Fulton Sheen Teaches Us God Alone Is Rest - 2

We continue with Fulton Sheen's thoughts about why God alone is rest. Whether the source of our need for rest is work or all the other duties of our state of life, we all have moments when we simply need some rest. Fulton Sheen will lift our hearts and minds above our usual solutions to show us why we need to see God as the source of true, lasting rest.

If we understand this, we will have a kind of permanent resting spot within. If our work begins to press up on us, or spin out of control, we will turn to God. Of course, like any new understanding, it takes time to sink in. And while we may, as Catholics, get the basic point here, it's worth reading Fulton Sheen's words carefully, let them sink in. 

Practice makes perfect.

The next installment will especially touch those of us who seek to be "perfect" in all that we do. If we attend to our daily tasks with "fervor and exactness" (as Father Willie puts it), we are on the right path. If not, we can combine that effort with what we learn today. Our "perfectly" performed tasks will then serve us as stepping stones to this highest understanding of real, true, rest. We will take a step closer to God.

And isn't that the true ultimate purpose of doing our best at work?

God Alone is Rest (Part 2 of 3)
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

“Despite your every straining to find your ideals satisfied here below, the infinite torments you. The splendor of an evening sun as it sets like a ‘host in the golden monstrance of the west’; the breath of a spring wind, the divine purity in the face of a Madonna, all fill you with a nostalgia, a yearning, for something more beautiful still. With your feet on earth, you dream of heaven; creature of time, you despise it; flower of a day, you seek to eternalize yourself. Why do you want Life, Truth, Beauty, Goodness and Justice, unless you were made for them? Whence come they? Where is the source of light in the city street at noon? Not under autos, buses, nor the feet of trampling throngs, because there light is mingled with darkness. If you are to find the source of light, you must go out to something that has no admixture of darkness or shadow, namely, to pure light, which is the sun. In like manner, if you are to find the source of Life, Truth and Love, you must go out to a Life that is not mingled with its shadow, death, to a Truth not mingled with its shadow, error, and to a Love not mingled with its shadow, hate. You go out to something that is Pure Life, Pure Truth, Pure Love, and that is the definition of God. And the reason you have been disappointed is because you have not yet found Him! … It is God for Whom we are looking. Your unhappiness is not due to your want of a fortune, or high position, or fame, or sufficient vitamins; it is due not to a want of something outside you, but to a want of something inside you. You cannot satisfy a soul with husks! If the sun could speak, it would say that it was happy when shining; if a pencil could speak, it would say it was happy when writing – for these were the purposes for which they were made. You were made for perfect happiness. That is your purpose. No wonder everything short of God disappoints you. Have you noticed that when you realize you were made for Perfect Happiness, how much less disappointing the pleasures of earth become? You cease expecting to get silk purses out of sow’s ears. Once you realize that God is your end, you are not disappointed for you put no more hope in things than they can bear. You cease looking for first-rate joys where only tenth-rate pleasures are to be found.”

Following Bishop Sheen's thread, to find God at and in our work, we must bring with us a life that is not mingled with its shadow, death, to truth not mingled with its shadow, error, to love not mingled with its shadow, hate. In this we will find Pure Life, Pure Truth, Pure Love - God.

Even if we are contented with, or downright wild about our work, in the end, only God does not disappoint.

Once we realize this, we cease to put more hope in things than they can bear. We cease looking for first-rate joys where only tenth-rate pleasures are to be found.