Celebrate Wherever You Are

As many readers know, in a few days, on Thursday, September 24, the beloved shepherd Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen will receive the momentous honor of beatification in Saint Louis, Missouri. It will all happen in the Dome at America's Center, with Mass beginning at 2 p.m. Missouri time (3 p.m. Eastern Time, US). 

Archbishop, soon to be Blessed, Fulton J. Sheen

EWTN will live stream the ceremonies here.

For weeks before the great day, countless hands have been stringing bright, plastic World Mission Rosaries to give to the masses of people who will be attending the grand event. Each decade represents mission fields around the globe:

Green beads—Forests and grasslands of Africa

Blue—Ocean surrounding the Pacific Islands

White—Europe, home of the Holy Father

Red—The Americas, recalling the fire of faith brought by missionaries

Yellow—The East, symbolizing Asia's morning light 

 

Archbishop Sheen introduced this special rosary in February 1951 during an episode of his TV program The Catholic Hour. He urged listeners to use it to pray for missionary work around the world.

 

 Archbishop Sheen was sensitive to the fact that those new to praying the rosary—and even many who have prayed it for years—can find its prayers repetitive. To help us look at that in a different light, he said this:

 

The mind is infinitely variable in its language, but the heart is not. The heart of a man, in the face of a woman he loves, is too poor to translate the infinity of his affection into a different word. So the heart takes one expression, "I love you," and in saying it over and over again, it never repeats. That is what we do when we say the Rosary—we are saying to God, the Trinity, to the Incarnate Savior, to the Blessed Mother: "I love you, I love you, I love you." 

 

 In this same way, the Archbishop was able to translate the transcendent beauty of the Catholic faith into everyday terms that we could all understand and identify with. In his books, his radio broadcasts, his television show, he brought the truths of the Gospel and the Church to life and helped us to apply them in today's world. His wealth of wisdom lives on for today's generation, and his World Mission Rosary is still prayed for our whole world. 

 

Let's join together in congratulating and thanking the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen for his timeless encouragement, creative teaching, and boundless enthusiasm, which he shared so powerfully with all of us, for Jesus Christ and his magnificent Church.   

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Illustration of Fulton J. Sheen courtesy of The Pontifical Mission Societies.