It is often recounted how as an 8-year-old boy he made a mistake while serving Mass for Bishop John Spalding. During Mass, Sheen “dropped a wine cruet on the floor and it shattered. After the Mass, Bishop Spalding spoke to the frightened boy and made two bold predictions about him. First, the bishop said he would one day study at Louvain in Belgium; second, he told the young Sheen, ‘someday you will be just as I am.'”
Both predictions came true.