A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. As Jesus moved on from Capernaum, two blind men came to him crying out, son of David, have dity on us. When Jesus got into the house, the blind men caught up with him. Jesus said to them, are you confident that I can do this? Yes, lord, they said.
At that, Jesus touched their eyes and said to them, because of your faith, it shall be done to you. And they recovered their sight. Then Jesus warned them sternly, see to it that no one knows about this. But the men went off and spread the word of Jesus throughout the entire area. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Well, speaking of good news, the gospel of the lord. Probably, no man did more to spread it in England. In the about beginning about thirty years ago, or maybe a little longer, than Frank Sheed.
Frank Sheed, of Sheed and Ward. Frank Sheed died last week. May married Maisie Ward, who died about six years ago. Now Maisie Ward is belonged to the family of the Wilford Wards who went who go back directly to the time of Cardinal Newman. It was a Ward who wrote the definitive life of Cardinal Newman.
And of course, Maisie Ward was an English woman who attained great influence and significance in her own right before she met Frank. And she continued to exercise considerable influence, not only in Catholic circles, but in general literary circles in England and The United States, because they founded their publishing company here in The United States. Now Frank Frank she met Maisie when he came from Australia and took upon himself to get on a soapbox in in London and to preach to the people, to bring the good news of Jesus Christ into the forum as a layman. As a layman. Now he is a contemporary of Chesterton and Belloc, father Johnson, Eric Gill, Ronald Knox, almost all of them I had the pleasure of getting to meet.
I can't say to know well, but I spent a week at Oxford when Ronald Knox came over to Campion Hall every evening, and we drank coffee with Sherry in a very cultured manner. Now I want to come back to Frank Sheed. This man who started or initiated the soapbox preaching movement in which Father Hart of Catholic University and many of us participated when that was the popular thing to do. We'd go down here to one of the public squares and get on a box and preach. And in doing that one day, I mentioned Aristotle and somebody in the crowd, just an old horrible looking bum, started to quote Aristotle to me in the original Greek.
And that was an embarrassment. Now Frank Shih died last week. And I want to read the final editorial that William Buckley wrote about it because it has it has meaning for all of us. But again, I want to pay tribute to those men, and there are others, but they're the ones I happen to know. Ronald Knox, Chesterton.
Now it was chiefly through Chesterton's book that Clive Staple Lewis became a Christian. Keep that in mind, these are all tied together. And the publishing firm of Sheed and Ward had a tremendous influence in The United States in bringing Catholic book, Catholic authors, Catholic publications to the public. They were really first class. Now the final paragraph in Buckley's editorial in regard to Frank Sheet whom he knew very well is as follows.
Now this is Buckley speaking. You know, Bill Buckley, some people like him and some people hate him. But keep an open mind on this. He's talking about Frank Sheed, and you can't go far wrong on that. So Buckley's wrote, Frank Sheed's faith was always intact.
Though he permitted himself to wonder at the casual acceptance of Christianity, preferred, as canon Bernard Eidings Bell once put it, by a few people to golf or Canasta. Frank Sheed permitted himself a dark observation. Now this is Sheed speaking. There is not as much difference as we might hope between the unbeliever who denies Christ's revelation, good news, and the believer who never gives his mind to it at all. Now this is Buckley speaking.
After Maisie Ward died, Frank was quiet by his standards, but the resonance of what he had done and what he had written sustained not only him, but those who read his many works or who had heard him preach. For Frank had written, for myself, accepting Christ as a teacher, I know who I am, what I am, why I am. I know my relation to God and to Christ and, therefore, to other men. I know what life is all about, where I am supposed to be, and where I am supposed to be going, and how to get there. I know the shape and texture of reality.
If identity is something over and above all this, I am not conscious of missing it. Buckley's final sentence, that certitude was his gift and his legacy. In the name of the father, and of the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.