"In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone." - John of the Cross.
"The mentality of an epoch is characterized by those people who are the objects of its worship, those who, known by all, receive the greatest publicity. In the medieval epoch the name of a saint was on all lips, whereas in the Renaissance it was the name of a man of genius. Since then both have gradually been replaced by names of technicians and inventors. In the eighteenth century, the Pantheon in Paris was transformed from a church dedicated to St. Genevieve to a monument for great men: that is, men who were famous because of their achievements: social reformers, statesmen, scientists, artists, and inventors. Such men seemed greater to this epoch than the saint to whom former times dedicated this church, and these 'great men' seemed to call for worship more than Christ to whose divine sacrifice the church was built. Today the worship of great achievements has a tendency to degenerate into the worship of great businessmen, athletes, sportsmen, and movie actors and actresses. Here we are confronted with the general fate of all idols. As soon as a created good is made an absolute and is deified, one progressively loses sight of its real value and this good deteriorates inevitably more and more...
The attempt to make man the absolute center of the universe has in reality led to a progressive blindness toward the true nature of his dignity. The attempt to make a god out of man ended in making of him a more highly developed ape. The idolatry of great achievements shares the same fate...
When confronting the worship of great achievements, it is imperative to recall man's primary vocation. Great as is the range of values which man is capable of realizing, moral values hold a unique position in man's life. They alone are indispensable for every human being, whatever his special gifts and talents may be. They alone belong to the unum necessarium. Man is called above all to glorify God by his justice, his purity, his veracity, his goodness. 'Be you perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.' (Mt. 5:48). Moral disvalues are an incomparable evil; they alone offend God; moral goodness reflects and glorifies God more than any achievement whatsoever....Compared with this vocation, the noblest talents and the creation of the greatest impersonal goods are secondary. Progress in the domination of nature, inventions, great achievements in science, cultural activities, and even the creation of masterpieces in art - great as they are in themselves, much as they manifest man's greatness - do not constitute man's primary vocation. No excellence in these fields can be compared at all with the value embodied in a saint." (Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand, The New Tower of Babel, pp. 181-182, Sophia Institute Press).
How many, even professing Christians, have forgotten this? Our sin-sick culture, bent on deifying man and preparing the way for Antichrist, is so addicted to the idolatry of false values that it has become utterly blind to real value. This is why it prefers to honor Hollywood celebrities and famous athletes than to recognize and celebrate one such as Therese Martin who lived in total obscurity during her lifetime.
"The mentality of an epoch is characterized by those people who are the objects of its worship, those who, known by all, receive the greatest publicity. In the medieval epoch the name of a saint was on all lips, whereas in the Renaissance it was the name of a man of genius. Since then both have gradually been replaced by names of technicians and inventors. In the eighteenth century, the Pantheon in Paris was transformed from a church dedicated to St. Genevieve to a monument for great men: that is, men who were famous because of their achievements: social reformers, statesmen, scientists, artists, and inventors. Such men seemed greater to this epoch than the saint to whom former times dedicated this church, and these 'great men' seemed to call for worship more than Christ to whose divine sacrifice the church was built. Today the worship of great achievements has a tendency to degenerate into the worship of great businessmen, athletes, sportsmen, and movie actors and actresses. Here we are confronted with the general fate of all idols. As soon as a created good is made an absolute and is deified, one progressively loses sight of its real value and this good deteriorates inevitably more and more...
The attempt to make man the absolute center of the universe has in reality led to a progressive blindness toward the true nature of his dignity. The attempt to make a god out of man ended in making of him a more highly developed ape. The idolatry of great achievements shares the same fate...
When confronting the worship of great achievements, it is imperative to recall man's primary vocation. Great as is the range of values which man is capable of realizing, moral values hold a unique position in man's life. They alone are indispensable for every human being, whatever his special gifts and talents may be. They alone belong to the unum necessarium. Man is called above all to glorify God by his justice, his purity, his veracity, his goodness. 'Be you perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.' (Mt. 5:48). Moral disvalues are an incomparable evil; they alone offend God; moral goodness reflects and glorifies God more than any achievement whatsoever....Compared with this vocation, the noblest talents and the creation of the greatest impersonal goods are secondary. Progress in the domination of nature, inventions, great achievements in science, cultural activities, and even the creation of masterpieces in art - great as they are in themselves, much as they manifest man's greatness - do not constitute man's primary vocation. No excellence in these fields can be compared at all with the value embodied in a saint." (Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand, The New Tower of Babel, pp. 181-182, Sophia Institute Press).
How many, even professing Christians, have forgotten this? Our sin-sick culture, bent on deifying man and preparing the way for Antichrist, is so addicted to the idolatry of false values that it has become utterly blind to real value. This is why it prefers to honor Hollywood celebrities and famous athletes than to recognize and celebrate one such as Therese Martin who lived in total obscurity during her lifetime.
2 comments:
In order to become a saint, one has to pray. Which is why most will never become saints. Fulton J. Sheen said (in his essay titled "Why people don't pray"), "..prayer is not passive, but is a very active collaboration between the soul and God...It is not difficult to understand why many people do not pray, at all. Just as working persons can become so interested in what they are doing as not to hear the noonday whistle, so the egotists can become so self-infatuated as to be unconscious of anything outside of themselves. The suggestion that there is a reality beyond them, a power and an energy that can transform and elevate them, strikes them as absurd."
This is also the reason we don't see more prayers for the pro-life cause. Modern man feels he no longer needs God and can rely on himself to achieve every goal.
Without prayer, said Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, the soul ends up in hell. It cannot be saved.
Prayer is like oxygen for the soul. Michael, love that quote from Archbishop Sheen. As far as I'm concerned, his canonization cannot happen fast enough.
God love you Fulton John Sheen.
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