Fulton J. Sheen, Forgotten Standards
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There are moments in history when the world trembles, and the Church must help us understand what the shaking means. Fulton J. Sheen lived through such moments, and he spoke into them with a clarity that still startles the modern conscience. His words—born in the crucible of 1933, when nations faltered and ideologies promised salvation without God—carry a prophetic weight for our own unsettled age.
This reflection continues the themes first explored in The Quake of Conscience, where we traced the spiritual fault lines running beneath today’s cultural and moral upheavals. Here, we return to Sheen not merely as a historical figure, but as a luminous guide whose writings reveal how divine truth confronts human illusion. His Easter proclamation from The Hymn of the Conquered becomes the lens through which we examine both the world of his time and the world of ours—two eras separated by decades yet united by the same temptation to trust power over Providence, noise over truth, and visible strength over the hidden victory of the Cross.
Stand for a moment with Sheen at the threshold of Easter, where defeat becomes triumph and the rejected stone becomes the cornerstone. This is a meditation on the God who hides His glory in the places the world least expects, and on the enduring relevance of a bishop whose voice continues to steady souls and awaken consciences.
May this reflection draw you deeper into the mystery Sheen spent his life unveiling: that Christ’s victory is found not in the world’s applause, but in the quiet, unconquerable triumph of the Resurrection.
A continuation of themes first struck in “The Quake of Conscience”
When Fulton J. Sheen delivered his Easter address in 1933, the world was trembling. The Great Depression had hollowed out economies and spirits alike. Totalitarian movements were rising with promises of order, strength, and national rebirth. The air was thick with the illusion that salvation could be engineered, that human power could replace divine Providence, that the strong would inherit the earth simply by force of will.
Yet inside the Church, the season told a different story.
It was Eastertide—the quiet stretch of weeks when Christians stand before the empty tomb and let its shock reorder their vision. The liturgy whispered what the newspapers denied: that God’s greatest works are born in silence, that His triumphs arrive disguised as defeats, and that the world’s verdict is never the final word.
Into this tension Sheen stepped with a clarity that pierced the fog of the age. His voice—already luminous, already prophetic—did not merely comment on events. It diagnosed the human condition. It summoned the conscience. It called the world back to the scandalous logic of the Gospel:
“The world was wrong and Christ was right. The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weak things of the world hath God chosen to confound the strong… Christmas told the story that Divinity is always where the world least expects to find it… Easter repeats that Divinity is always where the world least expects to find it…”
These were not the words of a distant observer. They were the words of a priest who saw the spiritual fault lines beneath the political tremors. They were the early notes of a lifetime of preaching that would one day lead many to call him Venerable—and perhaps soon, Saint.
And in this, our own age is not so different.
Today’s headlines echo the anxieties of 1933: nations rattled by conflict and rumor of war, economies strained by forces beyond comprehension, technologies promising mastery while eroding meaning, and a culture increasingly convinced that strength is measured by visibility, dominance, and noise.
The world again insists that victory belongs to the powerful. The Church again proclaims that victory belongs to the Lamb who was slain.
This is the same tremor we explored in ‘The Quake of Conscience’ — the spiritual shaking that occurs when Christ’s truth collides with the world’s illusions. That manuscript traced the deep fractures running through the modern soul. Here, Sheen stands at the same fault line, listening for the aftershocks.
In Peace of Soul, he warned that “unless the soul is saved, nothing is saved.” In The Hymn of the Conquered, he revealed why: because the world’s measurements of success are always too small for the grandeur of God. The world crowns the visible victor; God crowns the crucified one. The world exalts the strong; God raises the humble. The world buries the rejected stone; God makes it the cornerstone.
Sheen’s insight—then and now—is that Easter is not merely an event. It is a reversal. A revolution. A divine contradiction of every false certainty the world clings to.
For Easter ends where it began: in astonishment. Not the astonishment of spectacle, but the astonishment of reversal—that God hides His triumphs in what the world calls failure, that the rejected stone becomes the cornerstone, that the tomb becomes a throne, that the wounds become the proof of victory, that the Victor walks out of defeat with glory still veiled.
The Resurrection does not erase the scandal of Good Friday; it reveals its meaning. It shows that the Cross was not the interruption of Christ’s mission but its fulfillment—the moment when divine love descended to its lowest point so that no human sorrow could ever fall outside its reach.
And so, the pattern continues.
Divinity still appears where the world least expects it: in the quiet fidelity of the overlooked, in the courage of those who choose conscience over applause, in the wounds that become scars of mercy, in the souls who rise again after being dismissed, forgotten, or buried by circumstance.
Easter is God’s insistence that nothing surrendered to Him is ever lost. It is His promise that every apparent defeat—borne in love, endured in truth—becomes seed for a greater rising.
The quake of conscience that began at the empty tomb does not subside; it reverberates through every age, overturning our verdicts and whispering the same unchanging truth:
And His way—the way of seeming loss—is still the only road that leads to life.
May this be the lesson we carry forward: that the Victor walks among us still, disguised in the very places we are most tempted to overlook, calling us to recognize Him, follow Him, and rise with Him into the quiet, unconquerable triumph of Easter.
Fulton J. Sheen Quote Series:
“The world was wrong and Christ was right. The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weak things of the world hath God chosen to confound the strong. And so, I say the great lesson of Easter Day is that He Who goes down to defeat in the eyes of the world is the victor in the eyes of God. Christmas told the story that Divinity is always where the world least expects to find it, for no one expected to see Divinity wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. Easter repeats that Divinity is always where the world least expects to find it, for no one in the world expected that a defeated man would be a Victor, that the rejected cornerstone would be the head of the building; that the dead would walk and that He Who was ignored in a tomb would be our Resurrection and our Life.”
-†- (Saint) Fulton J. Sheen, The Hymn of the Conquered, The Joy of Defeat, address delivered April 16, 1933.
When Eternity Touches the Cross
Author Bio Guy C. Stevenson (penned as G.C. Stevenson) is a visionary editor, writer, and educator dedicated to restoring moral clarity and generational stewardship. Through essays, op-eds, and curated series like The Fulton J. Sheen Quote Series, he synthesizes spiritual insight, historical precedent, and civic reflection into accessible, resonant language for diverse audiences. His work bridges theology, philosophy, and cultural critique, inviting readers to pause, reflect, and engage conscience in the pursuit of renewal
