Happy birthday to Archbishop Fulton Sheen!

It's the 118th birthday of Venerable Servant of God Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.  Anyone who has listened to his talks or watched a few moments of his network television shows knows how captivating Archbishop Sheen was in his delivery of the faith.  And then there are his books that taught with a simplicity and a depth that are quite remarkable.  

In honor of the day, here are a few of my favorite quotes from Archbishop Sheen.

• “To a great extent the level of any civilization is the level of its womanhood.  When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her.  The higher her virtue, the more her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her.  The history of civilization could actually be written in terms of the level of its women.” ("The World's First Love")

• "There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church — which is, of course, quite a different thing."

• "Those who glorify the ego, or the seeming-self, often develop a vicarious interest in solving problems which do not concern them, as a substitute for tackling their own problem of selfishness.  One wonders if the contemporary interest in movie murder mysteries, thrillers, and newspaper horror stories is not an admission that millions of men feel the need to solve important personal problems; but rather than facing the riddles of self, which are indeed difficult, they shift the problem and study baffling events in other lives, instead.  The man who has horrors tormenting his own soul may like to hear of greater horrors in others, or to see them on the screen, in order that he may for a moment forget his own hell within." ("Lift Up Your Heart")

• "But the Catholic mother finds a model of pregnancy in the Mother who began the bringing of God to man. Physical trials become more bearable when she sees herself a co-worker with God in the making of life.  A dying man in a country region of France, unable to receive the Eucharist, asked that poor person be brought to him so that he might at least have Christ in a lesser way.  The woman with the child may sometimes be unable to receive Holy Communion, but she can, with an act of faith, see that she already is bearing a lesser host within the tabernacle of her body." ("Three to Get Married")

• "All love craves a cross by the very fact that love is forgetful of self for others." ("Three to Get Married")

• "A woman may love God mediately through creatures, or she may love God immediately, as Mary did, but to be happy she must bring the Divine to the human." (The World's First Love"