Fools for Christ: The Power of a Wasted Hour

Bishop Sheen begins his address by diagnosing a spiritual malady of the modern age: a slow, meaningless decline where life is simply "played out," ending not with a bang, but with a whimper. He uses the powerful biblical parable of the barren fig tree, which the master orders cut down for being fruitless and merely "using up the soil." Sheen equates this to a Christian life that has become spiritually unproductive and apathetic. He argues that the root cause of this lethargy and exhaustion is a decay in holiness; as our active love for Christ diminishes, so does our true energy and vitality.

As a remedy, Sheen proposes a radical and seemingly foolish act: to deliberately waste time for Christ's sake. In a world obsessed with efficiency and productivity, he calls priests to the "unproductive" practice of the Holy Hour. He elevates this "foolishness" with profound examples from scripture, such as the woman who extravagantly breaks an alabaster jar of precious oil for Jesus and Peter’s impulsive leap of faith onto the water. These acts, illogical by worldly standards, represent a pure, uncalculated love that God honors with miraculous power.

Ultimately, Sheen teaches that this commitment to "wasting" an hour with God is the secret to renewing one's faith and ministry. It is through this act that one learns to "believe the incredible and do the impossible." By taking our eyes off the winds and waves of worldly concerns and fixing them on Christ, we are transformed from being fruitless to becoming, in the words of St. Paul, "captives in Christ's triumphal procession." This spiritual vision allows us to see Christ's presence not only in the Eucharist but also in the suffering of the poor, sick, and lonely, thereby filling our own lives with purpose and divine grace.