CALVARY AND THE MASS
World-renowned evangelist, Emmy award winner and New York Times best-selling author Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen will present a collection of his writings that will encourage the reader to better understand the transformative power of the Eucharist and the beauty of the Mass.
Quoting from Fulton Sheen's book Calvary and the Mass, he writes:
We were there then during that Crucifixion. The drama was already completed as far as the vision of Christ was concerned, but it had not yet been unfolded to all men and all places and all times. If a motion picture reel, for example, were conscious of itself, it would know the drama from beginning to end, but the spectators in the theatre would not know it until they had seen it unrolled upon the screen. In like manner, our Lord on the Cross saw His eternal mind, the whole drama of history, the story of each individual soul and how later on it would react to His Crucifixion; but though He saw all, we could not know how we would react to the Cross until we were unrolled upon the screen of time. We were not conscious of being present there on Calvary that day, but He was conscious of our presence. Today we know the role we played in the theatre of Calvary, by the way, we live and act now in the theatre of the twentieth century.
That is why Calvary is actual; why the Cross is the Crisis; why in a certain sense the scars are still open; why Pain still stands deified, and why blood like falling stars is still dropping upon our souls. There is no escaping the Cross, not even by denying it as the Pharisees did; not even by selling Christ as Judas did; not even by crucifying Him as the executioners did. We all see it, either to embrace it in salvation or to fly from it into misery.
But how is it made visible? Where shall we find Calvary perpetuated? We shall find Calvary renewed, re-enacted, re-presented, as we have seen, in the Mass. Calvary is one with the Mass, and the Mass is one with Calvary, for in both there is the same Priest and Victim.
The Seven Last Words are like the seven parts of the Mass. And just as there are seven notes in music admitting an infinite variety of harmonies and combinations, so too on the Cross there are seven divine notes, which the dying Christ rang down the centuries, all of which combine to form the beautiful harmony of the world's redemption.
Each word is a part of the Mass.
THE CONFITEOR
Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
THE OFFERTORY
Amen, I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise.
THE SANCTUS
Woman, behold thy son.
THE CONSECRATION
My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?
THE COMMUNION
I thirst.
THE ITE, MISSA EST
It is consummated.
THE LAST GOSPEL
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.
Given the importance of this book, and the impact it has had on society, it seemed appropriate to reintroduce this book from 1936 once again. A new generation of readers will be sure to enjoy this fine work that speaks to the power of the Mass
God Love You
Sprache
ISBN-13
978-1-990427-49-7 (9781990427497)
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Fulton John Sheen was born in El Paso, Illinois, in 1895. In high school, he won a three-year university scholarship, but he turned it down to pursue a vocation to the priesthood. He attended St. Viator College Seminary in Illinois and St. Paul Seminary in Minnesota. In 1919, he was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois. He earned a licentiate in sacred theology and a bachelor of canon law at the Catholic University of America and a doctorate at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.
Sheen received numerous teaching offers but declined them in obedience to his bishop and became an assistant pastor in a rural parish. Having thus tested his obedience, the bishop later permitted him to teach at the Catholic University of America and at St. Edmund's College in Ware, England, where he met G.K. Chesterton, whose weekly BBC radio broadcast inspired Sheen's later NBC broadcast, The Catholic Hour (1930-1952).
In 1952, Sheen began appearing on ABC in his own series, Life Is Worth Living. Despite being given a time slot that forced him to compete with Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra, the dynamic Sheen enjoyed enormous success and in 1954 reach tens of millions of viewers, non-Catholics as well as Catholics.
When asked by Pope Pius XII how many converts he had made, Sheen responded, "Your Holiness, I have never counted them. I am always afraid if I did count them, I might think I made them, instead of the Lord."
Sheen gave annual Good Friday homilies at New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral, led numerous retreats for priests and religious, and preached at summer conferences in England.
"If you want people to stay as they are," he said, "tell them what they want to hear. If you want to improve them, tell them what they should know." This he did, not only in his preaching but also in the more than ninety books he wrote. His book, Peace of Soul was sixth on the New York Times best-seller list.
Sheen served as auxiliary bishop of New York (1951-1966) and as bishop of Rochester (1966-1969).
The good Lord called Fulton Sheen home in 1979. His television broadcasts, now on tape, and his books continue his earthly work of winning souls for Christ. Sheen's cause for canonization was opened in 2002, and in 2012 Pope Benedict XVI declared him "Venerable."
