Let us raise Leaders of Moral Conviction. The less the mind closes upon definite ideas, the more open is the mouth to make them more indefinite. Do the happenings of our world make sense? Does history have any meaning? Does communism have a role to play as it incites wars and revolutions? Those who listen to news every hour on the hour, do not ask themselves these questions; they are so immersed in the passing, that they never inquire concerning the meaning of the parade. Here are some answers drawn from the Bible and Christian tradition. Evolutionism emphasized time; atomic power stresses space. The first is concerned with material beginnings: the second with extension and distance. But time and space are not the stage or the environment in which history unfolds; they are the air that is breathed: not the life that is lived. The meaning of history is not in the remote past of primeval scum nor in the distant future of planetary housekeeping: it is in the middle of both in that mysterious invasion of the Eternal into time, and the Immense into space in the Normandy-beachhead of Bethlehem. Long before the atom was split, time was split; fissioned so sharply that it cut history in two: B.C. and A.D.. Nothing that will ever happen again will have so much importance. What happens temporally and spatially since is a reaction for or against that event. [B.C. Before Christ: A.D. Anno Domini, meaning in the Year of our Lord.] A second point is that progress may be understood either technically or spiritually. Development along one line does not imply it in another. A man may become richer, without becoming holier. Spiritual or moral progress is of an entirely different kind: it consists in the diminution of the traces of original sin, and an increase in the participation of the life of God. Spiritual progress is always on the increase, but seldom seen and recognized. Saints never make the news, but murderers do. Take just one aspect of Spiritual progress, namely, the increase of faith and fortitude in souls. There have been more martyrs in the Mystical Body of Christ or the Church, the last forty-four years than there were in the first three-hundred years of Christian history. Millions have borne witness by death to Him Who shattered time in Bethlehem. Communism and Nazism have not proven the Godlessness of the world, but its Godliness. The blood of the Old Testament shed by the Jews for Love of God, did much to overthrow Nazism. So the millions of Christians who have suffered under Communism will bring the end of Communism. The hope of the world is in the saints and martyrs; these change the face of history more quickly and surely than planners and politicians. The Soviets holds that history is economically determined to work out Communism over the face of the earth. No! History is under Providence. Nations, unlike individuals, are not immortal. They received their just reward or their punishments here below. The rise and fall of empires, kingdoms and totalitarian systems is a kind of Way of the Cross in which each and all are contributing to the great mystery of the salvation of souls. History is like a sacrament; there is something you can see, hear and touch, but there is something that faith alone discerns. The secular view alone is not enough. The people of the Soviet Union may have economic progress, but what free heart is there in the world that does not see in them the depths of spiritual despair? If God were only in the heavens, nothing would be right in the world. This does not mean that the open mind is always wrong, but that the open mind must sometimes or another close on a conviction. God made the mouth so that it has to close sometimes - at least for eating. But the mind being free can isolate itself from commitment. The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction. Because the good are silent, the evil shout. Some praise at morning what they blame at night, but always think the last opinion right. The mouth has to always be open to articulate the shifting views. Truth, however, in some instances must remain silent, as Christ did before Herod. But this Truth, crushed to earth, rose again. ** This article was written 1962, under the title “Bishop Sheen Writes” and is in the public domain; research from newspapers in Canada, USA, and England, the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation of Peoria, Ill and Catholic University of America. Posted by Guy C. Stevenson A Conviction Needed By The Mind news.google/newspapers?id=tRxPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ewEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7583,2916967&dq=spatially+bishop+sheen&hl=en
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 16:24:57 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015