61 Minutes to a Miracle. Bonnie L. Engstrom

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      Travis and I were still discussing baby names when I was seven months pregnant. We were waiting until birth to learn the gender, but we knew that if the baby was a girl, she would be named Teresa Elizabeth. The boy’s name, however, was undecided. I wanted to name my son Linus, but Travis strongly protested. I tried to point out that not many boys are named Linus, so the second pope was just sitting around in heaven with hardly anyone to pray for. I also explained that a boy named Linus would be sure to have a never-ending supply of blue security blankets. Travis rolled his eyes and said it wasn’t going to happen.

      In the midst of this ongoing bickering, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen resurfaced in my life. As a volunteer for a local women’s ministry, I had the task of applying for a grant named after the late archbishop. My only impression of the man was still that he looked like a vampire, so I wanted to know more about him and his mission before I begged for money from people who loved him.

      My husband and I knew who Fulton Sheen was in a peripheral sense. Sheen’s birthplace is twenty miles from our home, and he grew up in Peoria, very close to where we were both born and raised, and were raising our own family. We knew he had been a television personality in the 1950s. Aside from these facts, though, we knew very little of the man. Just as Nathaniel in the John’s Gospel asked whether anything good could come out of Nazareth (cf. Jn 1:46), I wondered whether anything good could come out of El Paso, Illinois — a small, simple town that is no different from thousands of other lackluster small towns across the world.

      But just like Nathaniel, I would soon learn that I was wrong.

      One day I sat in front of the computer, watching YouTube videos as I continued my research. Fulton Sheen had once appeared on What’s My Line, an old game show, and I called Travis over to watch with me. We were impressed by his humor and the way that everyone clearly liked him. The people on the show obviously respected Bishop Sheen and enjoyed being in his presence. We were shocked; never had we seen a Catholic figure so well received in a secular setting. Obviously, there was much more to the man than we thought.

      We watched old videos posted on the internet, listening to him preach. We read about him on blogs and websites. Again and again, we were blown away by how intelligent and yet approachable he was. His face wasn’t foreboding like I had remembered. His broad smile was sincere, and he told jokes and funny stories, often at his own expense. I was especially drawn to how he spoke about children; it was obvious that he respected and appreciated them. Fulton Sheen was funny, articulate, and clearly loved Jesus Christ and his Church. Turning to my husband, I said: “His cause for canonization is open. This man is gonna be a saint someday.”

      We decided then that if the child I was carrying was a boy, we would name him after Fulton Sheen. Soon enough we settled on the name James Fulton, a way to honor Travis’s brother and Saint James the Greater, as well as our new friend, Bishop Sheen.

      After that day we began asking for Sheen’s intercession. We still didn’t know whether the baby would be a boy or girl but suspected that he was a boy. Most mornings when I prayed, I would reach out to Bishop Sheen and ask him to pray for my pregnancy, for a short and easy labor and delivery, and for a healthy baby. I asked Sheen to follow my child through his life, constantly praying for him so that he would grow into a good man who loved God.

      I knew that I could trust Sheen to take good care of my child. Midwesterners tend to be hardworking and kind, and Sheen was a local boy to boot! It felt good knowing that such a holy man was praying for my unborn baby.