It was back in 1973, as I was walking through St. Peter’s Square, back home to the North American College on the Janiculum Hill for pranzo. Before me was a crowd of dozens of tourists, laughing, taking pictures, surrounding a priest shorter than I had envisioned from T.V., greeting each of them. Sure enough! It was Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen!
I got closer to share in the exuberance, perhaps even to shake the hand of this legendary preacher and missionary.
“I just came from an audience with Pope Paul VI,” he was explaining to the group with radiance.
“What did the Holy Father say to you?” asked one of the crowd.
“He remarked to me when we met, ‘Fulton Sheen! You will have a high place in heaven!’”
“Did you reply to the pope?” asked another.
With a sparkle in his eyes, he responded: “Your Holiness, please make that an infallible statement!’”
The wit, the ability to hypnotize the crowd, the friendliness: all traits of this effective communicator. Well, with his long-anticipated beatification, we have the validation of Saint Paul VI’s promising comment to (soon-to-be) Blessed Fulton J. Sheen.
The Italians claim, “You must make gnocchi with the dough you got.” In other words, see the possibilities around you, lasso them, use them for the greater good.
For our new beatus, the greater good was Jesus Christ, His—Our—Lord and Savior, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The dough he would use? Writing, radio, teaching, preaching, T.V.
His books, still sold today, number close to a hundred. My favorite remains his Life of Christ. His pamphlets and newspaper articles number close to a thousand. All sparkle with crispness, humor, and solid doctrine. From 1930 until 1950 he would address millions each Sunday evening on the Catholic Hour radio program. All this time he was working full-time as a professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of America. His effectiveness led to myriad invitations to preach at Masses, devotions, parish missions, and retreats during weekends and summer months. And then, in the 1950s, he became as omnipresent and recognized as Milton Berle and Ed Sullivan with his T.V. series Life Is Worth Living.
See what he did? He took the dough available—writing, radio, preaching, teaching, T.V.—and baked a gnocchi fit for Sunday dinner. He gave the Word—the Eternal Word, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity—flesh, in the One we hail as Jesus Christ. In the description of Blessed Fulton J. Sheen, the Word again “becomes flesh, and dwells among us.” The Incarnation goes on. Jesus, the apostles, Saint Paul, Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, Saint John Chrysostom . . . oh, the litany of “golden tongues” is lengthy, thanks be to God. And now we hold up one of our own, whose “message goes out to all the world.”
Blesseds and saints are examples to us, and heavenly intercessors. Be tutored by his example of using the talents we have and the media—which means “the ways”—we have to keep providing the Word with flesh as the Incarnation keeps flowing on. Count now on his intercession. We need all the dough we can roll to make a gnocchi worthy of “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” and His heavenly banquet.
