2:4:23
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s sermon on “wasting life” and the way having faith in the impossible means we can accomplish the impossible.
Full sermon here.
“Most of us live below the level of our energy. In order to be happy, we have to do more…It is very important to have in the mind an idea to do all that you can. To work to the limit of your ability. Our world is really suffering from indifference. Indifference is apathy, not caring…The reason we’re bored is because we don’t love anything.”
This is what Erich Fromm argues in The Art of Loving too—love is discipline. The work of love. What Sheen calls “walking the extra mile.” “Never be selfish,” he urges. “But always to please neighbor, even when they seemingly demand too much….If your faith is very strong, you can do wonders…If you love, you will go on doing things, not stop….Peter loved our Lord so much, he thought, ‘I can walk on water.”
Love is the ultimate strength. The ultimate power. The other day, my mother referred to my father—to her relationship with him—as a “total vessel for love.” She said he soaks up the love she gives him and gives it right back. I thought of the Temperance card in the Tarot, a card I draw all the time when I read for myself.
The Temperance angel (a guardian angel) is a water bearer. It says, I can stand on water. I am stable in my belief.
The love is always flowing between my mother and father, for 51 years this June. From cup to cup. Consider this a Valentine’s Day post.
Sheen ends his sermon with, “Be generous. Just give, give, give. This is the Gospel’s lesson.”
Selflessness.
What Sheen is saying is that we must aim and strive to reach the limit, whereas today everyone is coddled and encouraged to do only what they want to do; only what they “feel” they can do, which is always less than what is needed. To victimize themselves and others into weakness and frailty and defeat. To not push themselves, to not improve mentally, emotionally, physically, or spiritually; to do less instead of more. To do nothing. To do bad things.
Sheen: “But then Peter began to sink. Why did he sink if he could swim? The Gospel tells us the reason: he took his eyes off the Lord. He began to take account of the winds. He said ‘all nature is against me.’ Or in our language today, in our sociological world, Peter began to take account of sociological surveys, so he sank. He took his eyes off the Lord. And so the Lord took a hold of his hand, and said, “O man, of little faith. Why don’t you believe?”
In secular terms, Peter took his eyes off the prize. The prize here is the power of Love. The power of belief.
The Lord is Love. Love creates miracles. But Peter lost his nerve.
*Note: I wonder if anyone has ever picked up on the fact that the recurring male character (who appears in a number of stories) in my first book Beauty Talk & Monsters (2007), is named Peter.
