by Marie-Lucile Kubacki
Peoria – In the stillness of the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, the revival-gothic-style church that rises above Peoria’s streets, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle celebrated Mass on the morning of September 22, beside the tomb of Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.
It was in this cathedral that Sheen was ordained a priest in 1919, and where his mortal remains have rested since 2019. Two days before his beatification in St. Louis, the place became both a shrine of memory and a summons to mission.
Cardinal Tagle, Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization , came as the papal representative who will preside over the beatification Mass on September 24.
Before the faithful of Peoria, he linked the forthcoming celebration not merely to the honour due to one of the city’s sons, but to a concrete responsibility for the local Church.
“We praise and thank the Lord who has gathered us and has formed us as one community, a family of faith,” he said at the beginning of his homily. He described the cathedral as made “more beautiful by the presence of the soon-to-be beatified Fulton Sheen,” while warning that such a grace carries a demand.
“This is a grace for all of us here, but also a heavy responsibility,” Cardinal Tagle said. “From now on, when people learn that you are from Peoria, they will say: ‘Oh, are you as missionary-oriented as Bishop Fulton Sheen? Are you deeply entrenched in the Word of God like the Blessed Fulton Sheen?’”
The Cardinal’s tone was warm and at times playful, but his appeal was clear: in its deep signification, the beatification is not a local distinction but a call to conversion and evangelization. “As every grace comes to us from the Lord, there is a corresponding responsibility,” he insisted.
Meditating on the Gospel in which Jesus is told that his mother and brothers are outside seeking him, Cardinal Tagle placed the central question of the homily before the congregation: what is the family of Christ? Jesus, he said, does not reject the natural or biological family. “He does not disdain, he does not negate the biological family,” the Cardinal explained. “But he expands the understanding of family.“Who are my mother, my brothers and sisters? Those who listen to the Word of God and act on it. They are my mother, my brothers, and my sisters,” he said, quoting the Gospel.
This “blended family” is not based on ancestry, place of birth or local prestige, but on hearing and putting the Word of God into practice. Cardinal Tagle jokingly asked the faithful: “So, after the beatification, please do not say to people from Chicago, ‘Has Chicago produced a blessed?’ ‘Oh no, we are from Peoria. We belong to the family favored by the Lord. Oh, poor Chicago.’”. Before adding : “No one denies the fact that our venerable servant of God, blessed, was here from, was incarnated as a priest here. But then, as we affirm the natural lineage, in the eyes of the Lord, there is something else that He is looking for.”
The Cardinal then turned his attention to Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Far from diminishing her, Jesus’ words reveal the depth of her vocation, he said. Mary is not only the biological mother of Jesus: she is mother because she is first a disciple, because she listened to God’s word and made herself available to it. “His mother was really a disciple, a mother-disciple,” Cardinal Tagle said. “Because she is a disciple, she is mother. And she is truly mother because she lived her discipleship truly and fully.”
In the figure of Fulton Sheen, celebrated worldwide as a pioneer of Catholic communication, this call took on a particular missionary force. The Cardinal recalled Sheen not simply for his Peoria roots or his mastery of the media, but for a priestly life grounded in the word of God and directed towards mission.
The intercessions at the end of Mass prayed for missionaries sent “to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth,” and for all who teach or preach through “every means of communication,” that salvation may be announced “with integrity and courage.”
Cardinal Tagle concluded by returning to Peoria’s vocation. “Then Peoria becomes part of the wider family, the wider family of God,” he said. “And Jesus will be pleased.” The city, he added, should be recognized not only as Fulton Sheen’s birthplace, but as a community whose members listen to the word of God and act upon it.
In the early evening, in the same cathedral, the novena continued with a Holy Hour dedicated to mission. It was led by Father Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen, OFM Conv., Secretary General of the Pontifical Missionary Union, who guided the faithful in prayer.
Fulton Sheen, Father Anh Nhue stressed as he introduced the time of prayer and missionary reflection, “was not only a great preacher, a communicator, or a man of the media. He was a man consumed by the missionary fire, a missionary animator, a missionary formator, a passionate promoter and supporter of the missions.” His missionary passion, he added, “did not end with his earthly life. His missionary legacy continues to bear fruit today. His voice continues to evangelize.”
“His writings and recordings continue to form. His witness continues to awaken missionary hearts.”
Thus, the Vietnamese Franciscan and Secretary General of the Pontifical Missionary Union, guided the faithful in prayer as Peoria entered the final forty-eight hours before the Church proclaims Fulton J. Sheen “Blessed.”
Link correlati :Prayer/Reflection – Fr Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen OFMConv
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