp me if he tried but with his eyes he bad me reach his side for pity's sake thought I I'll set you free they take this cross that ye and follow me and so did I follow him who could not move an uncaught captive in the hands of love

Channel: CatholicClips

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Keywords: Fulton J. Sheen (Author)

Id: vkEBsVZBijg

Length: 25min 49sec (1549 seconds)

Published: Mon May 20 2013