Throughout his life, Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was renowned as a theologian and philosopher, but was most iconic for being a rarity in the realm of Catholic preaching. As a host on nighttime radio and later two television programs, “the golden-voiced Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, U.S. Catholicism’s famed proselytizer,” had weekly audiences of up to 30 million.
Life Is Worth Living, his first television program, ran for 5 years starting in 1952 and featured Venerable Sheen speaking to the camera and discussing moral issues of the day.
One of his most celebrated sermons, “The True Meaning of Christmas,” was given on the show in 1956 and prophetically addresses the various maladies humanity faces in an increasingly secularized Western “ideal” that promotes worldly pleasures and selfishness, eschewing the spiritual for the material.
“Remember that he was laid in a manger and his companions were beasts. That is our hope, our joy, our peace, our merry Christmas. Suppose any of us who are just creatures, just men, certainly began to be children of God, so that the divine nature began to pulsate within us. So that we were lifted up by offering our human nature as Mary offered the first human nature. So that we could in a way be united with the divine person. So that his truth with all that great wisdom would begin to flood our mind and that his will and his love would begin to possess us and would begin to impregnate and suffuse itself over every single love that we had. Oh if that ever came to pass, and it does come to pass, that would be the meaning of Christmas.”
Watch Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s full sermon on “The True Meaning of Christmas” below:
Photo credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
Christmas is a celebration of life. May Planet Earth and all that lives on it be blessed with a happy and healthy New Year.