Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Don't you just love Archbishop Sheen?

I do. Fr. Z. put up this great story:

Fulton Sheen told a story of how he was opening the door of the church where he worked in London on a foggy November morning when a young lady fell in the door. "Who are you"?

"Where am I ?" was the reply.

"Drunk"?

"Yes".

"Men drink because they like the stuff, women drink because they don’t like something else, what are you running away from?"

"I am involved with 3 men and they are beginning to find out and so I decided to get drunk."

"Who are you"?

She pointed across the square at a name in big neon lights. She was the leading lady at the local musical.

He brought her in and gave her a cup of tea, to which she said, "thank you".

He said, "No, don’t thank me now, come back this afternoon before the matinee and then you can thank me."

She said "I will only come back if you promise you will not ask me to go to confession."

"OK, I promise I will not ask you to go to confession."

"Say it again, you will not ask me to go to confession".

"OK, I promise again, I will not ask you to go to confession".

She came back that afternoon and he met her at the church door. He told her that there were paintings by Rembrandt and Van Dyke in that chapel and would she like to see them? She said yes.

"And as we walked up the side aisle to see the paintings, I pushed her into a confession box." ("I did not ask her if she wanted to go to confession.") "I was present three months later when she took her veil as a member of the perpetual adoration sisters where she is to this day."

1 comment:

Kate P said...

He really was something else, wasn't he? I think only a saint could get away with some of the stuff he did and said.