Wisdom from Archbishop Fulton Sheen

“And yet at that moment when a tree of his own creation turned against Him and became a cross, when the iron of His earth reacted against Him and became nails, when roses rebelled against Him and became thorns, at that second when a sickle and a hammer combined to cut down the weeds on Calvary’s hill to erect a gallows and drive nails through hands to render impotent the blessings of love incarnate, He, like a tree which bathes in perfume the ax which kills it, lets fall from His lips for the earth’s first hearing the answer to the riddle of hate and anger: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” ~Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Ah, Fulton Sheen.  I don't think it was possible for that man to have written anything that wasn't soul-moving.  A good friend of mine recently sent me his beautiful poem, Complain! on the value of complaining to God alone.  I could use a lot of work in this area, complaining far too often to others instead of saving my sorrows for God alone, so hopefully the inspiration I feel in reading and re-reading this will become a valuable asset to my spiritual life.  Am I alone in that particular struggle?  I hope not and so I felt that this poem was too good not to pass on.  I am grateful to God for the wisdom of Archbishop Fulton Sheen.  He was, and through his writings continues to be, a great witness to the faith!

          Complain!

by:  Archbishop Fulton Sheen

God does not frown on your complaint.

Did not His Mother in the Temple ask:

“Son! Why hast thou done so to us?”

And did not Christ on the Cross complain:

“My God! Why hast Thou abandoned Me?”

If the Son asked the Father,

And the Mother the Son – “Why?”

Why should not you?

But let your wails be to God,

And not to man,

Asking not, “Why does God do this to me?”

But: “Why, O God, dost Thou treat me so?”

Talk not about God, as Satan did to Eve:

“Why did God command you?”

But talk to God, as Christ to His Father.

And at the end of your sweet complaining prayer

You will say: “Father, into Thy Hands I commend my spirit.”

You will not so much be taken down

As the thief on the left,

But be taken up as the thief

Who heard: “This day, Paradise.”

They who complain to others never see God’s purposes

They who complain to God find that

Their Passion, like Christ’s, turns into compassion.

Only He who made your wound can heal it.

The Love that tightened your bow-strings

Did so, not in hurt, but in love of music.

Do not all lovers ask in doubt: “Do you love me?”

Ask that of the Tremendous Lover

And each scar will seem a kiss!

  

God is not “way up there.”

He is taking another body – your own

To carry on the world’s redemption.

Too few offer Him a human nature

Like Mary at the angel’s call –

So He conscripts you, drafts you,

Inducts you into His Army.

Complain that your shoulders

Ache beneath your pack –

But see His  own, smarting

Under a cross beam.

Complaint to God is dialogue,

And dialogue is prayer.

Not the ready-made, packaged, memorized

Lip-service of the book and candle,

but the encounter and the union

That only lovers know!