One Lord, One World, No. 11 of 16 No. 11 of 16

For the glory of the Lord from the Lord. 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. For the glory of the Lord, for the glory of the Lord. Today the Catholic Hour brings you the right-reverent mon-signor Fulton J. Sheen who will deliver the eleven in the series of sixteen addresses under the general title, One Lord, One World. The musical selections on our program will be performed by the choir of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City, under the of Warren Fulton. Mr. Fulton J. Now directs the choir in the polyphonic work of the great 16th century Roman School. It is polystremous setting of secrute sheriffs as the heart pantith after the thountains of water. So my soul pantith after thee, O Lord. And now the right-reverent mon-signor Fulton J. Sheen addresses our audience. The title of mon-signor Sheen's talk is the third word to the cross, a word to the selfish mon-signor Sheen. Friends, the most common sin in the whizz selfishness. Selfishness assumes that the goal of living is the satisfaction of one's own ego, concentrating on self, the selfish hate themselves. Doing always what they like, they hate what they do. Having their own way, they block the way and lose the way. Unable to get on with themselves, they never get on with anyone else. When the selfish become learned, they define religion in the language of a contemporary philosopher as what a man does with his own solidarianism. When the selfish are in distress, they ask, why should God do this to me? And when the selfish sin, they say, are as my sin due to anyone else. The selfish people of today were on Calvary's hill in their representative, who was the thief on the left. He had heard the blasphemy and the pride of his companions, thief, broken, when out of a consciousness of sin they called on the Lord of mercy. With that experience, left, the thief on the left untouched. One can be so close to God physically and yet miss him spiritually. Turning to the Lord on the central cross, that wicked thief on the left in the supreme expression of selfishness cried out with bitterness of soul, if thou be Christ, save thyself and us. He was the first Marxist. Long before Lasi was saying, religion is the opium of the people. To him a religion that thinks only of souls when men are dying, which bids them look to God at the moment when courts are inflicting injustice, which talks about pie in the sky when stomachs are empty and bodies rack with pain, which talks about forgiveness, when the social outclass, two thieves and a despised proletariat, a village carpenter, are dying on a scaffold. That kind of religion is a religion that is the opium of the people. If there was to be salvation for the thief on the left, it was not to be spiritual or moral but physical. That is why he said, saved thyself and us. Save what? Our souls? No. Man has no soul. Our bodies? What good is religion if it cannot stop pain? Step down from across, rescue a class or pamper selfish interests. Christianity is either a social gospel or it is a drug. Such was the message of that thief. Our Lord did not answer him directly, but He did answer him rather indirectly. When looking down from the cross, He addressed himself to the two most beloved creatures on earth, Mary, his mother, and John, his disciple. But He did not address them as Mary and as John. If He had called them by their names, they would have remained what they were. Represented, he was of a certain class. If He had said mother, she would have been his mother and no one else's. And if He said, John, He would have been the son of Zabidi and the son of no one else. So He said, when He spoke to Mary, woman, and He called John son. Woman, behold thy son. Son, behold thy mother. He was saying that religion is not what a man does with his own solitariness, but rather what he does with his relationships. He called Mary and John into a relationship as wide as the world. In a certain sense, he declassified them. She was no longer to be his mother alone, as he was the new Adam. She was to be the new Eve. He had told her about a year before that there were other ties in those of flesh and blood, namely the spiritual bond of those who do the will of God. And to her all this new relationship as the mother of Christians, he calls her woman. It was high summons to universal motherhood. And John, who up to this point is the son of Zabidi, is not called John. So that would have been to keep the ties of blood, he is addressed as son. Son, behold thy mother. Jesus was the first born of Mary's flesh, but John was the first born of her spirit at the foot of the cross. And perhaps Peter the second and maybe Andrew the third, James the fourth, we, the millions and the millions born. Our Lord was setting up a new family, a new social relationship. Say, John, take care of my mother. Nor did he say, Mary, look after John as you would me. No, having established a new relationship between Mary and John, namely that of motherhood and sonship, the duties to one another flowed quite naturally. The essence of religion is fellowships based on our relationship to God and our relationship to fellow man. That is why as you look back on the life of our blessed Lord, that he said nothing about slavery. Because he knew that slavery would never be eradicated until men saw themselves related one to another on the basis of equality as children of God. Our Lord never gave a discourse on the need of child clinics. He was the son of God first proclaimed the value of a child to a pagan world by becoming a child. He said nothing about the necessity of democracy. But he laid the foundations for it. When he told Pilate, for example, what we, over 1,700 years later, wrote in the Declaration of Independence, that all rights and all liberties come from God. Our Lord never said anything about the rights of labor. But he dignified labor as a vocation by working as a carpenter, he who carpentered the universe. He said nothing about creating servants decently, but he girded himself with a towel and washed the feet of his own apostles, saying, and whom, however, will be first among you shall be the servant of all. He said nothing about the equal distribution of economic good. But he first made men brothers under the fatherhood of God, and from that distribution would follow. The equality of possessions does not make men brothers. But being brothers makes for economic equality. Communism of themes will never work until we start with a Communism of personal relationships. Individual selfishness cannot be corrected by class selfishness. And until we learn that lesson, we will never have a solution of our economic use. Never, therefore, say religion is a purely personal matter. Because you can no more have a personal religion than you can have a personal son, or a personal astronomy, or an individual mathematics. If your personal religion unites you to God, and my personal religion unites me to God, then there is there not a common relationship between us and the common father. That is, we do not allow ourselves to be determined by something outside ourselves. Does each one do whatever he pleases? Call out his own selections, take the baton from the conductor or whistle his own tune. Then why, when the subject is religion, whether conductor is God, should we insist on our own individual ideas? Or say religion is what I think about God. Rather religion is what God wants it to be. Hence I must speak his will, not mine. I must discover his truth, not elaborate my opinion. Nor is the truth as they. The way that I conduct my life is nobody's business but my own. Or my sin harms no one else. Could you throw a stone into the sea without causing ripples, which would affect even the most distant shore? A scientist tells us that even the rattle of a child which is dropped from the cradle affects in some way even the most distant star. How do we think that our moral actions can be devoid of social repercussions? Morality is essentially a relationship. And the relationship of threefold character, the relationship between myself and my conscience, between myself and my neighbor, and between myself and my God. And you cannot think of a single wrong deed in the world which does not disturb all these relationships. Even the most secret sins take for a exemplary strong hatred, even though it does not express itself in violence. First it disturbs your relationship to yourself, physically by perhaps upsetting your stomach, mentally by creating a complex or a tension between your ideal and what you actually are, and morally, by a remorse of conscience. And secondly your hatred disturbs your relationship to your neighbor by diminishing the content of love in the world. And if enough individual did exactly what you did, we would have a war. And thirdly it disturbs your God. For if you are a motor made by God which runs best on the fuel of divine love which God supplies, it follows that you upset both yourself and your happy relationship to Him by trying to run your motor on the fuel of hate. All quarrels, disagreements, wars, strife, and ascensions begin with a false declaration of independence. Independence from God and independence from fellow-man. That is incidentally the reason why. The Jews on the one hand and the Christians on the other are on the wrong track when they attempt to break down intolerance by protests within their own group or class. The Jews will never, never addy-semitism. So long as they protest against intolerance only within their acts, why within their press and completely ignore the intolerance shown to Christians. And identically the same thing is true of Christians until they both protest out of a common relationship. Until the Jews defends the Christian and the Christian the Jew, we will never have peace. In order to bring about this relationship and establish friends with God and with neighbor, with self, with Jew and Christian, we have published this little book, Friends. It will be out this week, right for it. It is yours for the asking. One of the reasons I suppose why does a decline of belief in the divinity of our Lord outside of the church is because the proper understanding of the relationship existing between our Lord and his mother has been destroyed. Very few today ever think of our blessed mother. Would you as a son have much regard for anyone who said he liked you, but who refused to speak to your mother? Well, you think our Lord can feel any differently? Particularly since he gave his mother to us on the cross. Our Lord came to us through Mary, and it will be through Mary that the world will find our Lord again. May the Jews and the Catholics and the Protestants set aside in an hour a week. Pray to God. May the Catholics every morning assist at mass and prolong the mass for half an hour and complete the hour. Very happy to say that many are doing it. May it increase. May you be devoted to our blessed mother. We are her children. Our Lord gave us to her on the cross. And as children, we never grow up. May we say to her in the language and the beautiful language of Mary Dixon's hair. Lovely lady dressed in blue. Teach me how to pray. God was just your little boy. Tell me what to say. Did you lift him up? Sometimes gently on your knee. Did you so him the way? Mother does. To me? Did you ever hold his hand at night? Did you ever try telling him stories of the world? And oh! Did he cry? Do you think he cares if I tell him things? Just little things that happen. And the angels wings make a noise. Can he hear me if I speak low? Does he understand me now? Tell me. For you. Lovely lady dressed in blue. Teach me how to pray. God was your little boy. And you know the way. God love you. Monsignus Scheme has just delivered an address entitled the bird word to the cross. A word to the selfish. Those of our listeners who would like a coffee of this talk or future reference may obtain one by writing to the National Council of Catholic Men Washington, D.C. or to the station to which they are now listening. We ask you to send us your request for the little booklet, Friends, which Monsignus Scheme has offered to all who will write for it. War time conditions in the printing industry have delayed publication of the booklet, but we shall put your copy in the mail as soon as our shipment is received from the printer. Now the choir under Mr. Folley's direction renders Dubois musical setting of the third word from the cross. Woman be whole by son, which is dedicated to those American mothers whose sons have given their lives for their country. The two boys of Pano-Soloists are Richard Beck and Robert Wasker. The voice of the Savior is interpreted by Mr. Folley. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. The woman. We now invite all those listening to join Monsignor Sheen in offering up this prayer in time of war. O Lord Jesus Christ, who in thy mercy hear us the prayers of sinners, for forth we beseech to all grace and blessing upon our country and its citizens. We pray in particular for the President, for our guests, for all our soldiers, for our who defend us in gifts, whether on the spheres 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, Monsignor Sheen will be with us at this same time when he will deliver a talk and title the fourth word, a word to the intelligentsia. Hostelor speaking, 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.