Life of Christ (DF Christian Bestsellers Book 4)

by Fulton J. Sheen

the waters of grace could not flow because of the hard rock’s of sin, the many layers of transgression, the habits formidable as clay, and the multiple deposits of carnal thoughts.

She then did what millions of people have done ever since when religion demands a reformation in their conduct: she changed the subject. She was willing to make religion a matter of discussion, but she did not want to make it a matter of decision.

He was telling her that the little local disputes would vanish very soon. The controversy between Jerusalem and Samaria would be superseded; for, as Simeon had foretold, He would be a Light to the Gentiles.

Indeed the Messias, the Son of God and Savior, would rise from among them and not from the Samaritans. “Salvation” is equivalent to the Savior, for Simeon, while holding the Babe, had declared that his eyes had seen “Salvation.” Israel was the channel through which the salvation of God would be conveyed to the world. It was the tree which had been watered for centuries, and which had now brought forth the consummate flower: the Messias and Savior.

The sun no sooner rises than it shines; the fire is no sooner kindled than it burns; so grace acts as soon as the soul cooperates. She became one of the first home missionaries in the history of Christianity.

It is worth noting that the Samaritan woman told the men of her meeting with Christ. It may well have been that the women in the city would not allow her to associate with them. That is why she came to the well at noon; the other women came in the cool of the morning or in the evening.

This was the first time the phrase “Savior of the world” was used to describe Our Lord. Her spiritual growth was now complete. At first Christ was to her a “Jew,” then a “man,” then “Sir,” then a “Prophet,” then “the Messias,” and at last the “Savior of the world” and “Redeemer from sin.” Conversion might be rapid in some, but it was not complete in this woman until she saw that Our Lord came to save not the just, but sinners.

In contrast to this woman were the Pharisees. They denied sin, but they had all the effects of sin: terror, anguish, fear, unhappiness, and emptiness; by denying the cause, they made the cure impossible. If the starving deny famine, then who shall be the bearer of bread? If the sinners deny sin and guilt, then who can be their Savior?

Two classes of people make up the world: those who have found God, and those who are looking for Him—thirsting, hungering, seeking! And the great sinners come closer to Him than the proud intellectuals! Pride swells and inflates the ego; gross sinners are depressed, deflated and empty. They, therefore, have room for God. God prefers a loving sinner to a loveless “saint.” Love can be trained; pride cannot. The man who thinks that he knows will rarely find truth; the man who knows he is a miserable, unhappy sinner, like the woman at the well, is closer to peace, joy and salvation than he knows.

The story of each man is told in two brief items: born—such a date; died—such a date.

If He was born of a humble maid in a stable, there were angels of heaven to announce His glory; if He lowered Himself to companionship with an ox and an ass in a manger, there was a shining star to lead Gentiles to Him as King; if He was hungry and tempted in the wilderness, there were angels to minister unto Him;

if He humbled Himself as a sinner to receive the baptism of John, there was a Voice from Heaven to proclaim the glory of the Eternal Son Who needed no purification; if there were townspeople to reject Him and throw Him over a cliff, there was the Divine power to walk through the midst of them unharmed;

The words were identical in the Aramaic which Our Blessed Lord spoke, just as they are in French, where the proper name Pierre is the same as pierre, or rock.

These two Apostles, James the Less and Jude, were probably the sons of Cleophas, who was married to Our Lady’s sister.

Imagine Simon the Zealot, an Apostle with Matthew the publican! One was an extreme nationalist, while the other was by profession virtually a traitor to his own people. And yet both were made one by Christ, and later on they would both be martyrs for His Kingdom.

Two mounts are related as the first and second acts in a two-act drama: the Mount of the Beatitudes and the Mount of Calvary. He who climbed the first to preach the Beatitudes must necessarily climb the second to practice what He preached.

The Sermon on the Mount cannot be separated from His Crucifixion, any more than day can be separated from night. The day Our Lord taught the Beatitudes, He signed His own death warrant.

In the Beatitudes, Our Divine Lord takes those eight flimsy catch-words of the world—“Security,” “Revenge,” “Laughter,” “Popularity,” “Getting Even,” “Sex,” “Armed Might,” and “Comfort”—and turns them upside down.

All false beatitudes which make happiness depend on self-expression, license, having a good time, or “Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die,” He scorns because they bring mental disorders, unhappiness, false hopes, fears, and anxieties.

all those rules and codes and precepts which are half measures between instinct and reason, between local customs and the highest ideals. When He said, “You have heard,” He included the Mosaic Law, Buddha with his eightfold way, Confucius with his rules for being a gentleman, Aristotle with his natural happiness, the broadness of the Hindus, and all the humanitarian groups of our day, who would translate some of the old codes into their own language and call them a new way of life. Of all these compromises, He said, “You have heard.”

Wait not until your hidden sins come out as psychoses and neuroses and compulsions. Get rid of them at their sources. Repent! Purge! Evil that can be put into statistics, or that can be locked in jails, is too late to remedy.

The offenses result from our own will, and not from our glands; we cannot excuse our lust because our grandfather had an Oedipus complex, or because we inherited an Electra complex from our grandmother. Sin, He said, is conveyed to the soul through our body, and the body is moved by the will.

Why turn the other cheek? Because hate multiplies like a seed. If one preaches hate and violence to ten men in a row, and tells the first man to strike the second, and the second to strike the third, the hatred will envelop all ten. The only way to stop this hate is for one man (say the fifth in line), to turn his other cheek. Then the hatred ends. It is never passed on. Absorb violence for the sake of the Savior, Who will absorb sin and die for it. The Christian law is that the innocent shall suffer for the guilty.

The four woes would have been ethical condemnations, if He had not died full of the opposite of the four woes: poor, abandoned, sorrowful, and despised. On the Mount of the Beatitudes, He bade men hurl themselves on the cross of self-denial; on the Mount of Calvary, He embraced that very cross.

God is a creditor Who trusts us with His goods until a day is set for the payment of that debt and the rendering of an account of our stewardship. Some are indebted more than others; some, because they have sinned more; others, because they have greater gifts; some receive ten talents, others five, still others one. It could have been that the woman’s sins were like a debt of five hundred pieces of silver, while Simon’s were only like a debt of fifty. But in the end, both were debtors, and neither could pay the debt.

Accordingly, the talents don't mean necessarily capacities or virtues to accomplish something -as they are usually understood- but rather debts of mercy with God, acting as burdens that need to be relieved somehow. Fundamentally they mean how merciful God has been with each one of us and, hence, how merciful we should be with each other

The love of this woman grew in proportion to her gratitude for pardon. It was not the quantity of sin, but rather the consciousness of it and the mercy extended in its forgiveness, which manifested the great love of this penitent woman. Much was forgiven her; therefore she loved much.

He who makes light of sin will make light of forgiveness. He who makes light of really serious wounds will never appreciate the power of the physician.

The seriousness of sin rises in proportion as Christ is approached. Standing close to the Cross and feeling the agonies of Him Whose death was necessary for sin’s atonement,

The woman before Him had her debt of sin blotted out, but she had no idea how much it cost Him. All the tokens of tenderness the sinful woman showed Him, He would receive again in another form.

The ungodly like religion in the same way that they like lions, either dead or behind bars; they fear religion when it breaks loose and begins to challenge their consciences.

They went out just to see someone, not to hear someone; to satisfy the concupiscence of their eyes, but not to imitate the temperance and self-denial of the Baptist.

Herod did not believe in a future life; no sensual man does. Belief in immortality dies easily in those who live in such a way that they cannot face the prospect of a judgment. A future life is denied not so much by the way one thinks as by the way one lives.

This was the second time that He declined a crown; the first was when Satan offered Him the kingship of the world, if He would fall down and adore him. “My Kingdom is not of this world,” He would tell Pilate later on.

the throne would be the Cross, and His Kingship would be over hearts.

it was in the midst of darkness, storm, and danger that Christ came, planting His feet on the white crests of the raging sea.

The Lord bade Peter come; but after a few moments Peter began to sink. Why? Because he took account of the winds; because he concentrated on natural difficulties; because he trusted not in the power of the Master and failed to keep his eyes on Him.

To lift their carnal minds to Eternal Food, He suggested that they seek the Heavenly Bread the Father authorized or sealed. Oriental bread was often sealed with the official mark or name of the baker. In fact, the Talmudic word for “baker” is related to the word “seal.”

But it was only because that human nature would be linked to a Divine Personality for all eternity that He could give eternal life to those who received it. And when He said that He would give that for the life of the world,

He, Who was born in Bethlehem, the “House of Bread” and was laid in a manger, a place of food for lower animals, would now be to men, so inferior to Him, their Bread of Life.

whenever anyone correctly understood what He said, but found fault with it, He repeated what He said. And in this discourse, Our Lord repeated five times what He had said about His Body and Blood. The

The masses tried to force Him to become a king. That is what Satan wanted, too! Fill gullets, turn stones into bread, and promise prosperity—this is the end of living to most mortals.

From that day on, Christ never won the masses; within twenty months they would shout, “Crucify!” as Pilate would say, “Behold your King.” Christ cannot keep everybody united with Him: it is His fault; He is too Divine, too interested in souls, too spiritual for most men.

Christ lost both the chaff and the wheat when He spoke of Himself as the Bread of Life. But now came the break which caused Him the greatest of all sorrow—a sorrow so great that, a thousand years before, it had been prophesied as one of those human rents which would torture His soul—the loss of Judas. Many wonder why Judas broke with Our Lord; they think it was only at the end of Our Lord’s life, and that it was only love of money that forced the break. Avarice, indeed it was; but the Gospel tells us the astounding story that Judas broke with Our Divine Lord the day He announced the giving of His Flesh for the life of the world.

At this promise of the Heavenly Bread, Judas cracked; and at the giving of the Eucharist on the night of the Last Supper, Judas split wide open and betrayed.

The darkness into which His death cast them was another proof of how little prepared they were for the scandal of the Cross. It was no wonder that Our Lord did not speak more often about His Cross; for the little they did hear, they did not want to hear or else they misunderstood.

Just as sex is a God-given instinct for the prolongation of the human race, so the desire for property as a prolongation of one’s ego is a natural right sanctioned by natural law. A person is free on the inside because he can call his soul his own; he is free on the outside because he can call property his own.

There was no condemnation of wealth here as there was no condemnation of marriage in the previous enquiry; but there was a higher perfection than the human. As a man might leave his wife, so also a man might leave his property. The Cross would demand that souls give up what they loved most and be content with the treasure in God’s hands.

There are degrees in the love of God, one common and the other heroic. The common was the keeping of the commandments; the heroic was renouncement, the taking-up of the cross of voluntary poverty.

Those who choose Christ must choose Him for His own sake, and not for the sake of a reward. It was only after they had completely committed themselves to following Him that He spoke of compensation. He had recommended the Cross; now He would speak of the glory which would be its inevitable consequence:

He who was only a good man could never claim to be the Light of the World; for there would cling to him some of the trappings and faults of even the best human nature. Buddha wrote a code which he said would be useful to guide men in darkness, but he never claimed to be the Light of the World.