Theoni Bell has been fascinated with Our Lady of Champion for a decade. Her historical fiction novel The Woman in the Trees: a novel about America's first approved Marian apparition was published in 2021 by TAN Books. In 2024, Theoni was added as a “witness” to the Libellus requesting permission from the Vatican to initiate the cause for the canonization of the seer Adele Brise. Theoni has spent years sifting through archival documents and corresponding with members of the shrine staff, historians in Belgium, and descendants of the community in which the apparition took place. She collects the stories of people who have experienced miracles — even minor ones — through Our Lady of Champion’s intercession, in hopes that these will draw people to the shrine to encounter Our Lady there.

This whole venture started in 2013 with two answered petitions after a visit to the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion.

Theoni also writes and speaks about baby loss. Her baby loss picture book Jellybean: a baby’s journey to God came out April 2024 from Holy Heroes. She sells baby loss memorial prayer cards and prints on Etsy.

Theoni has a master's in international journalism and studied religion and culture in 9 countries. She came to Catholicism in college. She writes from Houston where she lives with her husband and three children, never forgetting to ask aid from their four children in heaven.

Links in Show:

• www.theonibell.com
• Jellybean: A Baby's Journey to God – Holy Heroes
• www.holyheroes.com/loss
• www.etsy.com/shop/visionsofthegoodhelp

Additional Resources for Families:

• Miraculous - a boy catalogues the miracles in his community while dealing with the loss of a newborn sibling.
• A Whale of the Wild - a girl whale anticipates the birth of her sibling and it is stillborn. She flees with her baby sister to lay her to rest in the burial place of her ancestors.
• The Woman in the Trees - a Belgian girl loses her sister while immigrating to Wisconsin with her family and learns to lean on the faith against the harshness of pioneer life and the grief and bitterness of her mother. (Strange enough, I wrote this book before I lost Sloane, but the death of this sibling is the main struggle of my characters and they eventually integrate it into the faith with the help of the apparition seer. God definitely prepared me for this huge loss.)
• Sursum Corda - Eileen Tully Ministry for grieving mothers
• Red Bird Ministries - large national organization with retreats, conferences, online talks, support groups, and more. Laypeople and clergy have started Red Bird groups in their own parishes.