Treasure In Clay

Just started Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's autobiography - Treasure In Clay. Only got as far as page 2 before I had to stop and share the awesome ability of this man to describe things in a way that cut straight through to the heart. He starts by explaining that his autobiography is not his own...his explanation of his life's story in paragraphs five and six is one of the most beautiful things I've ever read...

That autobiography is the crucifix - the inside story of my life not in the way it walks the stage of time, but how it was recorded, taped and written in the Book of Life. It is not the autobiography that I tell you, but the autobiography I read to myself. In the crown of thorns, I see my pride, my grasping for earthly toys in the pierced Hands, my flight from shepherding care in the pierced Feet, my wasted love in the wounded Heart, and my prurient desires in the flesh hanging from Him like purple rags. Almost every time I turn a page of that book, my heart weeps at what eros has done to agape, what the "I" has done to the "Thou," what the professed friend has done to the Beloved.

But there have been moments in that autobiography when my heart leaped with joy at being invited to His Last Supper; when I grieved when one of my own left His side to blister His lips with a kiss; when I tried falteringly to help carry His gibbet to the Hill of the Skull; when I moved a few steps closer to Mary to help draw the thrust sword from her heart; when I hoped to be now and then in life a disciple like the disciple called "Beloved"; when I rejoiced at bringing other Magdalenes to the Cross to become the love we fall just short of in all love; when I tried to emulate the centurion and press cold water to thirsty lips; when, like Peter, I ran to an empty tomb and then, at a seashore, had my heart broken a thousand times as He kept asking over and over again in my life: "Do you love Me?" These are the more edifying moments of the autobiography which can be written as a kind of second and less authentic edition than the real autobiography written two thousand years ago.

I truly love Bishop Fulton Sheen. I feel closer to him than I do many people I have contact with here on earth. I feel similarly about John Paul II who I call Karol in my private prayers... These men know me, I believe, and I constantly ask them for their help in my life. I miss both of them terribly - which I know probably makes no sense at all to most people considering I'd never met either one of them! But that's how it is for me...I have begun to develope a real relationship with these saints (and others) who help me to grow in my love for Jesus. I give all the credit in the world to the Blessed Mother first of all and then to the saints for helping me to see Jesus as a real part of my life. I used to see Him as a wonderful God who loved me from a distance, and I, Him, from a distance. Now, I see Him as "my Jesus". He is totally mine and I am totally His. Thank you Mother, Karol, Bishop, Therese...thank you all...