SNOW-WHITE AND ROSE-RED—OR HOW TO BECOME THE REAL PERSON THAT YOU ARE

Fairy tales are rarely about fairies and generally have an inner meaning. I have looked at several famous fairy tales in the past including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by the Brothers Grimm. Here’s another fairy tale—from Germany—involving a character called Snow White: ‘Snow-White and Rose-Red’.

The tale goes something like this. A poor widow lives in a small cottage by the woods with her two young children, Snow-White and Rose-Red, whom she adores. There is a garden in front of the cottage in which there are two rose bushes. One of the roses bears white roses, and the other red roses. The symbolism of that is revealing. The rose represents the individual's unfolding consciousness although, depending on the context, it has a myriad assortment of additional meanings associated with it, such as purity, passion, heavenly perfection, virginity, fertility, suffering and sacrifice, death and life. 

In the context of this fairy tale, the white and red roses represent the thinking and feeling aspects of our consciousness respectively. Now, the two young children, who play together and love each other dearly, are just like the above mentioned roses. Rose-Red is outspoken and cheerful and loves to play outside whereas her sister Snow-White is quiet and shy and prefers doing housework and reading. The two girls love to go out into the forest where they like to sleep. On one occasion, whilst sleeping unknowingly on the edge of a precipice, they are awakened by a figure in shining white apparel (apparently, a ‘guardian angel’, variously a symbol of power, guardianship, inner guidance and personal transformation).

One winter night, there is a knock at the door. Rose-Red opens the door to find a bear. At first, she is terrified, but the bear tells her not to be afraid. ‘I'm half frozen and I merely want to warm up a little at your place,’ he says. They let the bear in, and he lies down in front of the fire. The girls beat the snow off the bear, and they quickly become quite friendly with him. They play with the bear and roll him around playfully. They let the bear spend the night in front of the fire. In the morning the bear leaves, trotting out into the woods. The bear comes back every night for the rest of that winter and the family grows used to him.

When summer comes, the bear tells the family that he must go away for a while to guard his treasure from a wicked dwarf. On parting, the bear catches his fur on the door-hook, and it seems to Snow-White that she sees gold glittering underneath.

During the summer, when the girls are walking through the forest, they find a dwarf whose beard is stuck in a tree. The girls rescue him by cutting his beard free, but the dwarf is ungrateful and yells at them for cutting his beautiful beard. He seizes a bag of gold which lies behind him and hurries off angrily. The girls encounter the dwarf several times that summer, each time rescuing him from some peril each time, but the dwarf is always ungrateful. On the second occasion the dwarf runs off with a bag of pearls. On another occasion he hurries off with a bag of precious stones. Then, one day, they meet the dwarf once again and he is seen counting his treasures. This time, the bear rushes out of the forest and strikes the dwarf dead.

Instantly, the bear’s skin falls from him, revealing a handsome prince. You see, the dwarf had put a spell on the prince by stealing his precious stones and turning him into a bear, but the curse is broken with the death of the dwarf. Snow-White marries the prince, and Rose-Red marries his brother. And yes, as in all fairy tales, they all live happily ever after.

Have you ever noticed how many fairy tales involve a widow? A widow represents those who are cut off, so to speak, from their true being as a person among persons. They are people who have lost connection with their inner potentiality. In this tale, however, there is still some contact with the elemental world represented by the garden and the rose bushes.

Snow-White and Rose-Red represent two different aspects or sides of human experience. Snow-White (cf the white roses), who likes to stay indoors, represents the thinking part of us that is introspective, introverted contemplative and meditative. Rose-Red (cf the red roses), who likes being outdoors, symbolises the perceiving, more extroverted part of us that is more interested in the outer world of sense impressions. The fact that the two girls play together and love each other is highly symbolic. It means, among other things, that these two sides of our nature are equally important. Both are needed and belong together. In other words, they are complementary. Never forget that.

The bear is an out-picturing of us—body, mind and soul. There is the outer, physical part of us and the inner mental and spiritual ‘parts’ of us. The dwarf represents negative, evil forces, both within and outside of ourselves, that make for separation, division and strife. These forces or tendencies within us must be overcome if we are to grow into the persons we are capable of being and which, in truth, we really are. The gold, pearls, and precious stones referred to in the tale represent spiritual riches and wisdom—the non-physical things ‘not made with human hands, eternal in the heavens’ (cf 2 Cor 5:1). The dwarf is seen seizing, appropriating and running of with these gifts, not realizing that they are not yet his by right of consciousness. There are things that we must give up in order for these gifts to be rightfully ours. That is an important lesson we all must learn. Our false selves (the little ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’), in the form of our various likes, dislikes, views, opinions, biases and prejudices, seek to appropriate these treasures even though they are not yet ours by right of consciousness.

Now, the bear is not what it appears to be. Inside of it is a prince, that is, a higher self—our true self. Here’s a famous Zen story on the point. A distraught man approaches a Zen master and says, ‘Please, Master, I feel lost, desperate. I don't know who I am. Please, show me my true self!’ The master just looks away without responding. The man begins to plead and beg, but still the master gives no reply. Finally giving up in frustration, the man turns to leave. At that moment the master calls out to him by name. ‘Yes!’ the man says as he turns around toward the master. ‘There it is!’ exclaims the master.

Our true self is the person that each one of us is. However, when we see and experience ourselves we do not ordinarily see and experience the person that in truth each one of us is. Instead, we tend to see and experience any one or more of a number of self-images (those ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ held in our mind). At one point in time we may see and experience the ‘little me’, or the ‘frightened me’, or the ‘inferior me’. At another point in time we may see and experience the ‘confident me’. 

These ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ are nothing more than self-images in our mind. They are images felt and experienced as real, that is, as the real person that we think we are. Jointly and severally, these ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ constitute in varying degrees our sense of who we think we are, and whichever image is most dominant in your mind at any point in time will constitute your sense of ‘me’—that is, what to you, in you, is you—at least at that particular point in time. There is a feeling component to these mental self-images, with the result that many of the images can be quite strong and persistent over time and their persistency over time only reinforces the mistaken belief that these images are really us. This also makes change seem very difficult indeed. However, none—I repeat none—of these felt self-images are real. They are not the real person that in truth you are.

Fulton J Sheen wrote, ‘Death to the lower self is the condition of resurrection to the higher self.’ That is what this fairy tale is all about. We must die to our false selves so that we might become the real person that we are. Some call that the ‘higher self’, but please don’t confuse that with those little, false selves of which I spoke. The ‘higher self’ is the real person that in truth you are. I am referring to a power and presence ‘not-oneself’. You see, we are much more than just those pesky false selves—all those waxing and waning ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’—with which we tend to identify, in the mistaken belief that they constitute the ‘real me’.

Freedom from the bondage to self comes when we get real, that is, when we start to live from our true being as a person among persons. We come to know our higher or real self—symbolised in the fairy tale ‘Snow-White and Rose-Red’ by each of the marriages that take place—as a result of thinking (Snow-White), perceiving (Rose-Red), and overcoming the evil spirit of separateness (symbolised by the destruction of the dwarf by the bear).

When this happens, you become what the American psychologist Carl Rogers, pictured left, referred to as a ‘fully functioning person’. The mystics refer to this as coming to ‘know the Self as One’. Yes, we are one with all Life, even though few know or understand what that truly means.

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ANYONE CAN AND DOES PRAY---EVEN THE ATHEIST

No, this post is not about that rather silly aphorism, 'There are no atheists in foxholes.' The fact is, atheists are to be found in foxholes.

I do, however, want to say something about prayer. Anyone can prayer---even an atheist. Listen to the first two verses of this Christian hymn by the British poet and hymn writer James Montgomery:

Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
Unuttered or expressed;
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.

Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear
The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near.

‘Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire … unuttered or expressed.’ You don’t have to package or formulate your words in a Christian form. You don’t even have to verbalise your desire. Whatever be your sincere desire---whether for yourself, some other person, or our world---that is your prayer … and a prayer.

Now, there was, in what I quoted above, that pesky little word ‘God’. The word ‘God’, if one uses it at all, means different things to different people. For some, there is no objective referent at all to the word ‘God’, and I respect that position. The important thing to keep in mind is this: ‘The word is not the thing.’ That’s something the Indian spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti [pictured left] used to say over and over again, and he is right. It’s the reality behind the word that matters. In other words, don't get hung up on the word ('God'). Instead, focus on the reality behind, and beyond, the word. Well, I hear some of you say, what is that reality? What follows is my take on it.

Despite things constantly coming and going, waxing and waning, there is something unending and unceasing, something that is beyond time and space itself. It is the ever-present spirit of life---that is, the very livingness of all life, the essential oneness of all life, and the self-givingness of life to itself so as to perpetuate itself. You can call that God if you like. The New Testament says that God is love. That’s pretty good. Some also use the word ‘God’ to refer to our innate potential perfectibility as well. That makes some sense too. The really important thing, if you choose to believe in God at all, is to avoid believing in a tribal, cruel and nasty God. That sort of belief is very harmful to others. The Baptist minister and theologian Dr Harry Emerson Fosdick once famously wrote, ‘Better believe in no God than to believe in a cruel God, a tribal God, a sectarian God. Belief in God is one of the most dangerous beliefs a man can cherish.’ 

Me? These days I neither believe nor disbelieve in a traditional God. I love these words from the Jesuit priest and author Anthony de Mello SJ [pictured right]: ‘The atheist makes the mistake of denying that of which nothing may be said ... and the theist makes the mistake of affirming it.’ But, having said all that, God or no God, prayer is real.

Does prayer really change things? Well, it can change the pray-er, that is, the person praying, and when the pray-er changes other things start to change as well. That is not anything supernatural.

Having said all that, we should never see ourselves as the end and God as the means to that end. Dr Fosdick made another good point when he said, ‘God is not a cosmic bellboy for whom we can press a button to get things.’ I think these words from Venerable Fulton J Sheen are also helpful: ‘We do not pray that we may have good things; we pray rather that we may be good.’

Pray in whatever way makes sense to you, but do more than pray. There is an Indian proverb, ‘Pray to God but continue to row to the shore.’ (I have also seen that proverb expressed as, ‘Call on God, but row away from the rocks.’) There is an Arab proverb that is very similar: ‘Trust God but tie your camel.’ By all means hold on to your desires and hopes, but you---indeed, all of us humans---must do what needs to be done to bring about positive, lasting change in ourselves and our damaged world.

CORPUS CHRISTI: THE MICROCOSM IS THE MACROCOSM

Yes, the microcosm is the macrocosm. Let me explain.

Today, Thursday 19 June, many Christian churches around the world are celebrating the Feast of Corpus Christi (otherwise called the Thanksgiving for the Holy Communion, the Feast of the Body of Christ, and Corpus Domini). This important feast, originally a local feast before becoming one of the Universal Church, is traditionally kept on the Thursday next after Trinity Sunday, and celebrates the belief of Christ's ongoing and real presence (‘Real Presence’) in the form of the Eucharist. The latter is said to have been instituted by Jesus at the Last Supper on the first Maundy Thursday. In contrast to the sombre atmosphere of Holy Week, Corpus Christi is a joyful celebration of the sacrament of Communion.

Now, I cannot accept any literal interpretation of the doctrine of Transubstantiation—the idea that the bread and the wine used in the sacrament of the Eucharist become, not merely as by a symbol, sign or figure, but also in reality the body and blood of Christ. Yes, that is too much for me to believe. However, the idea of Transubstantiation does mean something very real and wonderful to me. You see, the whole mystery---and that is what it is, a mystery drama. Never forget this---the Christian Church, the 'prolonged Personality' and 'posthumous Self' of Jesus throughout the centuries (albeit all too often a very fallible, errant and sinful version of the Man from Galilee), is first and foremost a mystical church, despite the efforts of many who strive to have it otherwise, and as a mystical church the 'mysteries of Jesus' have not been completed but are still being lived week by week and day by day by those spiritual seekers who participate meaningfully in the liturgy, ritual, ceremonies, and 'myths' of the Church.

To the extent that Jesus can be said to embody the fulness of the Divine---my view is that Jesus reveals to us 'as much God' as we are humanly capable of comprehending---so the wafer of bread in the Eucharist fully embodies the divine life present in matter (yes, matter). However, there is much more to the ceremony than just that. The mystery drama of the Eucharist, under the veil of earthly things such as bread, wine and water, illustrates and dramatizes the essential oneness, wholeness, unity, indivisibility and ultimate indestructibility of all life. Yes, the essential oneness of all life is symbolically represented by, and fully but microcosmically concentrated in, the Sacred Host, Itself a living symbol of the All-ness of Life in the very real sense that all of life and all of time and space can be said to be present, as a special intensification and concentration of Life, within the confines of this otherwise very little wafer of bread. Yes, the sacred Host, this 'heavenly bread,' is a miniature of the ‘Eternal Now.’ In that regard, I am reminded of those wonderful, oft-quoted words of William Blake (from his poem ‘Auguries of Innocence’):

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

The circular shape of the wafer is itself illuminating. In the ancient occult tradition metaphysics was often spoken of as sacred geometry or simply geometry. 'God geometrizes,' it was, and still is, said. Each geometrical shape had a certain metaphysical and esoteric ('inner’) meaning or significance. You could teach the whole of metaphysics by simply teaching geometry. Now, the circle, a most ancient and universal symbol, represents, among other things, life that has no beginning and no end (cf the Gnostic concept of a ‘world serpent’, in the form of a circle, eating its own tail), eternity, infinity, heaven, the universe, the cosmos, perfection, purity, God, Spirit (or 'Life Force'), ultimate oneness, the cycle of existence (human and otherwise), and associated notions of karma and reincarnation. More relevantly, especially in the context of the Holy Eucharist (cf the circular shape of the Sacred Host), the circle, being unbroken in nature, also represents a ‘sacred place.’

Sacred, indeed. If, like me, you accept the idea that all of life is sacred, holy, or divine, then you should have no difficulty at all in accepting the idea that the Host of the Eucharist is sacred, holy, and divine. ‘Spiritually and materially,’ wrote priest and author Geoffrey Hodson, ‘every Host is as a microcosm of the Macrocosm. Blessed indeed is every recipient.’ Microcosmically, each of us is a miniature copy of the universe, and the Eucharist is a sacred mystery drama and pictorial representation of the human soul, which comes forth from God, and which labours and struggles in time and space, in exile from its eternal home, in its pilgrimage and on its way to its ultimate re-union with the divine source from which it came. The Eucharist re-enacts the forever-ongoing 'descent,' so to speak, of Spirit into matter---a veritable Self-sacrifice of life itself (the cosmic 'Word-made-flesh,' and 'Lamb slaim from the foundation of the world' [cf Rev 13:8])---and its eventual 're-ascent' from matter into Spirit again, the idea being that we come from God (the ‘ground of all being’), we belong to God, we are part of God’s Self-Expression, and we are on our way back to God. God is---we are.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. (Richard Nixon used to say those words, heaven forbid.) The bread and the wine on the altar or Communion table are not mere symbols. There is no such thing as a ‘mere symbol.’ By its very nature a symbol can’t be ‘merely’ anything. A symbol---any symbol---if it be a symbol at all, is always a form or representation (’re-presentation’) of what H P Blavatsky referred to as ‘concretized truth.’ A symbol is a sensory, and ordinarily visual, way of discerning and describing some aspect of Truth (Life). More than that, a ‘true’ symbol is a way of helping to bring into the fullness of objective reality the truth of which it is a symbol. Yes, a symbol not only ‘symbolizes’, ‘represents’ or ‘stands for’ something else (the ‘inner reality’), it actually is instrumental in bringing about that reality and, in very truth, is that reality. In the case of spiritual truth, a symbol of God's presence and power also communicates that presence and power through our senses.

So, when it comes to the Sacrament of the Altar, which as I see it is the sublimest myth known to humanity, we have powerful archetypal symbols that not only commemorate in symbol the metaphysical and spiritual ideas to which I have made reference, they enable all who participate in the ceremony with sincerity, right intention, and purpose to actually take part, both interiorly and exteriorly, in that sacred mystery drama ('self-same sacrifice,' in the words of one Christian liturgy) that is going on all the time wherever there is life. Not only that, but we have a powerful ritual that (to borrow from one Christian liturgy) serves to 'perpetuate within the limitations of time and space ... the enduring sacrifice by which the world is nourished and sustained.'

I still have a lot of problems with many aspects of Christianity, or at least 'Churchianity.' Indeed, many conventional Christians would regard almost all that I’ve written in this post as clear and unambiguous evidence of that fact. So be it. I am a freethinker or I am nothing. I will, however, say this much: the Divine Presence I encounter mystically in the consecrated Host is not only the Jesus of both my childhood and my adulthood mediated by means of the creative power of the Spirit of Life, revealed knowledge as well as imaginative mystic reflection, but also the Cosmic Christ, that is, that aspect (for want of a better word) of God which created all things, upholds, sustains, and nourishes all created things, is in all things as all things, pervades and permeates all things yet is not consumed or constrained by all things, and whose very Real Presence in and to me is nearer to me than hands and feet, for it dwells in my very own heart. In other words, the Christ who ‘fills the universe in all its parts’ (Eph 1:23). 

You see, in the consecrated wafer is all of life---past, present and future---and that includes the man who once walked this earth known as Jesus of Nazareth, whose wonderful Personality and Power is mediated to us, as well as the indwelling Presence and ‘substance’ (or 'essence') of all persons and all created things. In and by means of the Eucharist, and under the veil of the simple earthly things used in the ritual, I feel an intuitive connectedness, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually, with all of life. To this wonderful, mysterious Self-revelation and experience of Life itself, I can only say, with deep humility and thankfulness, ‘My Lord and my God’ (Jn 20:28).

Here’s something else. The Eucharist is a powerful transformative ritual. You see, we are the bread and the wine. The bread (cf flesh) may be said to represent our terrestrial, mortal life, whilst the wine (cf blood) signifies our spiritual life. Conjointly, both represent or signify our lower and higher natures respectively. So, we should place upon the paten all our joys and sorrows along with all our hopes, fears, negativity, and disappointments---everything, in fact. We can also place upon the paten all those we love and for whom we care. And that drop of water added to the wine and cast into the chalice---that, too, represents us, indeed every moment of our lives as well as the lives and sufferings of others whom we love and for whom we care. Yes, we offer ourselves so that we can be consecrated, that is, transformed into new and better people. Of course, it is not magic. We need to die to our old, tired, false selves in order to be resurrected into our True Self, the latter being the very best person we can be. That requires, among other things, self-surrender … on a daily basis. Fulton J Sheen, in his inimitably beautiful manner of writing, has written:

We must not think of the offering of the bread and wine as independent of ourselves; rather the bread and wine are symbols of our presence on the altar ...

We are, therefore, present at each and every Mass under the appearance of bread and wine; we are not passive spectators, as we might be in watching a spectacle in a theatre …

We who are assisting in the Mass, together with all creation, offer ourselves as bruised grain and crushed grapes that we may die to that which is lower to become one with the tremendous Lover. ...

Death---and resurrection into newness of life. Such is the Power of this tremendous divine Power, and we can be channels, inlets, and outlets of this great Power. Now, what is God? What is the Divine? Well, for me the Divine is both a Presence and a Power--in fact, the only Presence and Power---that which animates, sustains, and nourishes all things, and in which we live, and move, and have our being. This Divine Presence and Power---the so-called 'bread from heaven'---must for the most part be experienced by means, and under the veil, of earthly things, the latter including our minds and their workings. In the words of Thomas Aquinas, from the Tantum ergo,  'Faith, our outward sense befriending, / Makes the inward vision clear.' As Presence, the Divine is the indwelling life of all the peoples of the earth. As Power, the Divine is an indwelling force for good, that is capable of transforming broken human lifes. 

In all respects, the Divine is the creative, dynamic, and transformative principle of life and love---in particular, suffering love---that forever gives of itself to itself so as to enable life to continue and grow. It is the power that brings peace, works for unity and wholeness, forgives, cleanses, heals, revitalizes, refreshes, renews, and recreates. It is the principle of oneness, wholeness, and holiness. It is 'the peace that passeth understanding' (cf Phil 4:7). There is nothing in the world quite like it, and the great mystery drama of the Eucharist is a living symbol and regular re-presentation of this Divine Power and Presence. Indeed, it's all of life.

Yes, the microcosm is the macrocosm. The One, which forever becomes the many, and the many are one. And so it is.

YOU ARE THE PONTIFF OF YOUR UNIVERSE

‘Man is good, and tells the secret of his goodness in the language of thought.’ Who said that? Well, it was Venerable Fulton J Sheen [pictured], now on the way to Catholic sainthood.

There will be many today, even in the Catholic world, who have never heard of Fulton J Sheen. That is sad, because he towered over the Catholic world in the West for a fair bit of last century. Yes, he shone like a blazing comet, and he was without doubt the greatest Catholic evangelist of last century. Possessing an unforgettable voice, and a gifted wordsmith, he made Catholics proud to be Catholics. Oh, how the Catholic Church needs a Fulton Sheen today! But there never will be another Fulton Sheen. He was a divine original.

Sheen, who was at the helm of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith for some 16 years, wrote dozens of books---many still in print---and was a master communicator. For years he broadcast his message on radio and TV. He even won an Emmy Award. In fact, he won two of them, for ‘Most Outstanding Television Personality.’ He jokingly called himself ‘Uncle Fultie’ in an affectionate nod to his very good friend comedian Milton Berle who was sometimes known as ‘Uncle Miltie.’ Millions wouldn’t be familiar with Milton Berle either. Oh, dear. Anyway, it happened like this. When Sheen won an Emmy, Berle quipped, ‘He's got better writers---Matthew, Mark, Luke and John!’ Shortly thereafter Sheen opened his program by saying ‘Good evening, this is Uncle Fultie.’ Sheen was good at self-deprecation. His sense of humour, though corny at times, was always endearing.

Above: Fulton Sheen ... with his good friend Milton Berle

Below left: Sheen at his Holy Hour of adoration

However, Sheen’s perennial attacks on both communism and psychiatry reveal that he was a reactionary. As respects psychiatry, he saw it as a real threat to the church. Not so his erstwhile Protestant friend Norman Vincent Peale who saw Christianity and psychiatry as very compatible. Peale embraced psychiatry. Sheen shunned it. In that respect Dr Peale was much more ahead of his times even though he too was a reactionary in many ways. Yes, it always seemed to me that Sheen was forever fighting for a rear guard action against change and by the time of his death in 1979 he had become in many ways irrelevant. He became an increasingly nostalgic figure, associated with a bygone era when the Catholic Church, and the United States, were at their strongest.

Sheen’s cause for canonization for sainthood was officially opened in 2002. In June 2012 Pope Benedict XVI officially recognized a decree from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints stating that he lived a life of ‘heroic virtue’---a major step towards beatification---so he is now referred to as ‘Venerable.’ More recently (March 2014), a team of medical experts convened by the Vatican reported there was no natural explanation for the survival of a child delivered stillborn and whose heart did not start beating until 61 minutes after his birth. The survival of the child, James Fulton Engstrom, now three years old and developing normally, was credited by his parents to a miracle attributable to the intercession of the long-dead Archbishop Sheen. The child’s mother and father prayed to Sheen to heal their son.

The case will now move on to a select number of cardinals and bishops, and then finally to Pope Francis who will have to decide whether or not to affirm that God performed a miracle through the intercession of the late archbishop. An amazing story. Ever the skeptic, but ever with an open mind unlike many skeptics, I simply don’t know what to make of all this. We live in a fascinating world, and there is so much we don’t know and can’t explain. Life is a mystery---and, in the words of Fulton Sheen, life is worth living. For the uninitiated, that was the name of Sheen's TV program as well as the title of a series of his more well-known books. Here is a clip from a 1966 episode of his TV program, this one being on the subject of 'The Death of God':

Sheen was very knowledgeable in theology and philosophy, and was very well qualified academically. His theology reveals a great debt to Platonism and Neoplatonism. Sheen would refer to Plato’s question, ‘If there is only one God, what does He think about, for if He is an intelligent being He must think of something?’ He gave this as an answer in his book The Divine Romance:

God does not think one thought, or one word, one minute and another the next. Thoughts are not born to die, and do not die to be reborn, in the mind of God. All present to Him at once. In Him there is only one Word. He has no need of another. That Thought or Word is infinite and equal to Himself, hence a Person unique and absolute, first-born of the spirit of God; a Word which tells what God is, a Word from which all human words have been derived, and of which created things are but merely the broken syllables or letters; a Word which is the source of all the wisdom in the world.

Then there are these gems:

God has two pictures of us: one is what we are, and the other is what we ought to be.

Everything that exists is the realization and concretion of an idea existing in the Mind of God from all eternity.

All art is an imitation of the Divine Artist who, from all eternity, possessed in His Divine Mind the archetypal ideas according to which He made the world in time.

Every bird, every flower, every tree, has been made according to an idea existing in the Mind of God from all eternity.

God has one Idea, and that Idea is the totality of all Truth. Thoughts are not born to die to be reborn in the Mind of God.

God the father is related to God the Son as the Eternal Thinker is related to His Eternal Thought.

I have often read that Sheen’s writings reveal the influence of New Thought, and many New Thoughters claim Sheen as one of their own. True, any of the gems set out above could have been written by a New Thought writer, but the link is more indirect. Sheen was not a New Thoughter although there are certainly some similarities in language and thought-form. Just as Sheen’s theology discloses a debt to Neoplatonism so does New Thought. New Thought is in many ways a revival of Neoplatonism. So was Sheen’s theology---at least in some respects. They both drank from the same fountain, but Sheen was forever the Catholic traditionalist. (It seemed even more so, as the years rolled on.) However, strange though it may seem, perhaps the best way of describing Sheen is to say that he was a Catholic evangelical---perhaps the very first one. Yes, there is such a thing---and Sheen was the greatest one of them all. Dr Billy Graham [pictured left, with Sheen] approved of him, and loved him dearly. He described Sheen as ‘a man whose love for Christ continued to grow until the end of his life.’

I still love listening to Fulton Sheen. I still read his books. When my life was its lowest ebb---some 20 years ago---his writings gave me hope. Almost totally destroyed by years of alcoholism, I these words of Sheen, and they gave me hope that I could get better:

Man is the pontiff of the universe, the ‘bridge builder’ between matter and spirit, suspended between one foundation on earth and the other in heaven.

Man has his feet in the mud of the earth, his wings in the skies.

There are two ways of knowing how good God is. One is never to lose Him; the other is to lose Him and find Him again.

I found Him again. And, as Sheen himself said, ‘Divinity is always where one least expects to find it.’ In my darkest hours, broken in body and spirit, separated from my family because of my drinking, and not knowing whether I would ever be able to continue in my chosen profession, these words of Sheen meant the most to me, and I read them over and over again:

The cross reveals that unless there is a Good Friday in our lives, there will never be an Easter Sunday. Unless there is a crown of thorns, there will never be the halo of light. Unless there is the scourged body, there will never be a glorified one. Death to the lower self is the condition of resurrection to the higher self. The world says to us, as it said to Him on the cross: ‘Come down, and we will believe!’ But if He came down, He never would have saved us. It is human to come down; it is divine to hang there.

‘Death to the lower self is the condition of resurrection to the higher self.’ That is the only thing I write about on this blog of mine. It is the only thing (I think) we need to know and understand … and most of all experience. It is the real miracle---to die to your lower, false self and to be resurrected into newness of life so as to become the living embodiment of that other ‘picture’ of you which the Eternal Thinker has in His Mind … namely, the person you ought to be and in Truth really are.

I will finish with Sheen’s traditional sign-off. God love you.