From OSV News:
Blessed Fulton J. Sheen is truly “blessed” or “fortunate” because of his communion with Jesus Christ during his life, said Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle in his homily during Archbishop Sheen’s beatification Mass Sept. 24 in St. Louis.
“To choose yourself and to go wherever you want to go is not mission, and it is not blessedness,” he said. Rather, unity with Christ and proclaiming God’s wisdom is “blessedness,” he said, which is what Archbishop Sheen experienced by fully surrendering his gifts as a preacher and teacher to God’s will, and not his own.
Cardinal Tagle serves as a pro-prefect in the Holy See’s Dicastery for Evangelization, leading its Section for the First Evangelization and New Particular Churches, and is the archbishop emeritus of his native Manila, Philippines. The cardinal presided over the beatification Mass in St. Louis as Pope Leo XIV’s delegate.
In his homily, Cardinal Tagle said Pope Leo rejoiced in the beatification of his fellow countryman and Illinoisan. In his apostolic letter declaring Archbishop Sheen blessed, the pope described him as “a tireless preacher of the Gospel through the modern means of communication, and a diligent shepherd animated by missionary zeal.”
“What a description,” Cardinal Tagle reflected. “Among many of his virtues and ministries, two stand out: his being an evangelizer or proclaimer of the Gospel, and his being a missionary shepherd…”
…He relayed an anecdote from Archbishop Sheen’s life, in which Pope Pius XII asked him how many conversions he could attribute to his evangelization. He told the pope that he did not count, lest he be tempted “to believe that they were mine…”
…Despite Archbishop Sheen’s fame and talents, he saw himself as “a ‘porter’ who is sometimes able to lead people to the open door of the house of God,” Cardinal Tagle said.
“I have had some success as a porter,” Archbishop Sheen told the pope.
Archbishop Sheen also told a friend who asked why he became a priest that he was called to share the Gospel and tell the story of Jesus.
“I never tire of telling it; I never tire of improving my telling of it. I love my calling,” Archbishop Sheen said, as Cardinal Tagle recounted.
“How blessed are you, storyteller of Jesus!” Cardinal Tagle exclaimed of Archbishop Sheen.
Read it all. And watch the homily in full below.
