The Cross and the Crib. When Calvary Becomes the Nursery.: Large Print Edition

By Fulton J. Sheen and Allan Smith

The Cross & The Crib. When Calvary Becomes the Nursery.

A Journey of Discovery with Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

In this special collection of writings, Archbishop Sheen presents an array of meditations on Our Blessed Lord's words spoken from the Cross; "Woman behold your so

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bishop Sheen Today
• Release date: Nov 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781990427039

Fulton J. Sheen

The life and teachings of Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen anticipated and embodied the spirit of both the Second Vatican Council and the New Evangelization. A gifted orator and writer, he was a pioneer in the use of media for evangelization: His radio and television broadcasts reached an estimated 30 million weekly viewers. He also wrote more than 60 works on Christian living and theology, many of which are still in print. Born in 1895, Sheen grew up in Peoria, Illinois, and was ordained a priest for the diocese in 1919. He was ordained an auxiliary bishop in New York City in 1951. As the head of his mission agency, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith (1950–1966), and as Bishop of Rochester (1966-1969), Sheen helped create 9,000 clinics, 10,000 orphanages, and 1,200 schools; and his contributions educated 80,000 seminarians and 9,000 religious. Upon his death in 1979, Sheen was buried at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. His cause for canonization was returned to his home diocese of Peoria in January 2011, and Sheen was proclaimed "Venerable" by Pope Benedict XVI on June 28, 2012. The first miracle attributed to his intercession was approved in March 2014, paving the way for his beatification.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

––––––––

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was a man for all seasons. Over his lifetime, he spent himself for souls, transforming lives with the clear teaching of the truths of Christ and His Church through his books, his radio addresses, his lectures, his television series, and his many newspaper columns.

The topics of this much-sought-after lecturer ranged from the social concerns of the day to matters of faith and morals. With an easy and personable manner, Sheen could strike up a conversation on just about any subject, making numerous friends as well as converts.

During the 1930s and ’40s, Fulton Sheen was the featured speaker on The Catholic Hour radio broadcast, and millions of listeners heard his radio addresses each week. His topics ranged from politics and the economy to philosophy and man’s eternal pursuit of happiness.

Along with his weekly radio program, Sheen wrote dozens of books and pamphlets. One can safely say that through his writings, thousands of people changed their perspectives about God and the Church. Sheen was quoted as saying, There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.

Possessing a burning zeal to dispel the myths about Our Lord and His Church, Sheen gave a series of powerful presentations on Christ’s Passion and His seven last words from the Cross. As a Scripture scholar, Archbishop Sheen knew full well the power contained in preaching Christ crucified. With St. Paul, he could say, For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2).

During his last recorded Good Friday address in 1979, Archbishop Sheen spoke of having given this type of reflection on the subject of Christ’s seven last words from the cross for the fifty-eighth consecutive time. Whether from the young priest in Peoria, Illinois, the university professor in Washington, D.C., or the bishop in New York, Sheen’s messages were sure to make an indelible mark on his listeners.

Along with Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s great love for preaching about the power of the cross, he professed great love for the Blessed Virgin Mary and often spoke of his devotion to her.  As a tribute to the Mother of God, when being consecrated as a Bishop in 1951, he added to his coat of arms the words ‘Da Per Matrem Me Venire’, meaning: ‘That I may come to Jesus through His Mother.’

He wrote many books about the Blessed Virgin Mary including The Seven Words of Jesus and Mary (1945) and The World’s First Love (1952).  It seemed that he never missed an opportunity to talk about her and to recommend that his audience goes to her whenever they needed help.

Now for some, entertaining the thought of having the Blessed Virgin Mary as their mother might sound a little far-fetched.  Yes, Mary is the biological Mother of Jesus but how could she become anyone else’s mother?  And how could anyone love this mother that lives in heaven and we cannot see?

For many Catholics all over the world, this tradition of accepting Mary as their mother and trusting in her ‘heavenly influence’ comes naturally. But for others, including this author, a better explanation would have to be given, before we would be willing to accept such teaching.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was aware of the reservations people had towards the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Sheen addressed the prejudices, misconceptions, and the lack of understanding of who the Blessed Mother is during his many radio addresses, lectures and television broadcasts.

In the pages that will follow in this anthology, you will find fifteen short sermons that will take you on a ‘journey of discovery’ that will give the reader a new and fresh perspective on the Blessed Virgin Mary and the role she played in salvation history.

These meditations will speak to the Seven Last Words that Jesus spoke from His Cross on Calvary and correlate them to the seven recorded times that the Blessed Virgin Mary spoke in the scriptures. The Words are not necessarily related to all the words she said but they do make convenient points of illustrations.

This book has only one aim: to awaken a love for the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ and to incite a greater appreciation for the Blessed Virgin Mary.  If it does that in but one soul, its publication has been justified.

WOMAN BEHOLD THY SON

––––––––

An angel of light went out from the great white Throne of Light and descended over the plains of Esdraelon, past the daughters of the great kingdoms and empires, and came to where a humble virgin of Nazareth knelt in prayer, and said, Hail, full of grace! These were not words; they were the Word. And the Word became flesh. This was the first Annunciation.

Nine months passed and once more an angel from that great white Throne of Light came down to shepherds on Judean hills, teaching them the joy of a Gloria in Excelsis, and bidding them worship Him Whom the world could not contain, a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. Eternity became time, Divinity incarnate, God a man; Omnipotence was discovered in bonds. In the language of Saint Luke, Mary brought forth her first-born Son . . .and laid Him in a manger. This was the first Nativity.

Then came Nazareth and the carpenter shop where one can imagine the Divine Boy, straitened until baptized with a baptism of blood, fashioning a little cross in anticipation of a great Cross that would one day be His on Calvary. One can also imagine Him in the evening of a day of labor at the bench, stretching out His arms in exhausted relaxation, whilst the setting sun traced on the opposite wall the shadow of a man on a cross. One can, too, imagine His Mother seeing in each nail the prophecy and the tell-tale of a day when men would carpenter to a Cross the One who carpentered the universe.

Nazareth passed into Calvary and the nails of the shop into the nails of human malignity. From the Cross, He completed His last will and testament. He had already committed His blood to the Church, His garments to His enemies, a thief to Paradise, and would soon commend His body to the grave and His soul to His Heavenly Father. To whom, then, could He give the two treasures which He loved above all others, Mary and John? He would bequeath them to one another, giving at once a son to His Mother and a Mother to His friend. Woman! It was the second Annunciation! The midnight hour, the silent room, the ecstatic prayer had given way to the Mount of Calvary, the darkened sky, and a Son hanging on a Cross. Yet, what consolation! It was only an angel who made the first Annunciation, but it is God's own sweet voice, which makes the second.

Behold thy son! It was the second Nativity! Mary had brought forth her First-born without labor, in the cave of Bethlehem; she now brings forth her second-born, John, in the labors of the Cross. At this moment Mary is undergoing the pains of childbirth, not only for her second-born, who is John, but also for the millions who will be born to her in Christian ages as Children of Mary. Now we can understand why Christ was called her First-born. It was not because she was to have other children by the blood of flesh, but because she was to have other children by the blood of her heart. Truly, indeed, the Divine condemnation against Eve is now renewed against the new Eve, Mary, for she is bringing forth her children in sorrow.

Mary, then, is not only the Mother of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, but she is also our Mother, and this not by a title of courtesy, not by legal fiction, not by a mere figure of speech, but by the right of bringing us forth in sorrow at the foot of the Cross. It was by weakness and disobedience at the foot of the tree of Good and Evil that Eve lost the title, Mother of the Living; it is at the foot of the tree of the Cross that Mary, by sacrifice and obedience, regained for us the title, Mother of Men. What a destiny to have the Mother of God as my Mother and Jesus as my Brother!   

PRAYER

O MARY! As Jesus was born to thee in thy first Nativity of the flesh, so we have been born of thee in thy second Nativity of the spirit. Thus thou didst beget us into a new world of spiritual relationship with God as our Father, Jesus as our Brother, and thou as our Mother! If a mother can never forget the child of her womb, then, Mary, thou shalt never forget us. As thou wert Co-Redemptrix in the acquisition of the graces of eternal life, be thou also our Co-Mediatrix in their dispensation. Nothing is impossible for thee, because thou art the Mother of Him who can do all things. If thy Son did not refuse thy request at the banquet of Cana, He will not refuse it at the celestial banquet where thou art crowned as Queen of the Angels and Saints. Intercede therefore to thy Divine Son, that He may change the waters of my weakness into the wine of thy strength. Mary, thou art the Refuge of Sinners! Pray for us, now prostrate at the foot of the Cross. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.  Amen. (1)

The Seven Last Words, 1933

THE VALUE OF IGNORANCE

The First Word From The Cross

Father, Forgive Them For They Know

Not What They Do. (Luke 23:34)

The Blessed Virgin Mary’s Response

How shall this be done, because I know not man? (Luke 1:34)

––––––––

One thousand years before Our Blessed Lord was born, there lived one of the greatest of all poets: the glorious Homer of the Greeks. Two great epics are ascribed to him: one the Iliad; the other, the Odyssey. The hero of the Iliad was not Achilles, but Hector, the leader of the enemy Trojans whom Achilles defeated and killed. The poem ends not with the glorification of Achilles but of the defeated Hector.

The other poem, the Odyssey, has as its hero, not Odysseus, but Penelope, his wife, who was faithful to him during the years of his travels. As the suitors pressed for her affections, she told them that when she finished weaving the garment they saw before her, she would listen to their courtship. But each night she unraveled what she had woven in the day, and thus remained faithful until her husband returned. Of all women, she said, I am the most sorrowful. Well, might be applied to her the words of Shakespeare: Sorrow sits in my soul as on a throne. Bid kings come and bow down to it.

For a thousand years before the birth of Our Blessed Lord, pagan antiquity resounded with these two stories of the poet who threw into the teeth of history the mysterious challenge of glorifying a defeated man and hailing a sorrowful woman. How, the subsequent centuries asked, could anyone be victorious in defeat and glorious in sorrow? And the answer was never given until that day when there came One Who was glorious in defeat: the Christ on His Cross and one who was magnificent in sorrow: His Blessed Mother beneath the cross.

It is interesting that Our Lord spoke seven times on Calvary and that His Mother is recorded as having spoken but seven times in Sacred Scripture. Her last recorded word was at the Marriage Feast of Cana when her Divine Son began His Public