Life of Christ

By Fulton J. Sheen

Catholic-ometer: 5 of 5

Enjoyability: 5 of 5

I just finished this book recently, and I have to admit; I was totally blown away.  It's a fantastic book about Jesus; true, blue Catholic from start to finish.

Any good Catholic looking for solid teaching, presented in a dramatic, entertaining and captivating manner needs to look up the name of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.  He was an extremely faithful Catholic, a wonderful teacher, and incredible intellectual, and an amazingly charismatic speaker.  Little wonder, then, that for years and years, he not only wrote numerous books and sermons, but had his own show on the radio, and on television.  He even won an award for best television personality; back before the anti-catholic prejudice in the secular media became the epidemic it is today.

The Life of Christ is some of Bishop Sheen's best work; a point-by-point retelling of the life of Jesus, with bible quotes and reflections for each major event contained in the gospels, as well as additional tidbits of information about the majority of the events described.  Bishop Sheen's writing is enthusiastic and insightful, and at more than one point, he applies the gospel message nicely to the problems of his own times.

Of course, the times that Bishop Sheen addressed were a generation ago, when Russia was a threat, but his words about communism, China, and the problems facing the United States are just as true now as they were then.  If anything, I think that the last thirty years have only served to prove Bishop Sheen's points even more than ever.

The church that my parents attend no longer has a crucifix above the altar.  Now, we just have a sculpture of the risen Christ, and in this book, Bishop Sheen makes a point of saying, many times, that we can't afford to accept just one (Christ) or the other (the cross.)  We have to take them both.

I honestly think that this desire to avoid preaching the hard truths of Christianity that we see so often in "modern" churches in the west is responsible for the declining mass attendance.  How are we going to see Jesus as sympathetic to our suffering if we don't dwell on what he suffered?  This is the sort of thing that this book got me thinking about.

If I had to find any fault with this book, it's that Bishop Sheen does repeat himself once or twice; making the same point two or even three times over the course of the book.  Still, this is not neccesarily a fault, since many of us need things repeated in order to remember them.  This is why I give the Life of Christ a perfect score.  It's a truly magnificent book, which really helped me to understand more about the faith, and I highly reccomend it.