Archbishop Fulton Sheen Signature Set

Fulton J. Sheen's Preface to Religion (1946) seeks to bring the curious, open soul the answers that they seek. For someone on the periphery of faith, wondering why they are the way they are and where they can find relief from inner turmoil, the answers in this book will lead them to the Truth. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (b. 1895 - d. 1979) was a priest, writer, and host of several Catholic television and radio programs between 1930 and 1968. A highly educated man, Archbishop Sheen studied at the Catholic University of America, and received doctorates from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium and Pontificium Collegium Internationale Angelicum in Rome. In 1930, then-Father Sheen began a weekly radio broadcast called The Catholic Hour, which eventually reached a weekly audience of four million people. Over 20 years later, he switched mediums with a television program called Life is Worth Living. Another success, this simple show had Bishop Sheen speaking directly to the camera on topics of faith and scripture. His straightforward program held its own in the ratings up against prime time stars like Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra. In addition to his media appearances, Archbishop Sheen also wrote dozens of books and articles on theology and Catholicism. His 1946 work Preface to Religion explores the truth about God, mankind, and the individual reader. He asks the reader to look inward, to reflect on their life and its true nature in order to find the source of their discontent. "Your life has been a series of disappointments, shocks, and disillusionments," Archbishop Sheen explains. "How have you reacted to your disappointments? Either you became cynical or else you became religious." The cynic seeks life's pleasures, but finds no true joy in them. The gulf between the happiness they imagine and the reality of life gets wider and wider. And even those pleasures that they enjoyed at one time can turn to pain. But for those who instead turn to religion, they find what never disappoints: "Perfect Life, Perfect Truth, and Perfect Love." The book explores human nature, seeking to answer why we say we wish to do one thing, but instead do the opposite. "Your soul is the battlefield of a great civil war...God made us one way; we made ourselves, in virtue of our freedom, another way." This pull between our true nature as made by God and our actions through our own weakness is the constant tension in our lives. "You are like a man fallen into a well. You know you ought not to be there, and you know you cannot get out by yourself." So how can you get out of the well? This "fish out of water" feeling, argues Archbishop Sheen, can only be resolved through God. The solution is a religion that sees your confusion, sees your struggle, and offers you a guide through God's love and written commandments. Can one not find religion personally, without the aid of the Church? What about those who claim to not want anyone standing between them and God? To this, Archbishop Sheen reminds the reader of the vital community at the heart of the life of faith. "Did He not also make love of God absolutely inseparable from love of neighbor?" Religion is not private. There are established laws of nature and established laws of religion. And in both, "All the best things of life come from solidarity and fellowship." While Preface to Religion does explore some of the details of scripture and the Word of God, it reads more like a work of philosophy, seeking to answer the personal questions that one may be afraid to ask about the nature of humanity, faith, and religion. After reading this text and finding the truth, the reader is ready for a closer examination of scripture and a closer relationship to God the Creator.

The modern crisis stems from a great divorce, a divorce between those who have the Truth and those who do not. In Philosophies at War, Sheen addresses the American people on the themes of government and politics not only as a bishop but also as a conscious citizen. He writes of war and revolution, the need of an absolute (God) and the roots of democracy, patriotism, and peace. He shows that the culture war is not merely political and economic but also theological. Sheen warns that dangerous political currents are reactions against the excesses and defects of the secularist and materialist culture at large, the result of society turning into nothing but a crisscross of individual egotism. He brilliantly summarizes the false claims of recent totalitarian ideologies such as Marxist socialism, Nazism, fascism, and more. Of these dangers, Sheen explains what they have in common: they "demand power over the total man-the whole man, body and soul, and aim at control over the most intimate regions of the spirit." Sheen is further critical of certain aspects of the Industrial Revolution and Liberalism which have isolated man from all responsibility to the common good. He laments, "Such is the essence of our secularist culture: the supremacy of the individual man. In this way man is severed from his roots in God, his roots in law and his roots in the brotherhood of man, which can naturally lead to anarchy and the oppression of the weak and the unfortunate." For anyone seeking to understand the current ideologies that seek to destroy our world, Philosophies at War will be your guide.

Every human person seeks happiness, but few find it, because they have not discovered the source of all happiness: God. In the Way to Happiness, Futon Sheen reflects on the most fundamental aspects of our lives: love, politics, motherhood, work, teens, forgiveness, rest, meditation, and more. In a culture stricken with anxiety, boredom, despair, and fear, Sheen desires to reignite healing, hope, and contentment in the reader. While the secular world holds the mistaken belief that hunger for infinity can be satisfied by an infinity of material things, Sheen warns that they really wish for the infinity of divine love. Addressing the philosophy of pleasure, Sheen reminds the reader of the centrality of self-discipline and detachment. At the heart of “Way to Happiness” is heroically living out the spirit of charity: love of God and love of neighbor. To achieve a spirit of service and self-donation, a strong interior life is a prerequisite. True peace is born in meditation. Lastly, Sheen provides a blueprint to overcome bad habits through introspection, avoiding the occasion of sin, willing the good, and a right philosophy of life. In an age when so few people have time to make a retreat, allow the retreat master, Sheen, to take you on a spiritual journey that will spurn you on to holiness. For anyone seeking a clear path to a happy and saintly life, the Way to Happiness will be your guide.

In the face of a world crisis, which is manifestly deeper than one can imagine, many are inclined to ask: "Has Christianity failed?" Fulton Sheen's Thinking Life Through seeks to answer this critical question. The conclusions the author proposes are far-reaching and touch upon subjects as diverse as the truth and meaning of human sexuality, the purpose of life, discordant marriages, angels, alcoholism, the vocation of the soldier, materialism, parenting, and even the question of spanking children. On the critical subject of freedom, Sheen writes, "The true definition of freedom is the right to do whatever one ought, and oughtness implies law, goals, purposes, and perfection. Freedom is a moral power and not a physical one. It revolves around what man is rather than what man does. We are more free within the law than outside of it." Thinking Life Through also addresses the world's political climate, something that in many ways mirrors the present political discourse. Focusing on the tragic decline of post-Christian society, Sheen gives special attention to both the threat of communism and the dangers of socialism. Sheen also gives clarity to the role of the individual and the family while living in a time of moral and political uncertainty. Finally, Sheen addresses good manners and politeness as he states in his quintessential style, "Another effect of materialism is to be seen in the decline of courtesy. There is politeness and decorum and a desire to please others when it is generally recognized that every person bears within himself an image of the Divine." For anyone seeking to grow in wisdom, “Thinking Life Through” will be your guide.

Amidst the backdrop of World War II, the great Fulton Sheen wrote Preface to Religion, his first book published after the war ended. As the world was recovering from death, destruction, and despair, Sheen's timely work tackles the most salient questions pertaining to happiness and sanity. With simplicity and frankness, Sheen declares, "If you do not worship God, you worship something, and nine times out of ten it will be yourself. If there is no God, then you are a god." Throughout this work, Sheen addresses the perennial subjects of fallen nature, forgiveness, the four last things, how God remakes us, the role of religion in the process, and the gift of second chances. Contrary to the modern world, God does not give us what "we want for our pleasure" but "what we need for our perfection." Preface to Religion reminds us of education's primary purpose, which is to train the mind to use freedom rightly. God chose to make a moral universe, but morality is impossible without freedom. And therefore, the reader will see that the body must always serve the soul. Finally, Sheen writes on faith, that "the modern man who is not living according to his conscience wants a religion without a Cross, a Christ without a Calvary, a Kingdom without Justice," and a pastor "who never mentions hell to ears polite." For anyone seeking to find true happiness and true freedom, Preface to Religion will be your guide. Venerable Fulton Sheen was one of the leading religious figures of the twentieth century. After his ordination in 1919, he earned his doctorate in philosophy and theology and went on to teach for many years at the Catholic University of America. In 1951, he was consecrated as the auxiliary bishop of New York. After twenty years on the radio, Sheen became a regular face in 1950s American homes with his TV show Life Is Worth Living. In 2002, Sheen's cause for canonization was officially opened.

Way to Happiness (1953) is a short collection of essays on moral and spiritual principles by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. As he writes in the introduction, his goal for this work was to bring "solace, healing and hope to hearts, truth and enlightenment to minds, goodness, strength and resolution to wills" through his exploration of universal topics like happiness, love, and inner peace. Fulton J. Sheen was born in El Paso, Illinois, in 1895. After attending St. Viator College Seminary in Illinois and St. Paul Seminary in Minnesota, he received his ordination and was assigned to the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois. A student even after achieving priesthood, he received degrees at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, and the Pontificium Collegium Internationale Angelicum in Rome. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Archbishop Sheen was a weekly speaker on the popular radio program The Catholic Hour. With an audience in the millions, he shared his wisdom and knowledge of the scriptures and faith-based morality to aid listeners through their daily lives. This public education continued through the 1950s and 1960s on the television programs Life is Worth Living and The Fulton Sheen Program. Archbishop Sheen won an Emmy for Most Outstanding Television Personality in 1952. During all of this activity, he found time to write dozens of books on faith. Way to Happiness was published in 1953, at the height of the archbishop's popularity. The book contains 37 short chapters on subjects key to daily life, including work and repose, self-discipline, the ego, and the spirit of giving. The book's short chapters make it a wonderful study for a month-long daily devotional. Readers will find a simple message-although one that is a challenge to put into daily practice. "Our happiness consists in fulfilling the purpose of our being," writes Archbishop Sheen. That purpose is to overflow with three things: life, truth, and love with no limits, in their purest forms. Our humanity makes us long for these things. But to find them, "...we must go out beyond the limits of this shadowed world-to a Truth not mingled with its shadow, error-to a Life not mingled with its shadow, death-to a Love not mingled with its shadow, hate. We must seek for Pure Life, Pure Truth and Pure Love-and that is the definition of God." The book is broken into eight sections, exploring themes of happiness, work, love, children, youth, inner peace, giving, and man. In each, Archbishop Sheen shares his warmth and wisdom, characterized by support from the scriptures and anecdotes from daily life. While he encourages the reader to eschew the ego and cultivate self-discipline, he never lectures. One gets the sense that he has had the same conversations internally many times over before he shared them with the reader. Indeed, he admits, "Our world is full of prophets of doom, and I would be one of them if I did not practically believe in God." The world of the 1950s was one that had faced two world wars, a great depression, the rise of Communism, and more dramatic changes in just the preceding 40 years. While the work takes an individual-level view of happiness and improvement, Archbishop Sheen is clear that the end result of personal betterment will lead to societal change. "Remake man," he writes, "and you remake his world." So while the true Way to Happiness may be walked alone, it was his hope that to walk it would lead the rest of the world to a better future.

For decades, this book has been recognized as the finest book ever written by a Catholic on the subject of communism. Dedicated to Our Lady in prayerful hope for the conversion of Russia, this is one of Fulton Sheen's most forgotten yet most important books. In Communism and the Conscience of the West, Sheen explains the problems with society stemming from socialism and communism, which continue to infect universities and political discourse today. This timeless book exposes communism's defects, its attitude toward the family, the decline of historical liberalism, and the rise of the antireligious spirit that pervades our world. Readers will be impressed as Sheen diagnoses the issues facing our once peaceful cities, with history being put on trial, scrubbed, rewritten, and explained in terms of class hate. While communism destroys human freedom, Sheen illustrates how man is free as a result of two guarantees: one economic and the other spiritual. The economic enables man to call something his own which is outside of himself. The spiritual is the soul, which makes man independent of an earthly tyrant or a political dictator. In short, man's soul is his own on the inside, as his property is his own on the outside. Sheen carefully illustrates how even though we are living at a time when man has all the material conditions necessary for his happiness, "having lost the purpose of life which religion supplied, modern man became increasingly frustrated as his disappointed hedonism turned to pessimism. Thus man, who isolated himself from the religious community, now by reaction finds himself absorbed by the political community as despair becomes the dominant note of contemporary philosophy and literature." For anyone seeking to understand one of the greatest threats to the Faith and our world, Communism and the Conscience of the West will be your guide. Venerable Fulton Sheen was one of the leading religious figures of the twentieth century. After his ordination in 1919, he earned his doctorate in philosophy and theology and went on to teach for many years at the Catholic University of America. In 1951, he was consecrated as the auxiliary bishop of New York. After twenty years on the radio, Sheen became a regular face in 1950s American homes with his TV show Life Is Worth Living. In 2002, Sheen's cause for canonization was officially opened.