Читать книгу 61 Minutes to a Miracle - Bonnie L. Engstrom - Страница 9

Chapter 1

First Impressions

Growing up in central Illinois, I had heard the name Bishop Sheen multiple times, usually from my grandparents. But the first time I saw him, I was sitting in my parents’ living room, home from college on summer break. As I flipped through the TV, I paused for a moment on the Catholic television network to look back at the man whose eyes pierced the screen and looked right at me.

“Who’s that?” I asked my mom as she walked through the room.

“That’s Bishop Sheen. He’s from around here. He was born in El Paso, I think,” she said.

His deep, dark eyes stared as his hand grabbed the edge of his long cape, dramatically flared it out, and pulled it to the front of his chest. His cheeks were hollow; his face was thin; he was passionate about something.

“He looks like a vampire,” I replied, curling my lip. My mom chuckled and kept walking. I shook my head and changed the channel. I wasn’t interested in what a spooky-looking priest had to say about God.

Little did I know that ten years later, after a beautiful, calm labor and delivery, I would kneel on my bedroom floor, holding the newborn baby we had named for Bishop Sheen. I would look at my husband who, with tears in his eyes, gazed at the still, quiet, blue baby in my arms. Little did I know that the man I had snubbed as a college student would be the same one who would walk with my family and me in the longest, hardest moments of my life.