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James Fulton Engstrom was considered stillborn one year ago after his mother’s healthy pregnancy and “a beautiful, short labor.” James was without a pulse for the first 61 minutes of his life. It was only when doctors at OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria were ready to call the time of death that his little heart started beating.
His parents, Travis and Bonnie Engstrom, believe James is alive because of the intercession of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, a candidate for sainthood.
Archbishop Sheen is a native of El Paso, “down the road” from Germantown Hills where Bonnie Engstrom grew up. “I always heard people say he was going to be a saint,” she told The Catholic Post.
She learned more about the media evangelist as a student at the Salve Regina Newman Center at Eureka College, where Msgr. Stanley Deptula was chaplain. He is now executive director of the Sheen Foundation.
She learned even more last year in writing the proposal for a grant from a diocesan Fulton Sheen endowment for an annual women’s conference.
Six or seven months pregnant at the time, Bonnie said she started to pray that this “hometown hero” would pull some strings for the conference and also watch over her pregnancy. The Engstroms decided Fulton would be a good middle name if their baby was a boy.
When their son was born in crisis at home a year ago, because it was an emergency situation, Travis baptized him James Fulton before the ambulance came.
“I have a memory of watching the midwife perform CPR and praying to Sheen,” Bonnie said.
Later in the day she asked people through her blog, learningtobeanewlywed.blogspot.com, to pray for Sheen’s intercession.
While doctors had warned that he might be blind and unable to function normally, James is medication free and almost walking. “He laughs and plays with his toys and does things just like he should be doing and has for awhile,” Bonnie said.
“I believe it was Sheen’s intercession that played a key role in it, but it was Jesus who healed my son,” she said. “It was for his greater honor and glory.”
Full Story: CNS
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