St. Thérèse, Co-Patroness of the Missions, said “I would be a missionary, not for a few years only, but from the beginning of creation until the consummation of the ages”. Servant of God, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, echoes similar sentiments.

In our last edition I wrote extensively on St. Thérèse’s love of the Missions and traced how it came to be that His Holiness, Pope Pius XI proclaimed her Co-Patroness of the worldwide Catholic Missions. In the following article—Begging for the Missions—written eight years before his death, Servant of God, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, whose Cause of canonisation was introduced in September 2002, gives us his deepest thoughts on the Missions. He was for sixteen years, on behalf of the Holy See, Head of Catholic Missions Promotion in the United States, and frequently observed “my greatest love in life is the Catholic Missions”. 

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Omnis  Terra/XLVI – 3                                                                                

BEGGING FOR THE MISSIONS by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen 

THE VOCATION OF A BEGGAR 

As a member of the Pontifical Societies I am a beggar: in order to exemplify this role in my search for alms, I created a cartoon which proved to be the most popular of all during my sixteen years as Director of the Pontifical Societies in the United States. It showed me holding the long handle of a collection basket out of the windows of the offices of the Propagation of the Faith on Fifth Avenue in New York City begging alms from everyone who passed, either on two feet or on four wheels. What seemed to excite a response on the part of generous souls was the portrait of myself as beggar. But why should this appeal? Is it not basically because Our Lord was a beggar? Hence, acting as a beggar I more resemble Him. He emptied Himself and became the Exemplary Poor Man, « making Himself nothing, and assuming the nature of a slave ». [Phil. 2/6]. So dependent was He on others that He begged a cup from a Samaritan woman, an ass from a man carrying a waterpot, bread from a boy vendor of Capharnaum, a ship from a fisherman, waterpots from a wedding party, and a tomb from a rich man. The Cross was the one thing for which He did not have to beg. That we readily gave Him without asking. What was peculiar to His beggary was that He was not just a poor man. He was a rich God Who became poor [II Cor. 8/9]. He never exercised any lawful proprietorship over things except once, and that was to make Himself look ridiculous and lowly [Zachariah 9/9] by accepting Kingship on an ass. Conquerors and kings rode horses as they do in the Apocalypse. In this one instance alone He combined Absolute Authority over the heart with total poverty: « The Lord hath need of it », was the excuse He gave for commandeering an ass [Luke 19/34]. Incidentally, this ass was one on which no man had ever ridden. Either He proved Himself an excellent equestrian or « asstrian », or else He exercised authority over the « beasts of the field » a power given to Adam, which he lost. « Even to the end of time, Our Lord’s hunger, thirst, homelessness, lonely imprisonment and beggary, continues in the members of His Body » [Matthew 25/35 ff.]. 

Once I became associated with the Pontifical Societies, and especially the Propagation of the Faith,

I too became a beggar. Like Him, I had to become a mendicant for alms. Like Him, I afflicted the comfortable to comfort the afflicted.                                                                    

The beggary had to be cosmic, for He served the world [John 3/16; 14/31] not a small area of it. A beggar for the Missions does not plead for a parish, or a diocese, or a country, or a race, but for humanity. Pope John XXIII was very fond of saying: « St. Margaret Mary said, ‘Blessed are they who die after a lifetime of devotion to the Sacred Heart’, but I say, ‘twice blessed are they who die after a lifetime of service to the Propagation of the Faith’ ». Every Director of the Propagation of the Faith may say: « to dig I am unable », but he may not say: « to beg I am ashamed » [Luke 16/3]. 

TWO CONDITIONS OF BEING A BEGGAR FOR THE MISSIONS 

I must See and Make Others See Christ In All Men

Seeing is the source of responsibility. When the woman poured her ointment on the feet of Our Lord, Simon thought about her as a sinner. No wonder Our Lord asked him: « Do you see this woman? » [Luke 7/44]. He did not! All the Pharisee saw was a tag or a label, not a person in spiritual need. 

The Priest and the Levite on their way to or from liturgy walked out in the gutter of the highway so as not to see the wounded man. The elder son did not see his brother for he stayed outside the banquet house. On the Day of Judgment many will say: « When did we see Thee hungry—thirsty—naked—homeless? » [Matthew 25/44]. Few really want to see. To look at our neighbour’s misery is the first step in brotherly love—Love always seizes the eye first and the hand afterwards. If I close my eyes, my hands remain closed. Finally, my conscience falls asleep too, for the needy neighbour has passed out of my sight. That is why at the end of time, our eyes will be judged first. 

As a poor mother will hold up a famished babe before the eyes of passersby, so the mission beggar holds up the poor of the world, to make the eyes of those who have, see human misery: 

« Here we sit, fat, indifferent,

Worrying about our waistline

Maybe a slendering course is called for,

Or yoga,

Keep fit classes or a special diet

But for heaven’s sake

Let’s not eat any less,

Or feed the starving with the surplus.

Let all the stones cry out

Let ten million Lazaruses

Rise up in the night

To point accusing fingers

Or hold imploring hands

Already the lurid flames of Hades

Suck and curl around us

In our earthly Paradise.

In our insulation

We don’t notice the heat »

(Rita Mathew)

                                                                                                  

But the seeing looks not only to the need of others. It means seeing Christ in them. In a Christian country it is easy to see our fellowmen as other-Christs. But how about those to whom the Gospel has not yet been preached? Is Christ in them? Yes! And this is the new kind of seeing missionary beggars must develop. Christ is in the people of the non-Christian world as heirs to a great fortune left by the Heavenly Father through the rich merits of His Son. Africans, Asiatics, Communists, may not know they have a vast inheritance coming to them; but being unconscious of it does not mean that it is not there. Missionaries and Propagation beggars are the lawyers who read to them the will, the testament, the New Testament, acquainting them with their fortune. « I am sending you to the Gentiles to open their eyes that they may receive inheritance » [Acts 26/18]. 

Christ is in these people in countless ways. In their hunger, their destitution, their homelessness, their forgottenness. But how we have to enlarge the vision of our Theology! 

We make Original Sin universal, but we particularise Redemption. There is not a Buddhist, a Confucianist or a Communist in the world who does not feel within himself the triple concupiscence and the carnal tensions mentioned in Romans 7. Now can it be that the Incarnation of the Son of God made less an impact on humanity than the Fall of Man? It is impossible that the Old Adam carved his initials deeper on the flesh of man, than the New Adam Who is potentially all humanity? Were the 6 million Jews who were killed by the Nazis because they were of the House of Israel totally alien to an unconscious participation in the Crucifixion? Are the war-torn people of Vietnam, the starving who fight vultures in city dumps in Latin America totally unrelated to the continuing Passion of Christ, or His hunger on the mountain? The Mission Mendicant must see Christ in those who do not see Him in themselves. But how? Christ is implicitly in all men; He is explicit in those who united themselves to Him by the Spirit, or His Word, or Baptism, or a love of fellowman, etc. 

Even human nature in the raw accepts identification of one person with another. A witness at the Frankfurt trial of the Auschwitz guards supports this view: 

“I once walked through a barrack filled with corpses,

all of them stripped. Then I saw something moving

between the corpses and that something was not nude.

It was a young girl, a Greek Jewess from Salonika.

‘Why are you here?’ And she answered: ‘I can no

longer live … I prefer to be with the dead.” 

This is what Christ did in becoming enfleshed. He would rather be with sinful humanity than remain in heavenly headquarters exempt from man. So He emptied His glory and tabernacled Himself among sinners. We have “over-Occidentalised” Christ; now we must give Him back to humanity. 

As beggars for Christ, we approach the non-Christians not just to bring Christ to them; we go to bring Christ out of them. He is hidden there as St. Thomas would say, by a potentia obedientialis. “The pagans now share our inheritance.” [Eph. 3/6]. 

Below the level of the reflective there is the instinct of faith, a sensus fidei. A conscience which opts for good in relation to life itself is already in grace [Summa 1-2 q. 89 art. 6]. 

But in the Divine Order we share Christ with all men, though not in the same way. But their relationship is closer than we or they know, like the centurion at the Cross or the jailer of Philippi. [Acts 16/17-24]. 

Instead of concentrating on the Implicit Christ in all men, some engaged in missionary work would turn theology into sociology and make missions non-centred. This would be like a lawyer telling relatives at the reading of the Will: “Now go out to neighbours and serve them a meal.” Worthy as this is, it avoids the issue. The lawyer must tell them that a million dollars is coming to them. If they receive this, they will serve their neighbour better, Proselytism today is a dirty word because sociology has become all-important. But the Divine Mandate still remains: Not only must the Holy Spirit strengthen the Explicit Christs, it must also aid the implicit Christs who are being saved. [Acts 2/47]. 

As A Beggar I Must Inspire Others To Give Alms For Christ’s Sake 

Not only must I as a beggar see Christ implicitly in the Mission world, I must also inspire others to give alms because they must see themselves more needy than the needy. What do the poor missions need our alms for? To send those who will preach [2 Tim 4/2]; to give clothes for bodies, schools for minds, hospitals for wounds and churches for sacrifices. But why do the alms givers need the poor? In order to justify their possessions, thank God for them, work out their salvation and have the blessing of God on their whole being. The poor are not as needy as the rich. The members of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith are not nearly as much in Physical want as those to whom the faith is preached. When a man is richer than we are, we envy him; when he is poorer than we are, we look down on him. How balance off this perversity? By the rich man seeing how poor he is on the inside: “You say, ‘How rich I am! And how well I have done! I have everything I want!’ In fact, though you do not know it, you are the most pitiful wretch; poor, blind and naked. So I advise you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, to make you truly rich. [Revel. 3/17]. On the other hand, the poor must begin to see how rich they are with faith, how beautifully dependent on the Father, for the First Beatitude really means “Blessed is the man who has realised his own utter helplessness and has put his whole trust in God.” [Matt. 5/3]. 

If the eye is important in seeing the implicit Christ in the Missions, the hand is important in turning implicit into Explicit Christs. “Mighty works were wrought by His Hands” [Mark 6/2]. We who claim to be His, will pick up a slave’s basin and towel to do a task which others despised. [John 13/1-7]. Christ has no hands but our hands. He can do wonders for the world through our hands, and our loaves and fishes. Calories, proteins, carbohydrates are but words to us, but to two out of three in the rest of the world they represent the desperate difference between health, disease, life and death. As I see Christ, not as a figure in a stained glass window, but as One involved in the struggles, tears and tasks of this twentieth century, my hands will become more open. As babies our fists are closed; it takes education and maturity to open them for other Christs in Christ’s name. 

We who love the Missions are sad because we see Christ’s Hands as they were on the sunlit portico of Pilate, but tied for want of our help. We read of five instances when His Hands were free to touch and help other persons—a man, a woman, a boy and a girl and a leper—covering the totality of mankind [Mark 1/41; 1/31; 9/27; Luke 8/54; 5/12.13].                                                                               

To the extent that I aid His missionaries, I untie His Hands. Could it be that as I sacrifice to a point of pain, I too have wounds in my hands. And do not wounded hands have an extraordinary appeal to unbelievers? “Except I shall see in His Hands the print of nails … I will not believe” [John 20/24.25]. 

CONCLUSION 

In conclusion, there will be a time when my hands are open in service, but there will be a time when they will be interlocked in prayer. They will thus symbolise the integration of worship and work. It is in only such moments that my left hand will know what my right hand does. 

“Lord, use my hands; they are not scarred like Thine

They have never felt the tortures of the Cross,

But they would know upon their palms Thy Touch,

Without which, all their work is loss.

Lord, use my hands that some may see, not me,

But Thy Divine Compassion there expressed,

And know Thy peace, and feel Thy calm and rest.”