Last week I had the incredible opportunity to go to St. Louis with my sister and my son for the Beatification Mass of Blessed Fulton Sheen.
This was an incredibly meaningful experience for me, because while pregnant with my son, I asked for Fulton Sheen’s intercession nearly every day, as there were concerns about a high potential for miscarriage, concerns about his umbilical cord, and his kidneys. Every night, I would pray for all of these risks away.
When seeking a saint to pray with me, I initially considered Saint Gerard Majella and Saint Gianna Molla (patron saints of pregnancy), but was moved by a miracle attributed to Bl. Sheen’s intercession: a baby born without a pulse for 61 minutes who was revived. I recalled driving home late from work in my twenties and flipping through radio stations, and a few times stopping on old recordings of Sheen speaking. That was a time with its own anxieties; his talks gave me comfort then, so it made sense to turn to him for intercession.
Against the odds, my son was born completely healthy. Bringing the child Fulton Sheen interceded for to his beatification felt like a full-circle moment.
My son learned two things about Sheen that day. First, that Sheen dropped a cruet during Mass as a child—just as my son once did when helping set up. Second, that Sheen said 'my Lord and my God' when the host and chalice were raised and at every genuflection, a practice we’ve been teaching him at the consecration for a year or so.
Every speaker highlighted Sheen’s daily holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament. For Sheen, adoration wasn't merely personal piety—he believed the Eucharist transformed lives and spoke through him. He says: “When I stand up to talk, people listen to me; they will follow what I have to say. Is it any power of mine? Of course not. St. Paul says, ‘What have you that you have not received and you who have received, why do you glory as if you had not?’ But the secret of my power is that I have never in fifty-five years missed spending an hour in the presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. That’s where the power comes from. That’s where sermons are born. That’s where every good thought is conceived.”
Further, he believed that the Eucharist would transform every person who willingly participated in Holy Communion. He explains, “We see in the lives of so many saintly people, it is their frequent contact with Jesus in the Most Holy Eucharist—participation in Mass, receiving him in Holy Communion, and adoring him in the reserved Blessed Sacrament—that makes them who they are. Jesus, the source of all holiness and grace, stretches their hearts and increases their capacity to love.” May we all be open to the transformative grace given to us in the Blessed Sacrament.
Elizabeth Pike
Director of Music & Liturgy
