Across more than fifty books and decades of broadcasts, a few themes return again and again. Each one opens a door into his spirituality.
At his ordination Sheen promised a daily hour before the Blessed Sacrament, and he kept it for sixty years. The Eucharist was the engine of everything he did.
“The Holy Hour is not a devotion; it is a sharing in the work of redemption.”Consecrated to Mary by his mother and again at his First Communion, Sheen returned constantly to the Mother of God as the surest way to her Son.
“Devotion to the Mother of our Lord in no way detracts from the adoration of her Divine Son. The brightness of the moon does not detract from the brilliance of the sun, but rather bespeaks its brilliance.”He taught that suffering, united to Christ, is never wasted, and that the Cross is not the end of the story but the door to joy.
“Unless there is a Good Friday in our lives, there will never be an Easter Sunday; unless there is a cross, there will never be an empty tomb.”In an age of easy compromise, he insisted that truth does not bend to majorities, and that love and truth are never opposed.
“The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil.”A pioneer of radio and television, he met people in the language and the questions of their own day, and led them gently to Christ.
“Charity is to be measured, not by what one has given away, but by what one has left.”Sanctity, he taught, is not for the few; it is the ordinary vocation of every baptized person, lived one faithful day at a time.
“We become like that which we love. If we love what is base, we become base; but if we love what is noble, we become noble.”
Titles such as Life Is Worth Living, Peace of Soul, The World’s First Love, and his autobiography Treasure in Clay remain in print. Our books page gathers them, with a full bibliography and where to buy each one.
See his books