26th Sunday in Ordinary Time September 27, 2026
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
In the 1950s, a show called Life is Worth Living aired on Tuesdays at 8pm. By 1957, 30 million people in the United States watched it each week – almost 20% of the country. It was simply Bishop Fulton J. Sheen standing in front of a chalk board teaching viewers about the Catholic faith. Yet, right as it reached that peak, it was suddenly cancelled.
Why? Cardinal Spellman, the Archbishop of New York, pulled strings get Sheen off that channel. Why? Because Fulton Sheen had refused to use charity money to pay the diocese for supplies that Spellman had received for free. When the dispute got to the pope, the pope sided with Fulton Sheen. In response Spellman told Sheen, “I will get even with you. It may take six months or ten years, but everyone will know what you are like.” Fulton Sheen himself never publicly spoke or wrote about the incident. Like his Lord and Savior, Fulton Sheen “humbled himself” to accept persecution without complaint.
That persecution continued nonetheless. Despite his years of success raising millions of dollars to support missionary activity around the world, Cardinal Spellman once again intervened to get Bishop Sheen appointed to the diocese of Rochester, forcing Sheen to give up his job as director of the Pontifical Mission Society. And when the pope told him to move, what did Fulton Sheen do? The same thing he did decades before when his bishop pulled him out of school to make him associate pastor in an unimportant parish… he obeyed.
St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians reminds us that Jesus Christ “humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him.” Well, Fulton J. Sheen was beatified this past Thursday – “greatly exalted” by God’s Church not because he was famous and successful, but because he was charitable, faithful, humble in the face of persecution, and obedient even to the point of death… not physical death, but death to self in leaving behind his past successes out of obedience to the Church.
So it is that, in a rather ironic fulfillment of Cardinal Spellman’s prophecy, everyone does now know what Blessed Fulton J. Sheen is like: a man with “the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus” in the words of St. Paul. In 6 months or ten years or 70 years, will the same be said of us? That we have adopted as our own the attitude of Christ?
Not that Fulton Sheen always did it right the first time. While in college, Sheen knew he was supposed to become a priest. Yet, he nonetheless competed for and then won a very prestigious scholarship to pay for his education up to a doctorate. He planned to get that Ph.D. before going to seminary. After a conversation with a trusted priest, however, he changed his mind, turned down the scholarship, and entered seminary. His initial “no” turned eventually into a lived “yes.”
St. Augustine – another bishop of incredible intellect and influence – was likewise reticent to say yes to the Lord. Before he finally and fully converted, he infamously prayed, “Lord, make me chaste… but not yet.” He also proudly clung to his own clever ideas about God. We don’t call him Augustine the womanizer or Augustine the gnostic, but “Saint Augustine.” No matter how bad sin, how strong the reluctance, or how long the delay, those who turn to the Lord in the end are called saints.
Which brings us back to that question: do we have the attitude of Christ? The attitude of humble, loving obedience even to the point of death? Or do we more often adopt the opposite attitude of pride?
And we see that pride on display in the chief priests and elders today. This particular form of pride is what I call the “right all along” reflex. I don’t know if you know this, but people don’t like being wrong. We naturally seek stability, balance, and consistency inside ourselves. So, our past, our memories, our patterns and habits and expectations – we see these as part of who we are. Learning that we’ve been wrong about something can feel like a personal attack. It’s why we get so indignant when someone suddenly contradicts what we expect.
The chief priests, elders, scribes, and pharisees get a lot of stuff right – they read a lot of scripture, they fast often, they pray, they teach others – but the problem is when John the Baptist and then Jesus point out what they got wrong: they lost sight of love, of mercy, and of the need to suffer well. They also both fulfill scripture in ways no one expected. So, these leaders instinctively sense that accepting John as a prophet would mean admitting they were wrong in the past. Because of their pride, that threatens them. So, they double down and refuse to listen. When Jesus comes along with even more surprising teachings, they double down again, refusing to admit they were ever wrong. Even when they see how the truth works, how it changes the lives of sinners for the better, they refuse to look at the evidence because that would still require them to admit they used to be wrong, that they need to change, that some part of them needs to be obedient even to the point of death.
I see this – in myself and others – when it comes to conversion. People who are interested in Catholicism often hesitate because they feel like joining the Church invalidates their past faith. They’d have to admit that they used to be wrong, have to “put to death” a past version of themselves and, understandably, they don’t wanna die. But death is the path to eternal life. Refusing to die will only make death more certain.
There are also people raised Catholic but taught the wrong thing. The Church never loses the truth, but there are always people who misrepresent the Church’s teaching either because they don’t like the truth or because they misunderstood it themselves. And being wrong for 10, 20, 60 years or even for two or three generations doesn’t make it right. Even if the people who said or did the wrong thing were sincere and didn’t know better, it still doesn’t make it right.
St. Paul is very kind and affirming in his letter to the Philippians, but most of his other letters are quite… critical. He is almost constantly reprimanding people for false teaching, bad habits, and division. Even in this more positive letter, Paul is quick to remind the Philippians – and all of us – to be “united in heart, thinking one thing.” So, when confronted with the realization that we had the wrong ideas or had set up false expectations, we cannot simply retreat into a false diversity. Real diversity is good – there are many expressions of truth – but the truth itself is not divided or contradictory. If we’re wrong, we’re wrong and the only right thing is to change, to die to self and accept the truth.
Jesus understands that change is hard, though. He understands if your first reaction to a command or teaching you don’t like is “No, I refuse” like the first son in the parable. After you’ve cooled down, however, after you’ve seen the power and effectiveness of the truth in the lives of others, it’s not too late! If you can put to death your pride and stubbornness and drag yourself out to the vineyard of conversion even after saying you wouldn’t go, it still counts! What matters is not that you were right all along, but that you obey God here and now.
That’s how Blessed Fulton Sheen could walk away from fame and success so easily – past success came from saying yes to God in the past, but God doesn’t stay in the past; God exists in an eternal present. What matters is what you say to God today. Refuse him now and no amount of past holiness will save you. Obey him now and no amount of past sins will damn you. The only life worth living is the one you have today. Live that life in obedience to God and it will become a life – and a joy – that never ends.