#WhyTHL - Reflections based on World's First Love by Venerable Servant of God Bishop Fulton Sheen

Psalm 24 reminds me of Tepeyac Hill where St. Juan Diego saw our Lady of Guadalupe:

“Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in His Holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.”

But you have to make the effort! You have to climb the hill! That goes for all of us! Not just priests, and religious, not just men either!

Venerable Servant of God Bishop Fulton Sheen in his book World’s First Love shows when a woman is called to lead, she leads with what St. Pope John Paul II called ‘feminine genius.’

In the last paragraph of chapter 15 on Equity and Equality, Sheen writes: “Great men we need, like Paul with a two-edged sword to cut away the bonds that tie down the energies of the world – and men like Peter, who will let the broad stroke of their challenge ring out on the shield of the world’s hypocrisy – great men like John, who, with a loud voice, will arouse the world from the sleek dream of unheroic repose. But we need women still more…”

In an earlier section of chapter 15 Sheen writes, “Christianity does not ask the modern woman to be exclusively a Martha or a Mary; the choice is not between a professional career and contemplation, for the Church reads the Gospel of Martha and Mary for Our Lady to symbolize that she combines both the speculative and the practical.”

Being a business leader is a vocation; it is a vocation of the laity – a vocation within a vocation. You don’t have to be a manager or director or vice president to be a leader. You can be a leader in your family, your community, or a thought leader for your team at work. One voice with a well-formed conscience can make a tremendous difference on school boards, homeowner associations, housing authorities, park management committees, standards committees, and boards in the aerospace, automotive, medical and energy industries. We need people of reason and real hope in public/private partnerships!

But you need not be a lone voice crying out in the wilderness, in a desert of misguided values and a wasteland of lost purpose. If you feel disillusioned, disenchanted, and disgusted and want to give up hope – don’t!

There is a community, a place where you can openly share and be supported in true Catholic values; where you can more fully engage and learn about your faith and how it can help this hurting world. Lay Catholics have a mission and a purpose. That's #WhyTHL