One Lord, One World, No. 13 of 16 No. 13 of 16

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 the Catholic Hour brings you Monsignor Sheen who will deliver the 13th in a series of sixteen addresses under the general title One Lord, One World. The choir of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament New York will render the music, and we shall present as our guest soloist Mary Van Kirk of the Metropolitan Opera Company and Mary Anna Kanaisal Distinguished Concert Violinist. The music will be under the direction of Warren Foley. The choir now sings the trumpet shell sound from Brahms Requiem. The music will be under the direction of Warren Foley. The music will be under the direction of Warren Foley. The music will be under the direction of Warren Foley. The music will be under the direction of Warren Foley. The music will be under the direction of Warren Foley. The music will be under the direction of Warren Foley. The music will be under the direction of Warren Foley. The music will be under the direction of Warren Foley. The music will be under the direction of Warren Foley. The music will be under the direction of Warren Foley. The right Reverend Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen has entitled today's Catholic hour talk, the fifth word to the cross, a word to the moderns, Monsignor Sheen. Friends, the modern world is full of moderns. And by the moderns we hear understand those who believe in what they call moderation. They hate excesses, either of good or of evil. Compromise is the very essence of life. They have an open mind. So very open it can close on nothing. They are what the scriptures call du quorum, but they prefer to call themselves broad. The moderns are good people by the standards of the world. They have their daughter married in a church where she was never baptized. They like Easter Sunday services, particularly the fashion parade which follows. In discussion they feel that a pretty good case can be made out for the existence of some power behind the universe. They read about seven books a year, all novels chosen either because they were widely advertised or because their neighbors read them. They serve on hospital boards, current teachers associations, contribute to birth control clinics and Russian relief, but always within the 12 percent allowed by the income tax. They send their children to the best schools they can afford. They never send them to church, but they let them go to the movies twice a week. They take their politics from radio commentator and their economics from a son who had just had a year of it under a Marxist professor in college. They think there are too many divorces, but after all we are not living in the middle ages. They believe the majority is always right. That religion probably does add some sentiment and symbolism to life. They are what their neighbors call good people. Their words are correct, their manners cutious, they shrink from giving pain to others, they discontinence great crime, cursing and swearing to them are vulgar. They are our good moderns. What is the reaction of the moderns to the cross? Well in order to understand how they would react, we need only go back to their ancestors who address the fifth word to the cross. The gospel calls them bystanders. These original moderns too love their puns and their humor at the expense of religion. And the occasion for it was the fourth word of our Lord from the cross. My God, my God, why hast thou abandoned me? It was spoken in Hebrew, aili, aili, alama, sabaktani. The bystanders knew very well what those words meant. But two those who will to mock, it was a fine opportunity for a pun, pretending that they understood him to say Elias, rather than God. They said, this man calleth Elias. Let us see whether Elias will come to deliver him. It was a typical attitude of many who think religion means something else than it actually does. Mistaking Elias for religion, religion for social service, contemplation for dreaming, modification for morbidity, confession for psychoanalysis and the papacy for politics. The ditty-tombs and the moderns always think we are calling on Elias when we are actually calling on God. There are very words indicated, Pacificity, indifference and false caution. For they said, let us see whether Elias will come to deliver him. Wait. Take your time. Do not do anything right. Wait and see what the church does about Marxism. Maybe it will change its marriage laws. Do not be in a hurry to give your soul to God. Wait and see. They are always waiting for bargains and religions, but there are none. So our Lord answered them. Not directly, but indirectly. To the bystanders and the over-cautious moderns, He gave the key to salvation. The need of fire for a cause that is as burning as thirst. For almost three hours now He had remained bare-headed except for a crown of thorns under that burning, blinding sun. While from four fountains their poured out life in the form of blood, it was therefore natural for him to ask for a drink. He the God-man. He who shut up to sea with doors when it did burst forth as issuing out of a womb. He who threw stars in their orbits and spheres into space. He who once stood up in the temple on the last day of a solemn feast and cried out in a loud voice, if any man thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Now he speaks, not to God, not to the executioners, not to his mother but to man, and out from the depths of his sacred heart there wells the cry, I thirst. While the bystanders were like ice, he was on fire. While they caressed in shallow streams, he launched out into the deep. While they stand by and wait, he plunges in that one cry through both fire and water. While the moderns are saying, let us wait and see, our Lord answers now. Be a first. Be a fire. I am come to cast fire on earth. And what will I but that it be in kindles? Religion in other words is not for calculating love. One must love life like wine and drink death like water. Religion is love and love is fire. And that was why chose persons of fire. He always chosen for his disciples, sons of thunder, for example, like James and John, who would have called down from lightning from heaven to the Samaritans, but whose view once rightly directed, truly thundered through a world. He chose a hot blooded fiery and petuous Peter, swinging his sword recklessly at night. Yet one who out of love for the master breathes his last upon a cross upside down, thinking it on becoming to die like the Lord. He chose Magdalene, passionate, sensuous and wild, the kind of a woman who gave her body without ever giving away her soul. Yet the one who under the touch of Christ's fiery hands gave her body and penance to save souls in grace. There is no place for spineless characters in religion. There is more possibility for conversion, in passion wrongly directed than in indifference. More in those who thirst than those who are filled, where there is fire, that direction can always be changed by God's grace, so that it will burn upward rather than downward, thus in Kindle goodness rather than vice. But where there is indifference, false tolerance, spineless broad-mindedness, that ashtows is all causes, and yet really accepts none, and there's that kind of mentality that there is no chance for salvation. There are many potential saints in prison, and many potential devils in the service of God. In both cases there is a thirst, a thirst for Satan and a thirst for God, and neither thirst could be reversed. Lenin, for example, was a saint-francise in reverse, and Saint Francis was Lenin in reverse. Both started with the idea of violence. Lenin believed in violence to others. Saint Francis believed in violence to himself. They both had the same starting point. Violence is our Lord had said the kingdom of heaven suffered of violence, and the violence shall bear it away. It was the direction of that violence that made the difference between Saint Francis and Lenin. He can love spring from the same passion as laughter and sorrow drink from the same fountain of tears. The difference is in the motive and the end for which they live. The genius is something that either must be hated or loved. It cannot be watched as the moderns do it. There are too many people in this world who get credit for being good when they're just passive. They're often praised for bringing broad-minded, when they're so broad-minded they could never make up their minds about anything. They're like icebergs that float around the cold streams of the North. They deserve no credit for being icebergs. They cannot help it. With let those icebergs get down among the warm Gulf streams of the South and remain icebergs. They have character. Those are the souls for which God thirsts. And so do you moderns. To have no great enthusiasm, I say. It is not what you know that is true which keeps you from salvation. It is what you know that is false. You moderns will never be convinced of religion by argument. For the chances are you've already had sufficient knowledge. What you need is good will. You are skeptics. And the best cure for skeptic poisoning is love. Develop a little fire, little enthusiasm. God has no use for tepid souls. Love your neighbor with a non-selfish dedicated passion at love and you will find your gods. And that is why this year we chose to give away on the air this little booklet called Friends. Northern the midst of bigotry and at ease, tematism and aty Christianity to inspire a thirst for God and love of neighbor. If you write for this little booklet we will send it to you free. And I beg you moderns therefore visit the sick and hospitals, the poor and the slums. Give them some of your possessions and listen to these people. Notice the different attitudes of those who have faith and those who have it not. How peaceful are in suffering those who have faith and how rebellious the others are. Have you ever noticed that? And slowly you will come to see that if God can make that much difference in their suffering lives, what a great difference He could make in your own. Suffered deeply and sympathy with others. Love them in a non-selfish way and you will learn more than you ever learn from books. Elias will never come to you but Christ will come in suffering and in need. It is He who was asking for it. For I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. I was a stranger and you took me in naked and you clothe me. Sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. That word of our Lord from the cross reveals the secret of your unhappiness. It is your lukewarmness. You moderns have no great loves. You are not on fire. You never first. Even we who have the faith know the Savior in His cross as well have been infected sometimes with this specificity of yours. We too are lukewarm. The cohorts of Satan today have unfortunately more passion for the spreading of evil than the children of God have for the spreading of truth. As prometius stole the fire from heaven so the pentecostal fires have been stolen from our order and now are blazing in the temples of anti-God. That is why we ask for fire in the shape of a holy hour from every Jew and every Protestant and every Catholic in this radio audience. Every day set aside an hour. And Catholics attend Mass every morning and spend an extra half hour to complete that hour. This war will stop through our prayers. This is the real balance of power, the prayer and trust of men and gods. All of us are moderns in a certain sense. We do not love as we are. God is a consuming fire and we are puny embers. Christ came to cast fire on earth and we throw up a smoke screen. We are all waiting for Elias to take him down. Why do we not do it and do it now? We go up to Calvary but we come down uncrucified and woe. I say woe unto us that come down from Calvary with hands, unscored and white. From the cross the Savior cries, I thirst and we reach him vinegar and go. If that cross means anything, it means that our human goodness is not good enough. And well may the Savior say to us, you call me master and obey me not. You call me light and seek me not. You call me way and what not. You call me life and desire me not. You call me wise and follow me not. You call me fair and love me not. You call me rich and ask me not. You call me eternal and seek me not. You call me gracious and trust me not. You call me noble and serve me not. You call me mighty and honor me not. You call me just and feed me not. If I condemn thee, blame me not. God love you. Monsignor Sheen has just addressed the Catholic-Hour audience on the subject the fifth word to the cross, a word to the moderns. Those of our listeners who would like a copy of this talk, as well as a copy of Monsignor Sheen's little booklet, Friends, which is now available, may obtain them by writing to the National Council of Catholic Men or to the station to which you are now listening. Yesterday the church commemorated the day on which the angel Gabriel announced to the Blessed Virgin that she was to be the mother of God. In honor of this feast, Miss Mary Van Kirk of the Metropolitan Opera Company sings the Ave Maria by Schubert in an arrangement by Mr. Foley, the violin obliquato is by Mariana Canaibal. Mariana Canaibal. Mariana Canaibal. Mariana Canaibal. Mariana Canaibal. Mariana Canaibal. Mariana Canaibal. Mariana Canaibal. Mariana Canaibal. Mariana Canaibal. Mariana Canaibal. Mariana Canaibal. Mariana Canaibal. Mariana Canaibal. Mariana Canaibal. Mariana Canaibal.