Way to Happiness

Way to Happiness is a short collection of essays on moral and spiritual principles by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. As he writes in the introduction, his goal for this work was to bring “solace, healing and hope to hearts; truth and enlightenment to minds; goodness, strength and resolution to wills” through his exploration of universal topics like happiness, love, and inner peace.

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Archbishop Sheen was a weekly speaker on the popular radio program The Catholic Hour. With an audience in the millions, he shared his wisdom and knowledge of the scriptures and faith-based morality to aid listeners through their daily lives. This public education continued through the 1950s and 1960s on the television programs Life is Worth Living and The Fulton Sheen Program. Archbishop Sheen won an Emmy for Most Outstanding Television Personality in 1952.

During all of this activity, he found time to write dozens of books on faith. Way to Happiness was published in 1953, at the height of the archbishop’s popularity. The book contains 37 short chapters on subjects key to daily life, including work and repose, self-discipline, the ego, and the spirit of giving. The book’s short chapters make it a wonderful study for a month-long daily devotional.

Broken into eight sections, it explores themes of happiness, work, love, children, youth, inner peace, giving, and man. In each, Archbishop Sheen shares his warmth and wisdom, characterized by support from the scriptures and anecdotes from daily life.

While the work takes an individual-level view of happiness and improvement, Archbishop Sheen is clear that the end result of personal betterment will lead to societal change. “Remake man,” he writes, “and you remake his world.” So while the true Way to Happiness may be walked alone, it was his hope that to walk it would lead the rest of the world to a better future.