The good sometimes do wrong. Let us face it. And when they do wrong it is not the same as the evil who do wrong. Evil is an exception in the life of the good; it cuts across the long road of their life as a tangent. But with the evil, good is an exception. A master pianist may hit a wrong note, but everyone still knows him to be a good pianist. A beginner may hit a right note, but everyone knows that he/she is not a good player.

As a result the inner workings of the mind are quite different in the good doing wrong and the evil doing evil. In the latter, a hardening process sets in. Conscience first shouts; then, after repeated chokings it becomes so weak it can only whisper; finally, its voice is stifled altogether. Since such people willed to have no moral law except of their own making, God leaves them alone. It is terrible for the soul when God pursues it and drives it to perfection; but it is more terrible still when He leaves the soul to its own conceits.

The psychological effect is entirely different when those who truly love God do wrong. The difference between them and others is like to that between a waif who steals and a devoted son who steals. The first does not feel the rupture of a relationship; the second does. The latter has hurt one whom he/she really loves. Furthermore, the waif does not feel the urge to restore the broken buds of love, but the ordinary good boy/girl does. There is a mysterious magnet operating in the case of the good. As the steel filings fly to the attraction of the magnet, leaving the dirt behind, so the good are pulled back again to God, but only after having shaken the dust of evil from their lives.

Picture two men married to two old shrews. One man was married before to a beautiful, wise, devoted wife who died. The other never married before. Which of the two suffers the more? Obviously, the man who once knew love and happiness. So, it is with doing evil. He/She who has known the inner peace of soul that comes from union with God undergoes greater agony and torture in his/her sin than the one who never was ushered into such treasures. The rich who become poor suffer more than the poor who never were rich. The soul which offends God Whom he/she loves suffers more than the soul who willed not to have God in his/her life.

This does not mean that the evil do not experience an agony. In the good, the effect of doing evil is moral and leads to repentance. In the evil, the effect is physical and psychological. It shows less in the soul and more in the mind and the body. The moral effect is sorrow, contrition, repentance, which leads to a restoration of fellowship with God and therefore peace. The physical or psychological effect is anxiety, fear, worry, psychoses and neuroses. The good take to the knees when they do wrong; the evil, if they have enough money, betake themselves to a couch. The good want their sins forgiven; the evil want them explained away. The good recover peace of soul; the evil have to be satisfied with peace of mind.

The explanation of this phenomenon is that the good have another principle of action in them than the evil. The evil are guided solely by the thought either of the satisfaction of the flesh or the spirit and that this world is all. But the good have another principle in them, entirely above nature, which is called grace and by it they are united to God. This principle of grace is always rising up against their sin and generally triumphs over it with the slightest cooperation of the will. A man/woman refrains from adultery because of the love he/she has for his/her wife/husband. This principal of love militates against his/her carnal desires and if he/she falls, pulls him/her back again to fidelity. So with God's grace. As Saint Paul wrote to the pagan Romans: "I don't understand my own actions because instead of doing what I want to do I do what I hate. Now if I don't want to do the very thing that I actually do, then I agree with the Law that it is, in fact, good." - Romans 7:15-16 - 

That is the point. The very regret one has is an admission that the law of God is right. A child told by his/her parents not to stick his/her finger in the fire does so. But he/she immediately discovers that their law was worthy of all honour.

There are two ways of knowing how good God is. One is never to lose Him, the other is to lose Him and find Him again.

There are two great evils in the world: sin and suffering. Sin is mortal, suffering is physical and the latter is a result of the former. What happens to the body as pain, and to nature in the form of cyclones, earthquakes and floods, is ultimately an echo, a repercussion and effect of what has already happened in the moral universe. When the big wheel in a machine is cracked, all the little wheels get out of order. As we eliminate sin, we eliminate suffering; as we love God, we cease to hate others. And thus we engage in fewer wars.

The more morality and decency and virtue there are in the world, the more peace there will be in the world. War are consequences of a moral rebellion. The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible boldly affirm that war is the result of egotism and selfishness. When civilization is made up of millions of men and women who are at war with themselves, it is not long until communities, classes, states and nations will be at war with one another. Every world war is a turbulent ocean made up of the confluent streams of millions of little wars inside the minds and hearts of unhappy people. War is the final logic of self-will.

War is not necessary but it does become an inseparable ailment of any world that abandons the supremacy of the spirit. Nietzsche, after proclaiming the death of God in the nineteenth century, prophesied that the twentieth century would be a century of wars. There is a possible connection between the importance given to politics and the frequency of wars. In any era of history where politics is the major interest, war is the major consequence. This does not mean that one ought to subscribe to the dictum of Karl von Clausewitz that war is the persecution of politics by other means. It does not mean, however, that since politics stresses expediency and pragmatism on a great scale that essential for peace, war becomes a greater possibility. When the people are interested in the raising of a family, the cultivation of virtues and the salvation of their souls, they act as a balance wheel against the power-motive of politics. But when both the state and the people give supremacy to politics, the stabilizing influence of society is lost, and with it come civil strife and discord and war.

There is much truth in the thesis of Pitirim Sorokin that as civilization in the modern sense of the term advances, there is an increase of war. There have always been more wars than peace. From 1496 B.C. to A.D. 1861 or in 3,358 years there were only 227 years of peace and 3,130 years of war; this makes 13 years of war for every year of peace. Within the last three centuries there have been 286 wars in Europe.

From 1500 B.C. to A.D. 1860 there were 8,000 treaties of peace which were supposed to remain in force forever. The average length of these treatise was two years. It is likely that there was never a single year when the world did not have a war at least in one country or the other. Two other analyses have revealed that since the year 1100, England has spent half of its history fighting wars, France nearly half, and Russia three quarters.

It is not a very sweet pill for our civilized world to swallow, to realize that the false prophets of the last century who predicted an evolution of man into god and the necessary progress of humanity to a point where there would be no more war or disease or death, were wrong and we are now living in a century of war. It behooves us all to admit that there is an evil tendency in our human nature, and that this tendency when uncontrolled by morality and grace will devolve more rapidly than it will evolve. It is our views of the human condition that have been wrong, by denying the possibility of sin and guilt, we have denied the very existence of perversity within us which makes war. Not all will submit to this moral regeneration through self- discipline but those few who will, will be the leaven in the mass of the world.

It is not our politics and our economics which have to be stopped. The remaking of the world depends on the remaking of the individual. The return of the individual to God is the condition of more peaceful times. Amen!

BY  VENERABLE  FULTON  J.  SHEEN     

- WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY - 

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -     

"No one comes to the Father except by me." - John 14:6 - After telling the Pharisees that they were really not teachers, but blind leaders, strangers and hirelings, He set Himself in contrast to them not only as the Unique Teacher but as something infinitely more. He was not merely giving ideas or laws, He was giving life. "I have come that men may have life and may have it in all its fullness." - John 10:10 - Men have existence, but He would give them life, not biological or physical life, but Divine life. Nature suggests but cannot give this more abundant life. Animals have life more abundantly than plants; man has life more abundantly than animals. He said that He came to give a life beyond the human. As the oxygen could not live the more abundant life of the plant, unless the plant came down to it, so neither could man share Divine Life unless the plant came down to it, so neither could man share Divine Life unless Our Lord came down to give it.

Next, He proceeded to demonstrate that He gave this life not by His teaching, but by His dying. He was not uniquely a Teacher, but primarily a Savior. To illustrate again the purpose of His coming, He reached back into the Old Testament. No figure is more often employed in the Exodus to describe God leading His people from slavery to freedom than that of a shepherd. The prophets also often spoke of the shepherds who preserved a flock in good pastures as distinct from false shepherds. God is depicted by Isaiah as carrying His sheep in His arms and by Ezekiel as a shepherd looking for His lost sheep. Zechariah gave the saddest picture of all in prophesying that the Messiah-shepherd would be struck and the sheep dispersed. Best known is Psalm 23 where the Lord is pictured as leading His sheep into green pastures.

The Lord revealed at what cost these green pastures are purchased. He was not the Good Shepherd because He provided economic plenty, but because He would lay down His life for His sheep. Once again the Cross appears under the symbol of the shepherd. The shepherd-patriarch Jacob and the shepherd-king David now pass into the Shepherd-Savior, as the staff becomes a crook, the crook a sceptre, and the sceptre a Cross.

The Father loves me because I lay down my life, to receive it back again. No one has robbed me of it; I am laying it down of my own free will. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to receive it back again. - John 10:11,17,18 -

His death is neither accidently nor unforeseen; nor does He speak of His death apart from His glory; nor of the laying-down of His life without taking it up again. No mere man could have said this. The invisible aid of heaven was at His call. Here Our Lord established that His Father's love had sent Him on the mission that He was to accomplish on earth. It did not mean the beginning of the Father's love, as it might be the beginning of a love of a parent for one who rescued his child from drowning. He was already the Eternal Object of an Eternal Love. But now in His human nature, He gives an additional reason for that love, namely, the proving of His love by dying. Since He was sinless, death had no power over Him. The taking-up of His life was just as much a part of the Divine plan as was the laying down of it. The sacrificial lambs offered through centuries were sin-bearers by imputation, but they were also dumb sufferers led in ignorance to an altar. The priest of the Old Law would lay his hand over the sheep in order to indicate that he was imputing sins to the one to be sacrificed. But He willingly took on sin for the sake of the new life He would bestow after the Resurrection. When He said that He laid down His life for His sheep He meant not only in behalf of them, but also in the stead of them. After the Resurrection, when He gave Peter the triple injunction to feed His lambs and sheep, He prophesied that Peter would have to die for His flock, as He had done.

The Father loved Him, He said, not merely because He laid down His life, for men can become victims of superior forces. If He died without resuming His life, His function would have ceased after His sacrifice; He would have been only a beautiful memory. But the Father's love contemplated more than this. He also was to take up His life and to continue to exercise the royal rights. In retaking life, He would be able to continue sovereignty on different terms. This double action was the mandate of His Father.

This charge I have received from my Father. - John 10:18 -

Thus, while the surrender of His life and the taking up of His life was spontaneous, it was also a consequence of an appointment and an ordinance which He received from the Heavenly father when He became man. The Father did not will that His Son should perish, but rather that He should triumph in the greatest possible act of love. Later on, during the Agony in the Garden, He would confirm this blending of His own freedom with the Divine order. Previously, His hearers had heard Him say: 

I have come down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. - John 6:38 -

Thus, the dispute that began on the subject of leadership through teaching ended on the subject of an increase of life through Redemption. The miracle of giving sight to the man born blind was like all of His miracles - they pointed to His work of giving His life as a ransom for mankind. Every moment of His life had the Cross in it; His teaching had value only because of the Cross. His active exposure to the Cross for the sake of love was quite different from a stoic acceptance of it when it came. But He entered voluntarily the gate of Calvary for the sake of righteousness. Paul would tell the Romans later on the wonders of this love of the Shepherd for His black sheep.

For at the very time we were still powerless, then Christ died for the wicked. Even for a just man one would hardly die, though perhaps for a good man might actually brave death; but Christ Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners and that is God's own proof of his love towards us. And so, since we have now been justified by Christ's sacrificial death, we shall all the more certainly be saved through him from final retribution. - Romans 5:6-8 - 

                                                                    -  PAGE  TWO  -

BY  VENERABLE  FULTON J. SHEEN  

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -    

Philosophers, scientists and sages often lay claim to the superiority of their respective systems. Not surprising is it, therefore, that since both Our Lord and the Pharisees were teachers, there should be a dispute between them concerning their doctrines. But Our Lord Jesus, as always, refused to put Himself on the level with human teachers; He claimed uniqueness as a Divine Teacher. But he went even further. He came to sacrifice Himself for His sheep, not to be a Master over pupils. The Pharisees and He argued about their doctrines. On the one hand, Jesus called Himself the Door affording the sole admission to the Father; the Porter or Keeper of the Sheepfold; Jesus called Himself also the Shepherd or Guardian of the sheep, and finally He was the Sheep who would become a victim. On the other hand, Jesus compared the Pharisees to those who entered not by the door, and therefore sought to prey on the flock; and to mercenaries who would run when the wolves came; and finally to wolves who would devour the sheep.

The dispute arose after Our Blessed Lord had restored sight to a man blind from birth. The Pharisees began making an investigation of the miracle. There was no denying the fact that the blind man could now see, but the Pharisees were so determined that this should not be accounted a miracle that they went to his parents, who testified that the boy had been born blind. They made up their minds that no amount of evidence would ever change their opinion, for they had now: "For the Jewish authorities had already agreed that anyone who acknowledged Jesus as Messiah should be banned from the synagogue." - John 9:22 - 

The man born blind thus was the first of a long line of confessors who Our Lord said would be driven out of synagogues. The Pharisees, finding the blind man, said that Christ could not possibly have done it because they said: "He is a sinner." When he who was blind became impatient with the questions of the Pharisees and their refusal to accept the evidence of their senses, he argued against them: "If that man had not come from God he could have done nothing." - John 9:33 - 

The beggar was far wiser in his understanding of the miracle than the Pharisees, as Joseph was wiser than the so-called wise men of Egypt in the interpretation of the dream of Pharaoh. The progress in the blind man's thinking and faith was like that of the woman at the well. First, the blind man said of Him: "The man called Jesus." - John 9:11 - Later on, after further questioning, he said, as did the woman at the well: "He is a prophet." - John 9:17 -

Finally, he declared that He must come from God. Such is often the progress of those who finally come to the truth about Christ. When the cured man confessed Christ to be the Son of God, the Pharisees excommunicated him from the synagogue. This was serious; for it cut off the beggar from the outward privileges of the commonwealth of the people and made him an object of derision. Hearing of the ban, Our Lord Jesus, restless until He found the lost sheep, sought out the condemned man. Meeting him face to face, Jesus asked: "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" - John 9:36 - 'Sir.' the man replied 'tell me who he is so that I may believe in him." Jesus said, 'You are looking at him; he is speaking to you.' The man said, 'Lord, I believe', and worshipped him, Jesus said: 'It is for judgement that I have come into this world, so that those without sight may see and those with sight turn blind'. - John 9:36-39 -

The man who was blind then prostrated himself before the Lord Jesus in adoration. His was not the faith that confessed with the lips, but which worshipped Truth Incarnate. His reasoning was so simple and yet so sublime. He Who could perform such a miracle must be of God.

The Pharisee had made a complete investigation of the miracle; there was no doubt among the witnesses; the parents and the man himself admitted that a great miracle had been done: a miracle of the eyes to restore his vision; and of the soul, giving him faith in Christ Jesus. Because the Pharisees rejected the evidence, Our Lord told them that they were blind leaders, and because they had rejected Him, judgement would fall upon them. He told them they had a chance to be illumined by Himself, the Light of the World. Without that illumination, their blindness could be a calamity; but now, it was a crime.

They had closed the door of the synagogue on the man born blind. The Pharisees imagined that they had cut him off from all communication with the Divine. But Our Lord told the crowd that though the door of the synagogue was shut, another door opened: "I am the door; anyone who comes into the fold through me shall be safe. He/She shall go in and out and shall find pasturage. - John 10:9 -

The Lord Jesus did not say that there are many doors, nor that it made little difference through which other door one sought the higher life; He did not say that He was a door, but 'The Door.' There was only one door in the ark through which Noah and his family entered to be saved from the flood; there was only one door in the Tabernacle or Holy of Holies. He claimed for Himself the sole right of admission or rejection with respect to the true fold of God. He did not say His teaching or His example was the door, but that He personally was the unique entrance to the fulness of the God-life. He stands alone and shares no honors with His colleagues, not even with Moses, and much less with Zoroaster, Confucius, Mohammed, or anyone else.

"No one comes to the Father except by me." - John 14:6 - ............ -  PAGE  ONE  -

BY  VENERABLE  FULTON J. SHEEN  

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -