FULTON SHEEN TAUGHT ME THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS

 

Fulton Sheen Taught Me the True Meaning of Christmas

‘The higher life of man is God,’ Archbishop Sheen then says. ‘And if man is ever to be lifted up, God in some way must come down to man.’

 

 

Fulton Sheen speaks on ‘The True Meaning of Christmas.’ (photo: Screenshot from ‘Life Is Worth Living’)

 

Peter Laffin BlogsDecember 25, 2024

Like many converts, I didn’t learn my way into Catholicism. I fell in love. The learning came later. I’m still learning, of course.

My marriage came about the same way, incidentally. The sound of my wife’s laughter plunged me into the depths of love before I knew her middle name or her favorite ice cream flavor. All that came later. 

Long story very short: Just after graduating college in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, God lifted the veil for a few precious moments — and I fell hard. I became Catholic in my heart before I knew the equivalent of the Church’s middle name. 

The priest at the nearby parish, an elderly Capuchin named Father Barnabas, understood this well. When I told him I wanted to join RCIA, he didn’t dive into an explanation of the Monophysite heresy. He just welcomed me home. I can still see the look of delighted surprise on his face. He knew what it meant far better than I did.

My RCIA experience did little to fill in the blanks, however. Priests I met later were scandalized by what I didn’t learn. I never learned to pray the Rosary, for instance. Nor did I learn how to make a confession — as a catechumen, that didn’t concern me yet. 

But there was surely wisdom in the way Father Barnabas shepherded me. (I’m still Catholic, after all). And besides, God was focused on my heart at the time. He didn’t want my head to get in the way. 

And he couldn’t have picked a better teacher for my catechesis. 

 

Life Is Worth Living

Nearly a year away from my formal reception into the Church, I’d begun to scrutinize the Catholic faith more closely — such is bound to happen when the glow of new love fades. 

That’s when I discovered Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. Reruns of his mid-20th-century show Life Is Worth Living aired on EWTN (the Register’s parent company) most nights, and I was glued to them. Here was an evidently brilliant man speaking lucidly and poetically about the most important questions in existence. It felt as if he were the first truly sane person I’d ever heard speak.

I eventually began streaming more episodes on YouTube. I had my favorites committed to memory within months. I can still recite most of the episode called “Wasting Your Life,” in which the “Venerable” shepherd expounds upon the Christian call to pour out all of one’s energy for love of Christ. 

By then, Archbishop Sheen had answered most questions I had, including some I’d never considered.

And yet, there was still one question that bothered me: Why was this religion the right one? Becoming Catholic had begun to feel almost accidental. I was tempted to seek out other faiths, if only out of curiosity. 

Then I came across an episode of Archbishop Sheen's show called “The True Meaning of Christmas.” I’d seen it listed numerous times but never clicked on it. After all, who didn’t understand Christmas? 

I didn’t, apparently. And, consequently, I didn’t know what made Christianity unique among religions.

“There are only two philosophies of life,” said Archbishop Sheen as he turned to his famous chalkboard with a flourish.

The first was a philosophy of life that believes man can lift himself to God by and through his own efforts. This was the philosophy of Buddhists, ancient Greeks, and the followers of modern psychology who hope to achieve perfection by rearranging their mental states. 

The other philosophy of life, he argued, the one professed by Christianity, was just the opposite. Instead of holding that man should spend his energies lifting himself to God, it holds that God comes down to man. In this line of thought, man doesn’t initiate the process of ascending toward perfection and God but rather responds to his overtures. 

“This is the true valid experience of the soul. For the soul responds to something rather than takes the initiative. God loved us first,” said Archbishop Sheen. “A man born blind and by an operation sees might think the sun just began and that the mountains and valleys and rivers and streams were just appearing. But they were always there. The man just discovered them.”

The good archbishop’s simple explanation illuminated my own experience of the Divine. That day when God lifted the veil and pulled me into his light, it wasn’t in response to anything I’d done. It was pure gift; it was what the prologue of the Catechism describes as God’s “plan of sheer goodness.” My desire to become Catholic was simply the response to this gift. 

So why did God come down to us and become man? 

In the episode, Archbishop Sheen explained to me that it was the only way for man to be lifted up to God. It’s a pattern that is mirrored throughout creation.

“This is the hierarchy of creation,” he said. “At the bottom are chemicals, then plants, then animals, then man. Running through the universe is this law; nothing ever mounts to a higher level except the higher thing comes down to it.” 

Plants, for example, cannot be raised to the level of the animal unless the animal comes down to them. Likewise, if the animal is to live in the human, the human must come down to the animal.

“The higher life of man is God,” Archbishop Sheen then says. “And if man is ever to be lifted up, God in some way must come down to man.”

What makes us different than chemicals, plants and animals, however, is that, due to our free will, humans have a say in the matter. If we are to be taken up, we must respond to God’s love. We must say “Yes” to God, just as Mary said to the angel Gabriel, “Let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). 

Archbishop Sheen’s explanation of Christmas not only gave my emotional response to the coming of Jesus an intellectual grounding, but it also deepened my emotional response. 

Could it be true? That we are loved so madly by God that he lowered himself from the heights of heaven down to a manger, a feeding trough of barn animals? And if he would pursue us there, would he not pursue us everywhere? And for all time? 

Just thinking of how God’s unfathomable love is revealed in the Christmas story is enough to make my heart explode. 

I cannot wait to discuss it with Venerable Fulton Sheen one day in heaven. I have no doubt he will explain it to me then in even greater depth and beauty. And God willing, until that day, I will respond to God’s pursuit of my heart with ever greater immediacy.

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