Fulton Sheed Teaches Us God Alone Is Rest

In June we posted some thoughts about summer vacation. At the time some of us may have taken some. By now, perhaps more have. Or perhaps there's a plan for an August get-away. 

One of the benefits of a good vacation - or any substantial break from work - is rest. Many of us (most of us?) work hard every day. A good day at work doesn't preclude ending the day in a state of near exhaustion. Not that we want to work ourselves to death, of course; but the demands of the day may call forth a consummate effort that requires all our strength and energy. Nothing wrong with such an effort; it's a good kind of tired that results. 

On the other hand, overdoing it - as has recently occurred on this end - can lead to an extended bout of exhaustion. Such a state can cause a deterioration in concentration, perhaps leading to sloppy work. Or it can result in personal grumpiness - a fertile state for lack of charity not only towards our co-workers, but towards our loved ones upon our return from work. The recent stretch of this unhappy state was "cured" by a vacation. But, frankly, it ought never to have occurred. A lack of discipline, perhaps? A matter of selfish desire to "prove" how mighty one is? Certainly, the desire to simply do God's Will could not have caused this state!

So with all that as background, rest will likely come into play at some point. There's only so much gas in the tank.

But rest goes beyond just the rest or respite we need from our daily toil. Many of the cares of this world can pile up on us and feel like a constant heavy weight on our backs. Or perhaps we find the goings-on of somewhat (only somewhat?) twisted secular culture a drain on our mental, emotional, and spiritual life.

Whatever the source of our need of rest, we have choices about how we go about getting that break, that respite. 

There are many sources to turn to when it comes to physical and/or spiritual well-being. But for our purposes we'll turn to Fulton Sheen. If you're not familiar with his incredible writing, do yourself a favor an familiarize yourself with these. You won't be disappointed. 

Bonus: His writing is accessible to anyone. It's brilliant in its clarity and simplicity.

Enough about the man (whose cause for canonization is now underway). He will teach us about real, lasting rest. And, no surprise, we'll learn that lasting rest comes from God alone. Here's the first of three parts, beginning with the simple but profound fact that we were made for God.

 

God Alone is Rest (Part 1 of 3)
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

 
“Having discovered why you are disappointed, namely, because of the distance between an ideal conceived in the mind and its actualization in flesh or matter, you do not become a cynic. Rather, you take the next step of trying to avoid disappointments entirely. There is nothing abnormal about your wanting to live, not for two more years, but always; there is nothing queer about your desiring truth, not the truths of economics to the exclusion of history, but all truth; there is nothing inhuman about your craving for love, not until death do you part, not until satiety sets in or betrayal kills, but always. Certainly you would never want this Perfect Life, Perfect Truth and Perfect Love unless it existed? The very fact that you enjoy their fractions means there must be a whole. You would never know their arc unless there were a circumference; you would never walk in their shadows unless there were light. Would a duck have the instinct to swim if there were no water? Would a baby cry for nourishment if there were no such thing as food? Would there be an ear unless there were harmonies to hear? And would there be in you a craving for unending life, perfect truth and ecstatic love unless Perfect Life and Truth and Love existed? In other words, you were made for God. Nothing short of the infinite satisfies you, and to ask you to be satisfied with less would be to destroy your nature. As great vessels, when launched, move uneasily on the shallow waters between the narrow banks of the river, so you are restless within the confines of space and time and at peace only on the sea of infinity. 

“Your mind, it would seem, should be satisfied to know one leaf, one tree, or one rose; but it never cries: ‘Enough.’ Your craving for love is never satisfied. All the poetry of love is a cry, a moan and a weeping. The more pure it is, the more it pleads; the more it is lifted above the earth, the more it laments. If a cry of joy and ravishment interrupts this plea, it is only for a moment, as it falls back again into the immensity of desires. You are right in filling the earth with the chant of your heart’s great longing for you were made for love. No earthly beauty satiates you either, for, when beauty fades from your eyes, you revive it, more beautiful still in your imagination. Even when you go blind, your mind still presents its image before you, without fault, without limits, and without shadow. Where is that ideal beauty of which you dream? Is not all earthly loveliness the shadow of something infinitely greater? No wonder Virgil wished to burn his Aeneid and Phidias cast his chisel into the fire. The closer they got to beauty, the more it seemed to fly from them, for ideal beauty is not in time but in the infinite.”

More next time...