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This September, the Catholic Church in the United States celebrates the beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen. American-born, Midwest-raised, and bishop in New York, Blessed Fulton Sheen became a household name for millions in the mid-1900’s with the thousands of episodes he broadcast via TV and radio. Today, he might have been an influencer, but he was simply using the predominant form of media to express the truth of the Catholic Faith. 

Sheen had a way with words, a God-given talent strengthened by years of study, twenty-five years as a professor at the Catholic University of America, and a profound personal prayer life. He taught, entertained, and persuaded audiences with exceptional skill. The following lines from Archbishop Sheen’s writings or broadcasts combine humor, paradox, and pointed truth in a particularly memorable way.

Holy Humor from Archbishop Fulton Sheen 

"It's impossible to lose your footing when you're on your knees."

“Heaven is a city on a hill, hence we cannot coast into it; we have to climb.”

“If a man is ever to discover anything big, he must always be making himself little." 

“The average American is physically, biologically, psychologically and neurologically unable to do anything worthwhile before he has a cup of coffee. And that goes for prayer too. Even sisters in convents whose rules were written before electric percolators were developed would do well to update their procedures.
Let them have coffee before meditation.”

“Hearing nuns’ confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.”

“There is a close relationship between faith and humor. We say of those who lack a sense of humor that they are “too thick”; that means they are opaque like a brick wall. Humor, on the contrary, is “seeing through” things like a windowpane.” 

"A saint can be defined as one who has a Divine Sense of Humor, for a saint never takes the world seriously as the lasting city.  To him the world is like a scaffolding up through which souls climb to the Kingdom of Heaven, and when the last soul shall have climbed up through it, then it shall be torn down, not because it is base, but simply because it has done its work."

“Evil may have its hour, but God will have His day."

“Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them.”

"Nothing is more difficult to conquer in all the world than intellectual pride. If battleships could be lined with it instead of armour, no shell could ever pierce it. This is easy to understand, for if a man thinks he knows it all, there is nothing left for him to know, not even what God might tell him."

Which quote is your favorite? Let us know in the comments!

Learn all about Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen in Fr. Mike Schmitz's conversation with Msgr. Jason Gray of the Diocese of Peoria and executive director of the Fulton Sheen foundation: