The World's First Love by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Edited by Darrell Wright

Author:Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Edited by Darrell Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christianity; Mary; Jesus; Islam; Fatima; Prayer; Faith; Morals; Death; Life; Meaning; Heaven; Hell; Virtue; Sin; Catholic Church

Culture derives from woman - for had she not taught her children to talk, the great spiritual values of the world would not [188] have passed from generation to generation. After nourishing the substance of the body to which she gave birth, she then nourishes the child with the substance of her mind. As guardian of the values of the spirit, as protectress of the

morality of the young, she preserves culture which deals with purposes and ends, while man upholds civilization which deals only with means.

It is inconceivable that such love should be without a prototype Mother. When one sees tens of thousands of reprints of Murillo's "Immaculate Conception" one knows that there had to be the model portrait from which the copies derived their impression. If fatherhood has its prototype in the Heavenly Father, Who is the giver of all gifts, then certainly such a beautiful thing as motherhood shall not be without some original Mother, whose traits of loveliness every mother copies in varying degrees. The respect shown to woman looks to an ideal beyond each woman. As an ancient Chinese legend puts it: "If you speak to a woman, do it in pureness of heart. Say to yourself: 'Placed in this sinful world, let me be pure as the spotless lily, unsoiled by the mire in which it grows.' Is she old? Regard her as your mother. Is she honorable? Regard her as your sister. Is she of small account? As your younger sister. Is she a child? Then treat her with reverence and politeness."

Why did all pre-Christian people paint, sculpture, lyricize, and dream of an ideal woman, if they did not really believe that such a one ought to be? By making her mythical and legendary, they surrounded her with a mystery which took her out of the realm of time and made her more heavenly than earthly. In all people is a longing of the heart for some-[189] thing motherly and divine, an ideal from which all motherhood descends like the rays from the sun.

The full hope of Israel has been realized in the coming of the Messiah; but the full hope of the Gentiles has not yet been fulfilled. The prophecy of Daniel that Christ would be the Expectatio Gentium is so far fulfilled only in part. As Jerusalem had the hour of its visitation and knew it not, so every peoples and race and nation has its appointed hour of grace. Just as God in His Providence hid the continent of America from the Old World for almost 1500 years after His birth, and then allowed the veil which hung before it to be

pierced by the ships of Columbus, so He has kept a veil before many nations of the East so that in this hour His ships of grace might finally pierce its veil and reveal, in this late hour, the undying strength of the Incarnation of the Son of God. The present crisis of the world is the opening of the East to the potency of the Gospel of Christ.

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