A Bishop Who Believed Like a Pilgrim
As the Church prepares for the beatification of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen on September 24, 2026, Catholics have a new opportunity to rediscover not only his preaching, wit, and brilliance, but also the deep Marian heart behind it all.
The Sheen Foundation has announced that the Beatification Mass will take place at The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, with Cardinal Luis Tagle named as Papal Representative; Bishop Louis Tylka noted that Sheen’s life continues to call people to deeper devotion to the Eucharist and to Our Blessed Mother.
Among Sheen’s Marian devotions, Our Lady of Lourdes held a special place. Lourdes was not merely a famous shrine to him. It was a place where the supernatural seemed to meet everyday need, where the poor, sick, broken, and uncertain could stand before the Mother of God and discover that heaven had not forgotten them.
“The Best City in Which to Be Broke”
One of Sheen’s most delightful Lourdes stories came from his early priesthood, when he was studying at the University of Louvain in Belgium. He wanted to go to Lourdes to celebrate the fifth anniversary of his ordination, but he had a problem: he had just enough money for the train fare, and essentially nothing for the stay once he arrived.
Sheen’s response was classic Sheen — humorous, bold, and childlike in its confidence in Mary. He said, “If I have faith enough to visit Lourdes to celebrate the 5th anniversary of my ordination, it’s up to the Blessed Mother to help me out.”
He later joked that, when asking for miracles, one must “never be a piker,” so he went to a good hotel and made a nine-day novena.
By the ninth day, nothing had happened. He went back to the grotto at night. There, an American gentleman approached him and asked whether he was an American priest, whether he spoke French, and whether he could accompany the man’s wife and daughter to Paris as a guide.
Then came what Sheen called the “most interesting question” he had ever heard: “Have you paid your hotel bill yet?” The man paid it. Lourdes, Sheen discovered, was indeed a good place to be broke.
It is no accident that Sheen later titled one of his Life Is Worth Living episodes “Best City in Which to Be Broke.” The official Fulton Sheen TV listing describes the episode as Sheen telling “funny and inspirational anecdotes” about Lourdes and calling it the best city in the world to be broke — financially, spiritually, or physically.
Lourdes: A Place of Faith
Sheen understood Lourdes through the eyes of faith. The sanctuary itself began with the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.
The official Lourdes sanctuary recounts that the apparitions were investigated for four years and officially recognized by Bishop Laurence on January 18, 1862; the declaration judged that the Immaculate Mary truly appeared to Bernadette at Massabielle.
For Sheen, Lourdes was not mainly about curiosity or even spectacle. It was about trust. A later priest reflecting on Sheen’s thought summarized it memorably: “Fatima is a place of penance and Lourdes is the place of faith.”
That distinction feels very Sheen-like. At Fatima, Our Lady’s call presses the world to conversion, reparation, and sacrifice. At Lourdes, the sick and suffering come forward with empty hands, trusting the Mother of Mercy.
This is why Lourdes fit Sheen so well. He was a man of intellect, but not a cold intellectual. He believed in reason, but also in abandonment. He believed in preaching truth, but also in kneeling before mystery. At Lourdes, he saw the Gospel enacted in a Marian key: the poor are welcomed, the sick are honored, and the powerful are reminded that they too are beggars before grace.
The Humor of a Man Who Trusted Mary
The story of Sheen’s unpaid hotel bill is funny because it is so human. A young priest goes to Lourdes with confidence, but also perhaps a little holy audacity. He prays a novena. Nothing happens. The clock runs out. He imagines the consequences. Then Providence arrives through an ordinary layman with an extraordinary question.
That is one of the reasons Catholics love Sheen. He never made sanctity sound sterile. He could speak about the Cross, the Eucharist, confession, communism, marriage, education, and modern psychology — and then suddenly tell a story so funny that the listener remembered the lesson forever.
The lesson of the hotel bill was not “be irresponsible and expect miracles.” The lesson was that Mary is a mother. Sheen’s confidence at Lourdes was the confidence of a son who knew that Our Lady does not replace Christ, but leads us to Him. In Catholic devotion, Mary is not an obstacle to Jesus; she is the one who says, as at Cana, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Sheen, Lourdes, and the Beatification
Sheen’s beatification will not simply honor a famous Catholic broadcaster. It will invite the faithful to imitate a life built on prayer. EWTN News reports that Sheen was known for his Emmy-winning Life Is Worth Living, his missionary work, his preaching, and his holy Catholic life; Bishop Tylka also highlighted his witness of devotion to the Eucharist and to Our Blessed Mother.
That is where Lourdes belongs in the story. Lourdes reveals the Marian simplicity underneath Sheen’s brilliance. The great orator who could fill a television studio also knew how to go to a grotto at night, empty-handed, and ask Our Lady for help. The famous bishop who spoke to millions still knew what it meant to be a poor pilgrim before the Mother of God.
And perhaps that is why his Lourdes stories endure. They show us a saintly soul not as distant or untouchable, but as deeply human: broke, worried, hopeful, witty, and utterly convinced that Mary is a mother.
As Catholics prepare to celebrate Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s beatification, Lourdes offers a fitting lens through which to see him. He was a preacher of truth, yes. A master communicator, yes. A bishop, teacher, missionary, and media pioneer, yes. But he was also a son of Mary.
And at Lourdes, the son learned again what every pilgrim learns: when we come to Our Lady with faith, she always leads us to Christ.
A related Lourdes prayer tradition describes Our Lady of Lourdes as “Mother of Mercy, health of the sick, refuge of sinners, comforter of the afflicted,” a fitting devotional frame for this Sheen-Lourdes connection.
