One Lord, One World, No. 9 of 16 No. 9 of 16

Sankhama-i-dhiyam, O Lord of the Names! During the next half hour, the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations have made their facilities available to the National Council of Catholic Men as a public service for the presentation of the Catholic Hour. Today on the Catholic Hour, the right Reverend Montzenegro Putin-Jay Sheen will deliver the ninth in a series of 16 addresses under the general title One Lord, One World. A proper music will be performed by the choir of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City, under the direction of Warren Foley. Mr Foley in the choir opened today's program with Dubois setting up the first of the second words of Christ from the cross. Sankhama-i-dhiyam, O Lord of the Names! Sankhama-i-dhiyam, O Lord of the Names! Sankhama-i-dhiyam, O Lord of the Names! Sankhama-i-dhiyam, O Lord of the Names! Wacked by the Lord! The right Reverend Montzenegro Putin-Jay Sheen now addresses the Catholic Hour audience. Montzenegro Sheen has entitled today's talk, the first word to the cross, a word to humanists, Montzenegro Sheen. Friends, on this first Sunday of Lent, may I renew the appeal for an hour a day to be spent in prayer by every Jew, Protestant and Catholic. Catholic should attend Mass daily as part of their holy hour. Remembering always that the world is under the chastisement of God, and we must do penance, and return to God before we will have peace. And in an effort to break down at His Semitism and at Echristianity in this country, we have written a little booklet entitled Friends, which we will send you free for they asking. It is only by loving God that we will ever learn to love one another. There are millions of souls in this great country of ours who have no religion whatsoever. There attitudes vary from a very earnest yearning for religion to an intense hatred of it. It is quite possible that they all could be reduced to seven distinct categories. Our Lord spoke seven times from the cross. These are called His seven last words. But those who were on Calvary's Hill that afternoon address seven words to Him, thus revealing the seven different impacts the cross makes on souls. The first of the seven possible attitudes toward the cross is that of humanism. The term humanist is here under Sturdiness modern philosophical sense, and embraces all those who want a religion without a cross. The humanist, for example, believes that man is naturally good, that progress is inevitable through science, and that human reason by its own effort is able to restore peace to the world. The humanist regard all suggestions about faith and grace and prayer and the supernatural order as the impractical and unnecessary. They want an education of self-expression, a God without justice, a morality without religion, a Christ without His cross, a Christianity without sacrifice, and a kingdom of God without redemption. The humanists of our day had their prototypes on Calvary on Good Friday. They were those whom sacred scripture calls the Passers-by, a significant term indeed, for it suggests those who never remain long enough with religion to know anything about it. Those who think themselves wise because they have a passing acquaintance with our Lord. It was they who speak the first word to the cross, and they said, Vah, vow that destroys the temple of God, and in three days just rebuild it, say it by own self. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. He is no sooner on the cross than they ask Him to come down. The world is always saying that, come down from your belief in divinity, come down from your teaching in hell, come down from your belief that what God has joined together no man can put a sander. Come down from your belief that Christ will preserve the church even to the consummation of the world. Come down from your belief in divinity, come down and we will believe. And all the while that mob years there comes from the cross, the answer, Father forgives them. They know not what they do. They said, if thou be the Son of God, humanists are certain only of humanity, not of divinity, but he spoke of God, Father. They said, come down. They judged power by deliverance from pain. He said, forgive. He judged power by deliverance from sin. They boasted of their knowledge in superior wisdom, and he reminded them that all their wisdom was ignorance. They know not what they do. Religion, the humanist's cyst must be a religion of love, and who speaks more of brotherhood than humanists. But they want to love without the cross. And the word of our blessed Lord seems to imply that that is impossible, for how shall love forgive without first satisfying justice. Shall love mean to let the sinner go on sinning, or shall it mean to make the sinner sinless? A religion without a cross. That is the essence of humanism. Now what we want to do here is not to prove that the humanists are wrong, but we want to try to make them understand the meaning of the cross, and now very much it symbolizes the love of God. And so we speak directly to the humanists. You have humanized God, and gosh, you have dehumanized man. By denying man can be supernatural, you have not left him even natural. For every man wants to be more than he is. You have tried to make all men brothers, but you have forgotten that men cannot be brothers unless they have a common father, and God cannot be a father unless he has his son, to whom we all are patterned as brothers, swine our content. But you, humanists, are not content with humanity. For now, like monsters of the deep man, prays on man. In godless hands man has withered like a rose without roots. You make a republic of kings, but you have no one to crown or annoy them. The tragedy of your humanism is believing that dirty things are clean, that the cruel are kind and hence there is no need for a cross. Come down, and we will believe. To you all men are good. There are halos even in hell, and so on Calvary's hill you stand, and ask in semen wisdom for a Christ without a cross, why he answers you forgives. Do you not know that to have a world without a cross is in itself a cross? Do you know a mother worthy of the name, who would not take the pain of her tender babe as her very own, because she loves that babe? Why then should not supreme love in the face of evil seek to take the penalty which sin deserves that the evil might be innocent again? Then why do you say come down, and we will believe? If he came down in whom would you believe? Why are we at war? If it is not because sin is in some human blood, and only in the shedding of just blood can there be redemption and remission of sin? Why not see then that great evils can be conquered only by the shedding of the blood of the God-made man upon the cross? Why then do you say come down, and we will believe, for if he came down where would love be? Grater love than this no man has, let a man lay down his life for his friends. Do you believe that you, who out of love for neighbor can sacrifice yourself, can do that which God cannot do? Truly you know not what you do. Have you, human, as ever seen, love stand up against brute force and go down, simply because it would not cease to love? Love without power is destroyed by evil, but love armed with power will die rather than surrender love, and that is our Lord on the cross. God in becoming man must suffer too, as man suffers, else how could love be love if it costs not the lover? Did not your gaities say, if I ever God this world of sin would break my heart? Well, that is just what it did to him. It broke his heart. Why then if your love for man is sometimes met by sneer and scorn, do you say to a Christ whose God love was crucified, come down, and we will believe, in what can you believe if love must love without a cross and sacrifice? The cross is eternal, it cannot be dug up, it cannot be taken down, it is the court of creation, it is the root of all of our lesser calibres, of all the sacrifices of all our soldiers in this war. It is God who gives the cross, and it is the cross that gives us God. You want the cross, but you do not want the crucifix. The cross you can wear as a charm, what the crucifix you cannot. Somehow or other when you look at it, you feel involved. A statue of Buddha does not stir you, but just put a crucifix on your desk for three days and see what it does to you. Remember the days of the French Revolution when a mob swept into the Tweederies through a room after room it went to stroy, then through a closed door and low and behold a chapel. Above the tabernacle hung the crucifix. A hush fell upon the unraged mob and someone cried, hats off! Every head was bowed, then every knee was bent. Indifference was impossible, then a humanist took the crucifix down, hung it in an adjoining house, and the wild tide of destruction rolled on. They had taken Christ down from his cross. Now they could proceed, religion was comfortable. No wonder men want Christ to come down. They want a cross but not a crucifix. A crucifix perils your soul. You stand unmoved before the sphinx, but the Christ on his cross in some way gets into your heart and into your soul. You acknowledge your guilt. Suppose that our Lord did come down from the cross as you bad. Then He would have forced you to have done His will, where then would be your freedom. One day He will come without His cross, bearing it rather than being born upon it, but that will be to judge and to stroy a cannot to heal as now. For then the day of healing will be passed. The human never long remains the humanist. For either beast or angel man becomes, but not just man. If you came from the beast, you cannot leave the beast behind. But if you came from God, then you can leave humanity behind and be a child of God. This is true humanism where man finds his center in his source. Before it is too late then my dear humanist, is this your plea? Come down and we will believe. Rather listen to that word he answered you. Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Forgiveness is not cheap. If He offered forgiveness to you without a cross, you would not take it. But from a nail pierced hand, how can you refuse? That cross is the price that God had to pay to buy you from your sins. Without it there is neither sin nor God. If you rise in the scale of nobility, do you not choose pain and trouble and sacrifice for others rather than comfort and ease? Then why do you not choose Him who did just those very things for you? May you, after having listened to the first word of our Lord from the cross, be captured by His love. And with the poet, let this be your tale. I slipped His fingers. I escaped His feet. I ran and hid. For Him I feared to meet. One day I fasted Him, fattered on a tree. He turned His head and looked, and deiconed me. Neither by speed nor strength could he prevail. Each hand and foot was pinnion by a nail. He could not run nor clast me if he tried, but with his eyes. He badly reaches the height. For pity's take thought I, I'll set you free. There take this cross, said He, and follow me. The yoke is easy, the burden light, not hard nor grievous. If you wear it tight. And so did I follow Him who could not have moved, an uncought captive in the hands of love. God love you. Monsignor Sheen has just delivered in address and titled, the first word to the cross, a word to humanists. Those of our listeners who would like a copy of this talk for further reference may obtain it by writing to the National Council of Catholic Men Washington, DC, or to their favorite NBC station. The little booklet, Friends, which Monsignor Sheen has offered to all who will write for it, has not yet been received from the printer. We ask those who have already requested the booklet to understand that this delay is due to wartime conditions over which we have no control. Copies will be put in the mail immediately after we receive them. If you have not yet sent in a request for your copy, please do so now, so that you may be assured of receiving your booklet as soon as possible. As the choir's next selection, Mr. Foley, has chosen the hymn, Jesus, Jesus, come to me. Come now, my friends, and best, take possession of my best. Come now, my friends, come to me. Come now, my friends, and best, take possession of my best. Come now, my friends, and best, take possession of my best. Give me my true Savior, Jesus, come to me. Come now, my friends, and best, take possession of my best. O, I sign for thee, Jesus, give us all true He is. And now we invite all those listening to join Mansi Nushin in offering up this prayer in time of war. O Lord, Jesus Christ, who in thymers thee, hear us the prayers of sinners, for forth we besiege thee all grace and blessing upon our country and its citizens. We pray in particular for the President, for our Congress, for all our soldiers, for all who defend us in ships weather on the seas or in the skies, for all who are suffering the hardships of war. We pray for all who are in peril or in danger. Bring us all after the troubles of this life into the haven of peace and reunite us all together forever, O dear Lord, in thy glorious heavenly kingdom. Next Sunday at this time, Mansi Nushin will deliver a talk entitled, the second word to the cross, a word to sinners, and the choir of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament will perform the music on the program. We invite you to be with us then. In the next week on today's program was directed by Warren Foley, your announcer is John Patrick Costello. The National Council of Catholic Men has presented the Catholic Hour through the facilities of the National Broadcasting Company and its independent affiliated stations, which have been made available as a public service and as a contribution to the religious life of America. This is the National Broadcasting Company.