Bishop Robert Brennan celebrated mass at Our Lady of Martyrs Roman Catholic Church in Forest Hills Saturday, Sept. 26, in honor of the recent beautifaction of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who was officially declared Blessed at a mass in St. Louis last week.
Brennan, who heads the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens, gave mass at the Forest Hills church in honor of a historic six-week Lenten retreat that Sheen led at the church in 1963.
Sheen, who served as Auxiliary Bishop of New York during the 1950s and 60s, returned to Forest Hills for several years after the retreat to deliver the Three Hours’ Agony devotion on Good Friday, preaching from the church’s wooden pulpit which still stands today. The devotion is a fundamental part of Good Friday services, commemorating the final three hours that Jesus spent on the cross.
Sheen was beatified during a ceremony at football stadium-turned-religious venue the Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis on Sept. 24, drawing a crowd of nearly 50,000 people.
The ceremony came 16 years to the month since he was credited with the miraculous survival of a newborn.
Sheen, who died in New York City in 1979, was beatified because the Catholic Church officially determined that James Fulton Engstrom’s miraculous survival 16 years ago was attributable Sheen’s heavenly intercession.
Engstrom’s parents prayed to Sheen after the infant was born without a heartbeat or respiration. After 61 minutes without vital signs, Engstrom began breathing and made a full recovery without medical explanation.
Sheen, who becomes the first American-born bishop to be beatified by the Catholic Church, will now be known as Blessed Fulton Sheen – leaving him one step away from sainthood.
Bishop Brennan, delivering a homily in Forest Hills on Saturday, celebrated Sheen’s connection to the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens.
“I love the fact that we have a connection with Blessed Fulton Sheen right here at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs and throughout our Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens. Archbishop Sheen was a New Yorker, and how amazing is it that he walked among us?” Brennan said in his homily.
“May we be inspired by the likes of Fulton Sheen to walk together, still struggling, still making our mistakes, and always striving for the holiness to which God calls us.”
Among those present at Saturday’s mass was Ann Pfohl Kirby, who was married to her husband John Kirby by then-Bishop Fulton Sheen in 1954. Sheen also baptized one of Kirby’s children.
Paula Kirby, Ann Kirby, Ann’s sister, Lynn Quigley, and Bishop Robert Brennan. Photo courtesy of Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens