Sixty-one minutes.
That is how long James Fulton Engstrom went without a pulse at birth.
James’ parents were Catholic and had already had two children born without complications. They had developed a love for Venerable Sheen over the years after, like so many others, watching his clips online. They decided to give James the middle name “Fulton.” The couple was from Venerable Sheen’s hometown of Peoria, Illinois, where James was born lifeless, with his umbilical cord tied around his neck.
His parents prayed fervently to Sheen for his intercession. His medical team was just about to call time of death, when at sixty-one minutes after birth, his heart started to beat. Moreover, his parents prayed to Sheen for complete healing for what by all accounts should have been massive brain and organ damage, and enlisted their networks on social media to do the same.
No medical explanation
Subsequent scans revealed, to the shock of all his medical care team, that James Fulton Engstrom had no indications at all of any damage to his health. To this day, he is a healthy and thriving boy. Fifteen different people and medical personnel involved testified that they had no medical explanation for what happened.
It was the textbook definition of what the Church defines as a miracle, and put Sheen on the path for beatification, occurring today in St. Louis, Missouri.
“It surprises me still that something so extraordinary has happened to our remarkably ordinary family,” baby James’ mother told local press. “We are small and unimportant except that, just like you, we are known and loved by our good God.”
We had the privilege of having Bishop Louis Tylka on “Conversations with Consequences” a few weeks ago to talk about Venerable Sheen’s extraordinary life and now his journey towards sainthood. The episode is worth listening to in its entirety if you’re interested in the life and legacy of Fulton Sheen, as Bishop Tylka serves as the lead promoter of the cause for canonization for Venerable Sheen.
Among many insights he gave us, one stood out.
Those familiar with Venerable Sheen know he was deeply devoted to the Holy hour. As he points out in this clip, Sheen made a vow on the occasion of his ordination to make a daily holy hour. As I noted previously here, the Holy Hour “was something Sheen was deeply committed to during the entirety of his ministry. In one of the programs I listened to, he pointed out in what people dubbed his “golden voice,” addressing Jesus, “There was only once that you ever asked your disciples to do something special for you.” And that favor was to spend a Holy Hour in the Garden of Gethsemane.”
Sheen’s continuing influence on young clergy
Bishop Tylka, along with other priests we’ve had on the show, has said that this next generation of priests has clearly been influenced by Sheen, who has experienced a revival of relevance since his cause for canonization began, with some affirming a renewal of devotion to the practice of the Holy Hour in the seminaries that they attribute to his influence.
Fulton Sheen’s miracle baby, as Bishop Tylka pointed out, drew his first breath just after an hour. Sheen’s devotion to the Holy Hour was a “full sixty minutes.” That the baby lay lifeless for exactly 60 minutes, he proposed, suggests that “the lord was working in those 60 minutes in a very powerful way.”
And then there’s this: Fulton Sheen died in the middle of a Holy Hour.
All of it is so very Fulton Sheen. He was almost painfully direct. He locked eyes with you and disciplined you with the truth. But with a warmth that still emanates. His miracle, and his death, bear his fingerprints. They were so plainly and authentically him and ultimately point us to God through the Holy Hour.
In one clip I stumbled onto on X, it felt, if you’ll excuse the cliché, as if he was speaking from the grave. “You want to know the secret to my power?” he asks. Then he stares so long I thought my internet had glitched. I rewound it. It had not glitched. He was just staring into my soul. “Every single day since I have been ordained, I have spent one continuous hour in the presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. That’s where I got power. That’s where I got light. That’s where I discovered the joys and beauties of my priesthood. And there are vocations hidden in you. And they could be lighted and sparked by that Divine Presence. I tell you, it’s the sweetest and greatest association in the world. Try it.”
This week, as Fulton Sheen is beatified, it truly is as if he is speaking from the grave. As his journey toward sainthood moves forward, he is reminding us that we are made to be Heaven bound. And his miracle, his death, and his many writings and media memoirs make as plain as can be that there is one particular tool to help us get there. All we have to do is try it.