Archbishop Fulton Sheen - Wasting Your Life Part Three

Archbishop Fulton Sheen - Wasting Your Life Part Two

Archbishop Fulton Sheen - Wasting Your Life Part One

Sacrifices

Archbishop Oscar Romero

Ever since the first person challenged the world to look beyond their own selves and become selfless there has been violent opposition from those who are comfortable looking after themselves alone. This has often meant that the people who have made the biggest impressions upon history and tried to change the world even at a local level have met angry and often violent opposition. Why is this often the case? Fear is the answer. People fear change and fear anything that challenges their comfortable world view. When the great King Herod heard of the possible birth of a Messiah he was so terrified that he might be overthrown that he not only needed to know where this baby was to be born but also needed to kill all of the children born in the area. Archbishop Oscar Romero challenged the greed of the upper class in El Salvador and was assassinated for merely the words that came from his mouth. The same is true of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X towards the end of his life when he turned away from violence and preached peaceful equality. So the fact that all of us must face is that to seek peace and challenge the world to break away from the commercial self centred ways it has become used to, including our own ways, we will face angry and quite often violent opposition. We must all be prepared for this, but know that it is a part of the journey towards peace and justice and that many have walked this path before us.

There is a wonderful saying; “think globally and act locally”. We cannot speak of world peace when we ourselves are fighting with or holding a grudge against somebody. This is why it is extremely important that we bring to life this call to justice and peace in our own lives. I have often been angered while driving to work by aggressive drivers and it is in these small things, the local things, that we can begin this process of peace. I have found it hard but often, rather than honking the horn and abusing the driver who has cut me off I have slowed down and allowed them to pass. Nothing good can come from the abuse. So it is that in our lives we have to think locally and treat each person we encounter as family. I realise how cliché this sounds but from the littlest of movements larger things can grow.

Falling to Pieces

Day by day the world is gradually falling further and further into the depths of what can only be described as Satan’s dream creation. We only have to turn on the television to see that messages of peace and true justice are being overwhelmed with marketing tools designed to convince us that the world is all about “me” and not us. In between televisions shows that bring us questionable values we are presented with advertising about cosmetics that tell us we are not beautiful enough yet and products that we must have to be better than our neighbours. We have moved away from the era where such great speakers as Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen had his own television show spreading the good news of justice and love to the era where soap operas tell stories of adultery and promiscuity. Like turning the heat up gradually on a stove, we have slowly been exposed to this commercial selfishness so gradually we have not truly noticed how far our values have fallen. The world we once knew is falling to pieces and with its fall comes the echo of Satan’s laughter.