Dark Devotional: Fulton Sheen at Heaven’s Gate

Last updated on: May 9, 2017 at 6:39 pm by Guest Contributor

Dark Devotional: Fulton Sheen at Heaven’s Gate 2017-05-09T18:39:45-05:00 Guest Contributor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Vulture by Brian C. Jocks

I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling high up in heaven,
And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit narrowing,
I understood then
That I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the flight- feathers
Whistle above me and make their circle and come nearer.
I could see the naked red head between the great wings
bear downward staring. I said, “My dear bird, we are wasting time here.
These old bones will still work; they are not for you.” But how beautiful
he looked, gliding down
on those great sails; how beautiful he looked, veering away in the sea-light
over the precipice. I tell you solemnly
hat I was sorry to have disappointed him. To be eaten by that beak and
become part of him, to share those wings and those eyes–
What a sublime end of one’s body, what and enskyment; what a life after death

–Robinson Jeffers, “Vulture”

All morning the waking dream bubbles in the root cellar in the soul’s dark basement, then rises up while I watch the sky, the river birds slicing upstream in search of bugs just hatching, their wings wet, barely able to lift off, and suddenly, my mind pivots on the image of those bugs taking off, and I think of their tiny bodies, existing perfectly, without sin, rising only for an instant of their unimaginably short life, taken, mid-flight, into the beaks of the hungry, then, my mind makes that leaping turn again into the memory of myself as boy, his face inches from an old black and white screen in the 50’s, pulled in by the sharp edge of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen’s probing voice, the notion of sin barely growing in me, like a vine I knew was there, but not tended enough to realize the fruit it would bear, and Fulton his voice a staccato, rasping thing that went down inside me to find any thing worthy of his attention, but now, right now, on the river, my head dancing between images and memories, he comes sliding on the sky downriver, directly at me, lifts me onto his back, his black cape furling him into vulture, and we head straight up, his voice somehow cupping around my ears, and I do what I do every time I feel the ancient fear of being one of God’s lost flock, whispering the 23rd Psalm to myself, the Bishop and I circling over an ocean, where we circle and turn over an empty, rocky coastline, and I worry back into his ear that we are lost, that God has abandoned us to a place with no map, and then Sheen reminds me that the map is not the territory…he scours the earth for sin, prowls, drags the air for it, confesses his delight in being a carrion bird of prey, dropping down on the dead, his ancient beak catching that dark smoke of their burning souls before it rises heavenward, then we bank off, his belly full of human transgressions, and I think of myself, riding on his huge back, full of sloth and pride, gluttony and anger, and the buckets of lust I carry in my own belly, yet Sheen whispers again that he knows that Jesus is waiting at the gate of the border into the Kingdom, which is nearby, it seems, and Jesus appears suddenly, somehow below us, around us, in us, his arms raised to call us down, and I remember reading as a child his words in the Gospel:

“I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved.”

Not just any gate, but THE gate. “I am the gate” He repeats, chant-like, His body dissolving into swinging gold, and we pass through and into and become the air, become the place itself, sweet, overflowing cups everywhere, Sheen spreading a picnic blanket in a pasture green and vast beyond any imagination, both of our cleansed, absolved bodies eating beside still water, no shadow of death anywhere to be seen.

Michael Delp is a poet and a river demigod who enjoys catching old episodes of Fulton Sheen’s Life is Worth Living on the radio in the wilds of Northern Michigan. His most recent book is Lying in the River’s Dark Bed.

Dark Devotional

Fulton Sheen

Lying in the River's Dark Bed

Michael Delp

Robinson Jeffers

Previous Post

May 3, 2017

Jason Harrod: Trying to Say God

Next Post

May 8, 2017 The Theology of Suffering Questions the Benedict Option

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Advent Approaching Mystery art Book Reviews Catholic Ghost Story Catholicism community Confession Current Events Dark Devotional Deconstruction Deconstruction Fellow Travelers I Want To Believe Interview Laudato Si Lent Mary Matthew's Letters Movie Reviews Music Reviews Our Charism Personal Essay Pilgrims Pope Francis Popular Piety Prayer Publishing Richard Beck Saints Satan Sheed and Ward Sick Pilgrim Charism Sick Pilgrim Chats Sick Pilgrim Events Sick Pilgrim Travelin' Medicine Show Sick Pilgrimage to The West Sick Pilgrims Small Joys Spiritual Autobiography Spooky Files of Ave Maria Magazine Spooky October Spooky Pilgrim Spooky Pilgrimage Strange Journey The Inklings Things Keeping Us Going Trying to Say God TV Reviews Uncategorized women in the Catholic Church Wonder Podcast Write the Vision

Select a Month February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 October 2019 September 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who traveled with Paul and received letters to lead churches in Crete?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Barnabas Luke Timothy Titus