The Open Secret to Sheen's Success

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - December 17, 2004

Last week we marked the 25th anniversary of the death of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, easily the most famous and perhaps the most influential American Catholic priest of the 20th century.

Almost every Catholic senior can recount stories of huddling with family members around the radio to listen to Sheen on NBC Radio's "Catholic Hour." Many others can recall his top-rated television program, "Life is Worth Living," viewed by thirty million people each week of all faiths. Still today his voice resonates to Catholics, young and old, through the treasure of audio and video cassettes.

He did so much — and so much good — in his 84 years. In addition to his priestly duties and to being America's first radio and television evangelist, he was philosophy and theology professor, a newspaper columnist and magazine editor, a patient instructor of countless converts, an intrepid foe of communism, a popular retreat and mission preacher, the author of 67 books, for 16 years the National Director of the Society of the Propagation of the Faith, and finally bishop of Rochester, NY.

It's hard to fathom that one man could have done so much, so well, for so long. The reason why he was able to bear so much fruit was not principally because of the talents God had given him. Cemeteries are full of enormously talented priests whose deeds remain known now only to God.

It was also not because he was merely "in the right place at the right time," ready to tap the potential of the inventions of the radio and television to proclaim the Gospel.

The reason for his fruitfulness, as he often pointed out, was much simpler: he began each morning with a Eucharistic Holy Hour and Mass.

Jesus told us that if we abided in Him the Vine, we would bear much fruit (Jn 15:5), and Sheen did both. Each morning he abided in Christ's real presence and welcomed Him within. That was the fuel for the supersonic engine that powered his whole priestly life.

On the day of his priestly ordination, Sheen made a commitment to make a Holy Hour every day in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Sixty years later, he thanked God for giving him the grace to keep that promise, and confessed that "the hour that made my day" was the source of his fidelity and his fruitfulness.

"It is impossible for me to explain how helpful the Holy Hour has been in preserving my vocation," Sheen wrote in his autobiography. "Scripture gives considerable evidence to prove that a priest begins to fail his priesthood when he fails in his love of the Eucharist. … The beginning of the fall of Judas and the end of Judas both revolved around the Eucharist. The first mention that Our Lord knew who it was who would betray Him is at the end of the sixth chapter of John, which is the announcement of the Eucharist. The fall of Judas came the night Our Lord gave the Eucharist, the night of the Last Supper."

"The Holy Hour, quite apart from all its positive spiritual benefits, kept my feet from wandering too far. Being tethered to a tabernacle, one's rope for finding other pastures is not so long."

He added that the Holy Hour "became like an oxygen tank to revive the breath of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the foul and fetid atmosphere of the world. Even when it seemed so unprofitable and lacking in spiritual intimacy, I still had the sensation of being at least like a dog at the master's door, ready in case he called me."

It was in this daily holy hour that Sheen's booming voice was silent as he listened to gentle whisper of his Master. It was here that he discussed with Jesus his homilies, difficulties, hopes, projects, and potential converts. It was here that his heart was set on fire.

"Looking at the Eucharistic Lord for an hour transforms the heart in a mysterious way as the face of Moses was transformed after his companionship with God on the mountain."

So convinced was he of the connection between the Eucharist and fruitful fidelity that he judged the success or failure of every retreat he preached on how many retreatants he could convince to make a Eucharistic holy hour every day for the rest of their life.

If Sheen were alive today, he would rejoice that Pope John Paul II has proclaimed a "Year of the Eucharist." He would mount the pulpit enthusiastically to echo the Holy Father's call for us to grow in "Eucharistic amazement" and make the Eucharistic Lord the "magnetic pole" of our whole existence. And he would fall to his knees again in Eucharistic adoration.

Sheen lived over sixty Eucharistic years. That was the open secret of his enormous success. May it be ours too!

God love you!

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.