Theoni Bell has been fascinated with America's first approved Marian apparition (Our Lady of Champion) for 10 years. 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. Theoni also writes and speaks about baby and infant loss. Her baby loss picture book Jellybean came out April 2024 from Holy Heroes. Her book for teens detailing the approval process for Marian apparitions, and specifically the investigation of Our Lady of Champion, will be available Fall 2024.

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.

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’s writing has appeared in:

The National Catholic Register
Tan Direction
One Peter Five
CatholicMom.com
The Holy Heroes Blog

You can hear her interviews on:

Relevant Radio’s Drew Mariani Show
A Catholic Take with Joe McClane
The Katie McGrady Show on Sirius XM (upcoming)
Webinar Series with Red Bird Ministries (upcoming)
Jim Haven’s A Simple Truth
Mater Dei Radio’s Morning Blend
Guadalupe Radio’s Catholic Drive Time
EWTN’s The Miracle Hunter
Eileen Tully’s Present in the Pain
Danielle Bean’s Girlfriends
Christine Rossi’s A Light in the World
Wake Up! on Catholic Community Radio
Anthony Kolenc’s The Shepherd’s Pie
Sacred Heart Radio’s Driving Home the Faith
Theresa Kiser’s Catholic Kidlit

For interviews or review copies,
please write to
TheoniBell@gmail.com

On Marian Devotion

“According to Matthew 5:8, the ‘immaculate heart’ is a heart which, with God’s grace, has come to perfect interior unity and therefore ‘sees God.’ To be devoted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means therefore to embrace this attitude of heart, which makes the fiat — ‘your will be done’ — the defining center of one’s whole life.”

— Pope Benedict XVI as then Cardinal Ratzinger

On Suffering

“So you see, my dear sister, everyone has troubles. The happiest are only those who are less unhappy. The wisest and simplest thing to do in all this is to resign oneself to the will of God and to prepare oneself to be ready to carry one’s cross as courageously as possible.”

― Saint Zelie Martin (mother of St. Therese)

On children:
Matt 18:6

But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

More on suffering:
Hebrews 12:5-11

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. …No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.