Blessed Sheen’s baptismal church in Illinois to be part of world’s first parish named for him.

Announcement made at Mass celebrated by New York bishop Blessed Sheen baptized

EL PASO, Ill. (OSV News) — St. Mary Catholic Church in El Paso, Illinois, will become part of the first parish in the world named for Blessed Fulton J. Sheen, Bishop Louis Tylka of Peoria announced Sept. 26 following a Mass of Thanksgiving at the parish where Blessed Sheen was baptized.

According to Bishop Tylka, St. Mary’s Church in El Paso is slated for merger with St. John Parish in nearby Benson. The newly created parish will be named Blessed Fulton J. Sheen on Dec. 9, the first observance of Blessed Sheen’s feast day.

The Sept. 26 Mass in Blessed Sheen’s hometown had another special significance. Offered two days after Archbishop Sheen became “blessed,” it was celebrated by an American bishop baptized by Blessed Sheen.

Bishop John O. Barres of Rockville Centre, New York, chairman of the board of trustees of The Pontifical Mission Societies, U.S.A., celebrated the Mass at what was Bishop Sheen’s hometown parish for about the first five years of his life.

‘Here … Fulton Sheen became a new creation’

Bishop Barres celebrated Mass in the “new” church, consecrated in 1899, but Sheen was baptized in the “old” St. Mary’s Church, on the site of the current parish hall adjacent to the new sanctuary, four years earlier on May 12, 1895.

“One-hundred-thirty-one years later, and immediately after his beatification, it is good that we are here,” Bishop Barres said during his homily. “For here, at St. Mary’s, in the sacrament of baptism, Fulton Sheen became a new creation. Here, original sin was washed away and new life in Christ was bestowed. Here is where the Holy Trinity entered his soul, where the adventure of holiness — the lifelong joy of following the Lord Jesus — was placed before him and where the call to mission — to be an ambassador of Christ — was conferred.”

The Mass was one of several Masses of thanksgiving offered in the days following the beatification of Blessed Sheen Sept. 24 in St. Louis. The majority of the Masses took place at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Peoria, where Blessed Sheen is entombed. But this special Mass, celebrated by this particular bishop, was a more intimate, personal affair. With approximately 50 people present, and a large portrait of Archbishop Sheen hanging in the sanctuary, Bishop Barres recounted how Blessed Sheen’s parents were married at St. Mary’s parish, saying, “undoubtedly the atmosphere of (their) home was Christian.”

Beatification celebration continues

Joining Bishop Barres was Bishop Tylka, who said it was a “great joy” to be at the parish where Blessed Sheen was baptized with Bishop Barres on this day.

“We continue this great celebration,” Bishop Tylka said. “It’s now beatification day, plus two. We have many more to go to continue to celebrate this wonderful, heroic witness.”

In his homily, Bishop Barres said that these days continue the celebration of one “who lived well the upward call of Christ during his 84 years on earth.”

“We rejoice that one who responded to grace, who was docile to the Holy Spirit, who entrusted his gifts and talents to the Lord, who served wholeheartedly as a priest and bishop, who persevered through adversity and faithfully carried the cross, and who boldly lived the missionary mandate is now counted among the Blessed,” Bishop Barres said.

“We praise God that Blessed Fulton Sheen kept the light of Christ burning brightly,” he continued. “So, as we celebrate and contemplate the arc of his life, it is indeed right to return to where grace began, to come back here to St. Mary’s and to offer this Mass of thanksgiving with the successor of apostles of the Diocese of Peoria.”

A baptism and commission

The event was an emotional one for Bishop Barres. Thanking his parents for “enlarging my heart and showing me the vastness of the mission field” while delivering his homily, Bishop Barres paused for several seconds to collect himself before recounting the impact his parents had had on his life and ministry.

He also reflected on the event of his own infant baptism, imagining Blessed Sheen’s “riveting voice saying, ‘I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,’ as he poured water over my head in the presence of my parents, godparents, four older sisters and family friends.”

Blessed Sheen baptized Bishop Barres in 1960 at St. Augustine Church in Larchmont, New York, while Bishop Barres’ father, Oliver Barres, worked under Archbishop Sheen as a writer for the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. From 1950 to 1966, Archbishop Sheen served as the national director for the organization, which supported the Church’s worldwide mission work and evangelization and is now part of The Pontifical Mission Societies.

“Providentially, in a certain sense, he was not only baptizing me but sending me out as a future successor of the apostles and diocesan bishop on Catholic worldwide mission,” Bishop Barres said in his homily.

“As we know, the logic of the sacrament of baptism for every member of the faithful is the call to holiness and mission,” he added.” For a Catholic bishop who was baptized by Blessed Archbishop Sheen, that call carries a particular and humbling responsibility: to be a Spirit-driven instrument of Catholic evangelization.”