Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen “knew Jesus Christ, our Lord” and understood that “the Gospel always sends us outward” to share God’s love with the world, said the homilist at Mass marking the anniversary of Archbishop Sheen’s priestly ordination before his beatification Sept. 24.
The Sept. 20 liturgy, at which Bishop Louis Tylka of Peoria presided, was celebrated at that diocese’s Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, where Archbishop Sheen’s remains are entombed.
Homilist Father Peter James Alindogan, pastor of St. Veronica in Howell, New Jersey, admitted to the faithful in attendance that he was “overwhelmed” to stand in the pulpit for the occasion, having been invited by Msgr. Jason A. Gray, cathedral rector and executive director Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation.
“Preaching about Fulton Sheen is one thing,” said Father Alindogan, a native of the Philippines who along with his parish duties serves as director of the Diocese of Trenton’s Office of Missions. “Preaching near Fulton Sheen is quite another.”
With the late archbishop’s “mortal remains” a mere “twenty steps from where I stand right now,” said Father Alindogan, “I can almost hear him saying, ‘Father, get to the point.’”
In his homily, Father Alindogan noted that Archbishop Sheen – a pioneer of Catholic media – was a master communicator, and “could stand before a television camera with a blackboard and chalk and explain theology to America without PowerPoint.”
“That alone may qualify as a miracle,” said Father Alindogan to laughter.
But, said the priest, “the secret of Fulton Sheen” wasn’t television or microphones, but “the Blessed Sacrament” whom he adored in his “daily Holy Hour.”
“Before Sheen spoke to millions, he sat silently before our blessed Lord,” said Father Alindogan. “Before he stood beneath studio lights, he knelt before the sanctuary lamp.”
And, said Father Alindogan, “Perhaps that is why people listened. They sense that he was not merely speaking about Christ. He knew Jesus Christ, our Lord. That may be one of the most important lessons his priesthood leaves us.”
Father Alindogan emphasized that Archbishop Sheen “deeply” understood that “we are one in the mystical body of Christ.”
Pointing to the day’s Gospel, the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Mt 20:1-16a), Father Alindogan said that “Sheen also understood something else: Prayer cannot end in the chapel.”
Rather, said Father Alindogan, “The Eucharist sends us out.”
“The Christ we adore before the tabernacle sends us through the church doors” to “the wounded, to the forgotten, to the lonely, to the poor, to the searching,” he said. “Sometimes across the street, sometimes across an ocean.”
“A Eucharistic heart must become a missionary heart,” Father Alindogan said. “That is why the landowner in today’s Gospel keeps going out. And so must the Church.”
“We cannot simply wait for people to find us here in our places of worship,” he explained. “We have to go looking for them in the marketplace of life.”
Just as the Gospel parable’s laborers waited in the market square to be sought, said Father Alindogan, so today the Church must reach out to “the young person wondering, ‘What am I supposed to do with my life?,’” the “man or woman away from the Church for many years,” the “person sitting in the back pew, wondering whether God could possibly forgive what he or she has done years ago.”
Also longing to be invited are “the widow who feels alone,” “the family carrying a burden nobody else sees,” “the illegal immigrant” and “those who hold power in our society and our government,” Father Alindogan said.
“To the person who thinks, ‘God has forgotten me,’ the Lord says, ‘You too. There is a place for you in the vineyard,’” Father Alindogan said. “That is mission.”
He stressed that “the vineyard cannot stop at Peoria or Trenton,” and “it cannot stop at the border of our country,” for “the vineyard is the world.”
Archbishop Sheen’s famed television sign-off phrase captured that spirit well, said Father Alindogan.
“‘Bye now, and God love you,’” he quoted. “Simple words, but perhaps after all they contain the whole missionary spirit, the whole Gospel. ... God loves you enough to come looking for you. God loves you enough to call you. Once you know that love, God sends you out that someone else may know it too.”
