What Now America? The Naked Truth By Venerable Fulton John Sheen (Audio & Video) → JESUS Loves You

what now america with archbishop fulton j sheen and now archbishop sheen [Applause] fellow americans i had a taxi driver the other day in new york and he said to me i wish you'd come back on television he said i never had much of an education i never went beyond the third grade but i pick up a number of passengers who use big words and so i became educated from that time on he used only polly syllables and always out of context so as i got out of the cab he said to me i just love to hear you on television you have such a wonderful voice it has so much animosity in it [Applause] and the subject of today i introduced two with a little narrative when i was on television before mother wrote me and told me that her little boy was constantly under her heel from the kitchen and she said to him go into the parlor turn on television listen to bishop sheen he's smart you learn something he turned on the television set and listen for a few minutes i had been writing on the board at that particular moment the word sex he came back to his mother he says he's not so smart he doesn't know how to spell six this facet of american life will have to do with the change in our attitude toward wealth remember 30 or 40 years ago americans were very much bent on accumulating wealth hence the heroes and national life were those who gathered considerable money and speakers at commencement time were always rich men like charles schwab jp morgan and under the rockefellers and the like and the assumption was see you can make money too you can collect it all you wish now that day is passed wealth is on the defensive in fact so much so that wealthy men today go in politics and sometimes as is well-known the one particular millionaire who spent his money in fostering communism in order to get away from the stigma that attached to wealth what now is the one thing that america likes to collect it's not money so much it's experiences so today there's a boast oh i've traveled all over the world i've been drunk i don't know how many times it's a great experience colleges haven't you ever taken dope you don't know what life is did you ever try to shoplift try to be a bum we're no longer living in the age of the snob begin to live in the age of the slob it's a great experience no that's what we're collecting today as experiences and what is the one experience which america collects most sex is curious judge suppose that this theater we're a great banquet hall and a vast audience such as you the lights are lowered the orchestra trumpets the announcement of a waiter who carries a great silver platter down to the stage and when he gets on the stage everyone is expectant he takes it off the cover off and what is there a piece of raw beef steak and everyone goes mad and applauds wouldn't you think there was something wrong with that audience in their attitude toward food can there not be two and over emphasis on the other now why has sex suddenly become in our american life the great overwhelming experience in order to understand moods one has to go back a bit into history now let us go back to the victorian days in the victorian days there was a taboo something you were not to talk about and the great taboo of the victorian days was sex i mean yes sex no one mentioned it in polite society children were never taught about it storks brought the babies and there was a a kind of an extreme reverence for it such as our day has but it was a taboo which was wrong when you get a taboo in any generation you get in the next generation swing over to another extreme what is the taboo in our day what do we not we what do we not want to hear about death do not speak of it we cosmeticize the dead he looks just as if he were living funerals are over as quickly as possible never mentioned at a table and in order to cover up this we have used sex to hide death and this over emphasis on it manifests itself in three ways first of all what does death do well death reminds us of the fact that we're finite we're not going to live forever we're getting older and oddled day to day we rotten rot and each tick of the clock brings us closer to the grave and so we do not like a reminder of the fact that we are limited and finite and cabin crib confined and so what do we do we make sex the great infinite we have to talk about it romanticize it not only do we do that we we make it mental it's not only in the body but sometimes it's removed from the body so that you have to think about it all the time you can't look at that advertisement without being reminded of it hence the importance of pornography makes you forget death think about it this is the new infinite you're never going to die and the second reason is the death is a reminder of the fact that there's going to be an end a completion a gradual deterioration of life i almost forgot how to spell that uh a general decay of life one becomes weak that's the great word as time goes on and as we get weaker we're reminded of death so what do we do sex power energy variety see how strong i am i've overcome death and another reason our modern age has no goal or purpose in life life is meaningless so because there is no goal no purpose in life we do not know where we're going sex makes up for it the intensity of an experience makes up for the absence of a goal just as when we've lost our way we always drive faster in and over so this is what has happened this stress abnormal stress on it things that you didn't know about it before imagine poor human nature after all these thousands of years things you didn't know about it before and why is it in order to escape death we must not think about it now i'm going to discuss one particular phase of the sex emphasis or over emphasis and that is nudity there's a growing manifestation of that in our american life love of stripping and streaking and whenever i hear a bit i don't know it always reminds me of infantilism with diapers but i'm reminded of the poem para gint in which he describes the appealing of an onion and the poet says there seems a terrible lot of flakes to get to the core what a time it takes yes gramercy it does one divides and divides and there's no kernel it's all on the outside and he might have ended in a dirty smell so suppose now we analyze the nudity i will give first of all the theology of it and then i will give the psychology of it first the theology of nudity we go back to a myth now a myth does not mean something unreal something historical that's not the meaning of a myth a myth is something that really happened but it was an events of such consequence that it applies in every age and every generation we go back to the myth um the first couple naked but did not know they were naked why was that is because they were covered with an aura of god's grace they were such communion with god that there was a kind of a mystical atmosphere that surrounded them when they lost that union with god then they perceive themselves to be naked why simply because this invisible spiritual clothing was now gone they'd lost communion with god what did they do they made fig leaves to cover up their shame shame is exposure but fig leaves dried he still had shame then it was the god made for them the skins of clothing what is important in this is maybe let me make a modern application those fig leaves that in the myth were put over the secret parts of man and woman you know where they're put today over the face doesn't make any difference who you have sex with drink the water forget the glass persons do not matter it's only the experience that counts pile up experiences now they were driven out of that state of happiness and an angel with a flaming sword was there an angel with a flaming sword indicated first of all you're not going to get back except by some kind of a piercing penance and reparation and furthermore it's going to be flaming inspired by love now what we are trying to do today is to get back into a state of happiness and paradise and eden without passing through the flaming sword and it cannot be done that is the theology of it now the psychology of it there is something innate in human nature which does not tolerate those things that are harmful to us for example if i get a speck in the eye my hand tries to remove it if i have poison in my stomach i vomit it or else there's no medic that is given if glass gets into my system it'll work itself out the body just simply will not tolerate those things which are alien to it the body has antibodies which is a marvelous thing and therefore when we transplant a kidney the antibodies sometimes will resist it this is foreign to me this is not good for me the antibodies would throw it off cancer excise it get rid of it that's the way human nature works now we have not only a body we've got a conscience sometimes we get glass in the conscience sometimes we get poisoned into our hearts sometimes we get antibodies into our hearts there's a brood of vipers inside of us we're unhappy with all of the things that we've done there they they're the lust the dishonesties there are the traitorous actions the concupiscences the fornications the pride the selfishness all these things that are alien to a good human nature and it's it's natural for the human nature to get rid of it throw these things off denude itself but our modern world instead of getting rid of its guilt in its conscience gets rid of its clothes instead of a moral denomination there is a denomination dinu nation of clothes instead of an ethical purging there is an epidemic purging and that's the reason the american conscience with all of its madness about sex to escape death feels so very unhappy and believe me none of us are going to be happy until we get rid of the glass in the body the cancer and the transplant that the antibodies will not assimilate we'll not be happy until we get rid of all of these other things that are gnawing at us this is what has to be denuded this is the nudity that makes a man happy everyone has it looking in my clock i've got six and a half minutes see i i have to time myself and decide what ideas i will emit and what ideas i will develop nothing is memorized but it's been thought over hundreds and hundreds of times so let me give you some examples of of how one comes to a realization of the rottenness that is within i take the case or rather the play of kami the hero of the play was jean baptiste clamos john bob peace clematis was a was a lawyer a well-respected citizen head of many civic organizations he helped old women across the street he was known as a philanthropic gentleman one day he has an automobile accident someone ran into him it was not baptiste's fault the other man's fault then there came not by his own will but perforce the kind of a denuding of what it really was first of all he discovered that he was a violent man he would have choked that other man if he felt that he was strong enough to do it he didn't know all that violence was inside of him then his mistress leaves him he didn't know he was a man of despair he thought that he could overcome any experience he's walking along the same and he sees a young girl jumping into the river her skirts hold her up for a few moments and he watches her and then she sinks beneath the river and dies he would not help her he never knew before what a coward he was he was being denuded of all his pharisaism and pride until he knew that in his heart he was a faker or to give you another instance i was in paris uh one night i went there to preach in one of the paris churches and stayed in a small hotel near the oprah comic and there was an englishman in one of the rooms of joining playing the piano i complimented him and asked him if he would like to go to dinner with me he said i've never had dinner with a priest in my life i said we're just like anyone else you stick me with a pin i will jump as far as anyone and so we went to dinner and he said i'm a diamond salesman i live here in paris he said you know i have never met one good man or one good woman in my life i thanked him for the compliment and then he went on now he said here's my problem he said uh over there at that table the coming 11th of february there was a woman trying to break a lump of sugar in a cup of coffee she couldn't do it and i broke it for she said my husband is mean and i said all right come and live with me when he said i get tired of them all after a year and the year is about up so he said i bundled up all of her clothes this morning and i left them with the concierge she left a note here's the note your puppy if you refuse to continue living with me until the 11th of february i shall commit suicide by throwing myself into the same now may i permit her to do this i said no you may not do evil the good may come from it and furthermore she will not commit suicide got to be about midnight where are you going i said to moammar he said i was just beginning to think you were all right why are you going up to that hell hole well i said on the hill of my mark there's a great basilica called sacred cur and every single night there are a thousand men in that church they're good men they have wives they're good women they have sons and daughters there are good people in the world come with me we arrived shortly after midnight man had no faith or morals and how long will you stay i said i intend to stay all night but i will leave when you want to leave he made no move to leave red massive sun came up over paris and as we came down he said will you stay in paris and teach me to be good he said this is the first time in my life that i ever knew what a rotten man i was he was being denuded so the nudity that we have today on the stage is an escape from the nudity of conscience where we should reveal ourselves as we really are and if we would say naked i await thy love's uplifted stroke we would then begin to be at peace and this over emphasis on sex today mark my word is going to have its reaction you are going to see in the united states in the next 20 years 10 years a return to the emphasis on death thank you bye and god love you

Channel: Classic Catholic Audiobooks

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Length: 28min 0sec (1680 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 25 2020