A 10th Sunday after Pentecost Thought From Fulton Sheen About Thirst

Our 10th Sunday after Pentecost thought comes from Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Some of us grew up with this extraordinary man. He had a weekly TV show on network television at a time way before anyone heard of cable TV, or streaming services, or, for that matter, the Internet. His show was watched by millions - as in millions. Our family watched it.

Wrap your mind around this - that a Catholic bishop was given time on the air to address the American public week after week. The man had a real knack for communicating through what was then a relatively new medium. Remarkable.

He also published dozens of books, all of which - or at least most of which - are likely not out of print. Having read more than handful, each has been worth reading. His writing is amazingly clear and engaging. 

If you're not familiar with him, you could do worse than dipping into either his videos (which are available) and his books.

Here he talks about Our Lord's "thirst." If you haven't thought about what Our Lord really meant when He cried out "I thirst" as he hung on His Cross, now's your chance to begin to understand.

If you've never thought about the profound meaning of His Sacred Heart, now's a good time to begin to understand.  

“Our Blessed Lord reaches the communion of His Mass when out of the depths of the Sacred Heart there wells the cry: ‘I thirst.’ This was certainly not a thirst for water, for the earth is His and the fullness thereof; it was not a thirst for any of the refreshing droughts of earth…When they offered Him a drink, He took it not. It was another kind of thirst which tortured Him. He was thirsty for the souls and hearts of men. The cry was for communion – the last in a long series of shepherding calls in the quest of God for men. The very fact that it was expressed in the most poignant of all human sufferings, namely, thirst, was the measure of its depth and intensity. Men may hunger for God, but God thirsts for men. He thirsted for man in Creation as He called him to fellowship with divinity in the garden of Paradise; He thirsted for man in Revelation, as He tried to win back man’s erring heart by telling the secrets of His love; He thirsted for man in the Incarnation when He became like the one He loved, and was found in the form and habit of man. 

“Now He was thirsting for man in Redemption, for greater love than this no man hath, that he lay down his life for his friends. It was the final appeal for communion before the curtain rang down on the Great Drama of His earthly life. All the myriad loves of parents for children, of spouse for spouse, if compacted into one great love, would have been the smallest fraction of God’s love for man in that cry of thirst. It signified at once, not only how much He thirsted for the little ones, for hungry hearts and empty souls, but also how intense was His desire to satisfy our deepest longing. Really, there should be nothing mysterious in our thirst for God, for does not the hart pant after the fountain, and the sunflower turn to the sun, and the rivers run into the sea? But that He should love us, consider our own unworthiness, and how little our love is worth – that is the mystery! And yet such is the meaning of God’s thirst for communion with us. He had already expressed it in the parable of the Lost Sheep, when He said He was not satisfied with the ninety-nine; only the lost sheep could give Him perfect joy. Now the truth was expressed again from the Cross: Nothing could adequately satisfy His thirst but the heart of every man, woman, and child, who were made for Him, and therefore could never be happy until they found their rest in Him.” (Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen)
 

Happy 10th Sunday after Pentecost!