Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius May 15, 2016 Spiritual Ponderings Wisdom of Fulton Sheen
Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s advice in his book,
Thoughts for Daily Living, is truly inspiring; in my opinion so here are some more quotes from his book in bold and my commentary in regular font.
Happiness does not consist in the abundance of things a man possesses, nor does it reside in the satisfaction of different specific desires—for example, pleasure at one moment, publicity at another. Rather happiness is conditioned on two things: an overall purpose in life, and, second, the crushing of egotism and selfishness. When I stop to think about the times that I am truly happy, I realize that they are also the times in which I am seeing someone else succeed because of the work that I have done. One of my favorite parts of a Luke 18 retreat is the warm fuzzies. A warm fuzzy is basically a bunch of little strings tied together in a ball. You take one string and give it to another person as you give them a compliment. Instead of participating, I like to stand off in the corner of the room and eaves drop. I enjoy hearing the teens and other adults share with one another how the weekend has affected them for the better. I know, even if they do not know, that none of the weekend’s events would have happened, if I had not help set the scene and that is enough for me. I know that I would ruin the moment if I would burst into the warm fuzzy exchange and demand people tell me how great I am.
Hell is the ego affirmed in time, in isolation and in eternity in conflict with other egos who are constantly negating our ego. Hell is composed of completely egotistic persons! Those who presently live with such people now have a foretaste of hell. The reason the ego has to be naughted is because unless a “For sale” sign is hung on it, neither God nor neighbor can move in. Only when the glass tube has had all the air removed and becomes a vacuum, can it become the medium for X-rays which can penetrate the flesh and brain though we see it not. So long as there remains the ego or selfishness by which we affirm our pleasure over others, we are consumed by an inner unhappiness. In hell, the ego burns—a sensation that egotists dimly feel in the gnawing that goes on inside their conscience. There is one person in my life that makes my life a living hell because he always wants something. The moment I provide him with one thing he wants, he decides he needs something else. He only shows gratitude as a way of setting himself up to make another request. I can definitely see hell being similar to this: where everyone is so self-centered that no one gets anything. It reminds me of the following story… From the mystics of the Middle Ages comes the story of a young man who was granted by God a glimpse of both heaven and hell. God decided that it would be best if he showed the young man hell first and so God and the young man descended into the netherworld. The man saw a group of people gathered in a magnificent dining hall. The table was prepared with the finest food and the delicious smell of the food filled the room. And at first the young man thought God must had mistakenly taken him to heaven first instead of hell but as he studied the faces of the people in the room he began to see that each person was filled with anger, sadness and disappointment. It became quite clear to the young man that the source of their discomfort and distress was that the all the forks and spoons in the room were too large for anyone to feed themselves with and so while they were able to smell and look at the mouth-watering food they were perpetually prevented from eating any of it. In a flash God then transported the young man to heaven and much to the young man’s surprise he found himself in a room that was almost identical to the room that he had seen in hell. The decorations were the same, the food was the same and there was even the same type of silverware which was too large for anyone to use. The difference was not in the surroundings or even in the meal the difference between heaven and hell was in the hearts of the individuals there because the people in heaven instead of focusing on feeding themselves and thus being perpetually frustrated took the time to care and to feed the person next to them and thus everyone was able to be filled not only with the food but more importantly with love.
But even though it be difficult, there is a peace and a joy about the pursuit of Divine Happiness which the egotist cannot understand. Each trial and struggle has its strength as grace pours in from heaven above. The more the balloon of our egotism is shot full of holes, the more apertures are made for the influx of light and love. Ego distorts our reality.