Bishop Sheen's Love For Mary

Bishop Sheen portrait by Greg Hildebrandt

Archbishop Fulton Sheen had a special and deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. A favorite story of mine that he wrote was called The Woman I Love. It showed his deep love for the Mother of God and how she was the anchor to his priestly vocation. Here's an excerpt.

Our Lady of Lourdes

I arrived in Lourdes "broke." I went to one of the good hotels -though by no means would any hotel in Lourdes ever be considered in the luxury class. I decided that if the Blessed Mother was going to pay my hotel bill, she could just as well pay a big one as a little one. I made a novena - nine days of prayer - but on the ninth morning nothing happened, the ninth evening nothing happened. Then it was serious. I had visions of gendarmes and working out my bill by washing dishes.

I decided to give the Blessed Mother another chance. I went to the grotto about ten o'clock at night. A portly American gentleman tapped me on the shoulder: "Are you an American priest?" "Yes." "Do you speak French?" "Yes." "Will you come to Paris with my wife and daughter tomorrow, and speak French for us?" He walked me back to the hotel; then he asked me perhaps the most interesting question I have ever heard in my life: "Have you paid your hotel bill yet?" I outfumbled him for the bill. The next day we went to Paris and for twenty years or more after that, when I would go to New York on weekends to instruct converts, I would enjoy the hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Farrell, who had become the agents of the Blessed Mother to save me from my creditors.


Bishop Sheen drinking holy water from the taps in Lourdes

On Priestly Celibacy

Devotion to the Mother of Christ has been one of the principal safeguards of celibacy in my priesthood. Celibacy is surrounded on every side by hucksters of an erotic civilization where even automobiles are advertised as having "sex appeal." The celibate is bound to feel lonely in that atmosphere, but it is a different kind of loneliness that plagues the erotic. The former is tempted because, in the natural order, he is without a partner; the other is lonely even when he has his partner, for as St. Augustine reflected: "Our hearts were made for Thee, O Lord, and they cannot rest until they rest in Thee." The loneliness of one who seeks the Infinite is different from the loneliness of him who seeks the finite as the Infinite.


"Que Soy Era Immaculada Concepciou"

A Poem For The Woman He Loves

For years in sermons and often in lectures I quoted a poem about this Ideal Lady who became so real to me. The poem is about a child's thoughts concerning her. Since we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven only by reversing age and becoming like a child, I fittingly close this article about "The Woman I Love" with child-talk.

Lovely Lady dressed in blue

Teach me how to pray

God was just your little Boy

Tell me what to say!

Did you lift Him up, sometimes

Gently on your knee?

Did you sing to Him the way

Mother does to me?

Did you hold His hand at night

Did you ever try

Telling Him stories of the world?

O, and did He cry?

Do you really think He cares

If I tell Him things -

Little things that happen? And

Do Angel's Wings make a noise?

Can He hear me if I speak low?

Does He understand me now?

Tell me, for you know!

Lovely Lady dressed in blue

Teach me how to pray!

God was just your little Boy

And, you know the way!

To listen to Bishop Sheen's inspiration talks, click here.