Peace, No. 17 of 17 No. 17 of 17

The National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with the National Council of Catholic Men presents the Catholic Hour. The Catholic Hour opens with the singing of the sequence, Vicktume Pascale-Laudes, by a group of the Polish choristers. Five sequences have been retained in the missile, occupying a very prominent position, both in the missile and in the library of ecclesiastical music. Vicktume Pascale-Laudes, the sequence appointed for Easter, is the oldest now in use and is attributed to the first half of the 11th century. Vicktume Pascale-Laudes, the first half of the 11th century, is the oldest now in use and is attributed to the first half of the 11th century. The Catholic Hour opens with the singing of the sequence, Vicktume Pascale-Laudes, the first half of the 11th century, is attributed to the first half of the 11th century. The Catholic Hour opens with the singing of the sequence, Vicktume Pascale-Laudes, the first half of the 11th century, is attributed to the first half of the 11th century. Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen of the Catholic University of America, who now delivered the last in his series of 17 addresses on the General Subject Peace. His discourse today is entitled, The Resurrection, I present Monsignor Sheen. Friends, celebrating Easter in a world that is more like a good Friday, and hearing the chance of peace amidst the explosions of war makes us wonder what lesson this blessed feast could have for these tragic days. The answer is to be found in two distinct scenes in the life of our Lord. The first scene took place in the Garden of Gethsemane. When the Savior in the full majesty of His person goes out to meet the devil in the guise of Judas, he surrenders himself into the hands of Judas and the soldiers with these words. This is your hour and the power of darkness. The important word here is our. For apparently evil has its hour and uses it to turn out the light of the world and to deliver it over to the stigian darkness of despair. The second scene took place earlier in the Lord's life when the Pharisees sought to get rid of Him by making Him fearful of Herod, whom they said intended to kill Him. The supreme value of the stories in the answer our Lord gave. In effect He said, go tell that fox who has a mind to kill me that he is helpless. He cannot kill me until I have done my work and I have three days work to do. This was figurative language. Two of these days are for works of convincing men of his divinity. But the third day will be the day of mystery and perfection. The important word here is day. Put the two scenes together and there emerges this lesson. Evil has its hour but God has his day and that evil hour is inseparable from God's day. Worm with it unless the seed has its hour when it falls to the ground and dies. It will never have the day when it rises forth to the unison of life. Without the war with evil and its hour there will never be the day of peace. Unless there is a good Friday in our lives they will never be an Easter Sunday. Unless there is a crown of thorns there will never be the halo of light. Unless there is the skirt's body there will never be the glorified body. And there is the answer to the question of Easter. How can we celebrate Easter in a world that is like a good Friday? By seeing in this war the operation of God's law that without this hour of suffering and sacrifice we might never come to a national resurrection. Did we but realize it? Peace is not a passive but an active condition. It is not something that is given. It is something that is achieved. Our blessed Lord never said, blessed are the peaceful. But He did say, blessed are the peace-makers. Peace must be made, it must be worn in a battle. Good Friday was not the day of appeasement. And therefor Easter was not a day of false peace. God hates peace in those who are destined for war. Evil has its hour but God will have his day. And so much is that hour of suffering and tragedy apart of the day. But in the triumph of his resurrection, our divine Lord keeps the scars that He receives in the hour of His defeat. And He keeps those scars for all eternity. And on the last day when He shall come in the clouds of heaven to judge the living and the dead. He will show them his pledges of his victory. He is a prince of peace but only because he was once a captain of ours, the Lord of hosts. Soldiers wear medals for bravery. But He wears His glorious scars as radiant sons in hands and feet inside. Scars that He received, the day that He fought in the battle for peace. The via-crutious is the via-potches. The way of the cross is the way of peace. To pass through that hour of evil alone in itself is no guarantee that we will have peace. We have to pass through that hour with Him. The thief on the left on Good Friday had his hour but it was not born in union with our divine Lord. And therefore it profited Him nothing. The thief on the right on the contrary passed through His hour in union with Christ. And therefore came to His day. And our Lord called it just that this day paradise. The same Paul has said this saying is true. If we die with Him, we shall also live with Him. Now apply this lesson that only those who pass through Calvary's hour with Him shall ever come to the day of victory. Look out upon the nations of the world, accept our own. Look at Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Finland, Italy, Philippines, Greece, Russia, the Balkan States, Mexico and Spain. Think of how many are suffering in these lands. And I speak only of those who are in these lands are suffering in the name of Christ. There must be hundreds of thousands of them in these lands. They are having there are. There are of darkness of famine and of hate. Above all the battlefields of the world, beyond the theme of national slogans, the scheming of foxes, the debates of politics, the selfish classes of economic forces, there is one common pond, united them all. They are all prostrate before the cross of Christ. They have all been kissed by some Judas, smitten by some soldier, misjudged by some Caiaphas, mocked by some herids, crucified under some pilots, and in this there are of darkness. They have a pledge that if the Easter law holds true and it does, to the extent that their sufferings are one with him, they will rise again. Not because of any reshuffling of politicians or any new theory of economics will arise, for politics again will fail. Economists again will blunder. Foxes will be caught in their own tracks. Schemers will be caught in their own schemes, but because these hundreds of thousands of chosen souls have been signed with a sign of the cross and sealed with a seal of salvation, because they have borne their cross in Christ. In that hour they will rise with Christ. This war to them is the soaring of a seed evil has its hour, but God will have his day. Applied is less than now to our own country. If it be true that those who have already had their hour with Christ will have their day with him, then the inverses true, we shall have our day of victory only on condition that we have an hour of darkness with Christ. We want victory in America. We all want it. Victory with justice. But Easter teaches us that there can be no day of victory unless we pass through the hour of struggle. Against evil and in union with the Savior. There's our risen Lord told the disciples that Emmaus, know you not that the Son of man must suffer in order to enter into his glory. It is the only way we can enter into glory. And we Americans have already begun to pass into that hour, that hour of sacrifice. We've not chosen it. It has been forced to punish by our enemies. But we're in it. And like the Savior on Calvary, we are already being stripped. And as he was. But we are being stripped of our rags of self-righteousness. And as we're stripped of these, we'll begin to be great. First of all, we're beginning to die to that false notion that there's no such thing as evil. How often we have said in America in our schools in the last generation. There's no distinction between right and wrong. Good and evil are only points of view. There's no absolute. But now we're dying to that false notion. We are all pointing our fingers across the seas to both the cross-bosses and we're saying they're evil. They're weakets. These men are devils. Well, if they're wrong, then there must be a right. And if there's a devil that wars with God, there must be a God. We're being forced onto God's side. And we're being stripped to of another rags. The false rags of self-expression. There are a few reactionary educators in the United States. We have not yet caught up to the temple that wins the war. We're still talking about self-expression. They want no discipline, no authority, no restraint. But fortunately, we're being stripped of that now by the war. And sacrifice is being imposed upon us. And now, like Nicodemus, we're beginning to see that nations like men must be read porn before they can live. And finally, we're being stripped of another rags, the rags of progress. We've been saying up to this time that progress was in an ascending straight line. That the mere fact that we lived, we got better. The blind cosmic forces were sweeping us on until we became kind of Superman. But this war reveals to us just the contrary. Names that no light becomes better, unrespected dies to allow ourselves. This spring, which we are now enjoying, is not an ascending progress from last spring. It is a result of the death of the old one. In so much fall nations and civilizations die in the tower of darkness before they will come to the day of their victory. There will be, and our abumiliation. Now this, there is no doubt. Our choice as a nation is not between being humbled and not being humbled. The choice is, who shall humble us? Will it be our enemies? Or will we humble ourselves? Let me put it bluntly this way. Would we, as a defeated nation, be more moral, more just and more Christian than we would as a victorious revengeful nation? If we would be more moral as a defeated nation, then we may expect some card to be defeated. That is the only way that we could be bettered. We'll go down to it. But fortunately, it is not the only way. Instead of being humbled by enemies, there is another way we can humiliate ourselves by recognizing that only by and through our share with the redemption of Christ. Can we pass through that hour that will bring us to the day of peace? And if therefore we pass through that hour in such a way that labor lifts up its hands as Christ lifted up his in the carpenter shop? In service of a father. And if carpet like Joseph of Arimathea gives of its wealth for the service of Christ, if women like Magdalene would bring their spices to anoint him, if eduacayers like Nicodemus would come in the dark to find the truth that is his, if soldiers like to wand at the foot of the cross, share the line of their life with him, if we all begin to see him wound it in the wound it, hidden in the loss, destitute in the destitute. If we enter this work of sacrifices he entered the garden, then we never fail the outcome. Why are we for anyone? Only the news has not yet leaked out. We shall have our day of victory in him. If we first have our hour of darkness with him. And if there is anything that adequately describes this Easter message, it is that of the eagle. Eagles build their nest high in the mountains, generally overlooking cliffs and precipices and the vices. When finally the young are hatched, the mother eagle, in virtue of an instinct, in platy in her, begins to stir in that place, and scatter the twigs that cradle the infancy of its young. It nudges one of the eglitz to the edge of the nest, and it shrinks back again in safety. But the mother bird, through the insolable urge of the Creator, finally succeeds in pushing the young over the edge of the nest. Down and down it falls, its feeble wings fluttering in vain to bury it up against what must seem to it's catastrophe and death on the rocks below. But just before the eglitz crushes in the fearful depths, the parent bird swoop under its, down as it upon its great wings, pears it aloft into the sky, and bear debarking its living cargo, allows the young ones to flutter a game and to fall, but not to death. Again the mother bird catches that cargo on its great pinions, lifts it up into the sky, who's on and repeats the process until the bird is learned to fly. Moses is looking out upon a scene of that kind in his own land, said that as the eglitz stireth the nest of its young, so does God stir up the nations. In other words, we have been like those little eglitz. Quite satisfied with the little nest of this world of ours, smug, satisfied and self-complacent, we forgot that we had immortal souls, we forgot that our souls had wings and were destined for God, and can carry us to heights above the earth, because we forgot this destiny, God had us carrying this nest of arms above the earth, because we forgot this destiny, God had us carrying this nest of America, to unearth us from our smug, whirling us, and to make us realize that we had another destiny, and to bring us possibly within our edge into the edge of disaster. We followed her, he would lift us up as an eagle bird does, and carry us back again to the God for whom we were made, and that is indeed an apt figure of America. For America chose as its national symbol, not the lion seeking whom it made of our, not the sly fox laying in wait for its prey, not the voucher, flying above waiting for its carrying, but America, the full consciousness of what we were all supposed to be, chose as its symbol, the eagle, flying upwards and onwards beyond the sky, up past the troubled gateways of the stars, across the margin of the worlds, beyond the hit paddling of the eternity, up through that hour of darkness, to the day of everlasting victory with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. O Lord Jesus Christ. We are in thy mercy herewith the prayers of sinners. For, far, we beseech thee, all grace and blessing upon our country, and its citizens. We pray in particular for the Presidents, for our Congress, for all our soldiers, for all who defend us in ships, whether on the seas, or on 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. This concludes my series of broadcasts for this season. It shall be my honor to be with you again, the first of the year. On January the 3rd, to be exact, your response to the Holy Hour has been marvelous. In a small town in North Carolina, for example, where there was no church, 14 souls under the inspiration of a colored schoolteacher, expressed a desire to come to the fullness of the faith of our Lord. We are going down there this summer, and with the gracious permission of Bishop McGinnis, preach a mission in that little town, and start the first Catholic church in that community. Such things are very encouraging. For you must know that the Catholic Hour has no other standard of success except to bring souls to our divine Lord. With these broadcasts of mine did nothing more than to bring, but one soul in the United States to the feet of our blessed Savior, then they would have been eminently worthwhile. Please, please do not discontinue your daily Holy Hour. America is still at war, and we want America to be on God's side. It will be all right for the Sheen to wear off, but don't let the Holy Hours wear out. And before I take leave of you, my blessing to each of you, to every Jew, to every Protestant, and to every Catholic, I hope that you are closer to God just because you listened. And this personal note, it's a little secret. I am on relief. I come to you begging that relief that I want is your prayers. Would you, whomever you be, be so kind as to bring the little prayer for me occasionally? That I may be a good priest and bring souls to God? That is the only thing in the world that matters. You have been tuning into me, now I want to tune into you. If you will drop me a note, assuring me that you will contribute a prayer to my relief, I shall send you a letter of thanks. In the meantime, I shall meet you every day in the Holy Hour. Or if I may almighty God bless you, may His divine Son extend to you the merits of His redemption and may the Holy Spirit sanctify you. And may our Lady protect you and watch over you. And keep you safe. Bye now. Bye. God loves you. Holy Spirit, open titles, O God, I fight thy duty. It gives us great pleasure to announce that next Sunday at this time, the revered Robert Slaven of the Order of Preachers will open a series of six addresses in the Catholic Hour. His first address is entitled, Dedication to Curage. Your announcer is John Patrick Costello. The Catholic Hour has been presented by NBC in cooperation with the National Council of Catholic Myth as a Public Service, and came to you from New York. This is the National Broadcasting Company.