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Up until this incident, Lucille Brennan would have said that the day she was approved to be a foster parent was the happiest one of her life. For there, at last, at age 57, she'd finally been declared fit to mother little children, and she even had an official letter from the county Department of Children's Services to prove it.

It's not that she'd never been a mother before, but that she'd never been a very good one. As a young woman, she'd given birth to a boy she named Joe, but the circumstances hadn't been advantageous.

Already by then, Lucille had led a life she didn't feel good about. There was no husband on the scene, and she wasn't absolutely sure who Joe's father was. She loved her little boy, but, trying to make it on her own was hard. She often let little Joe fend for himself while she worked to earn a few dollars as a barmaid. Sometimes she earned a little more from the men who frequented the bar, but of course she couldn't have Joe around while she entertained them. Joe ended up spending way too much time by himself.

Then, too, Lucille drank too much in those days. By the time Joe was 6, he'd gotten used to finding his mother passed out on the sofa.

Remarkably, he turned out to be one of those kids who, despite a lousy background, manage to stay out of trouble. He had enough gumption to pay attention in school and learn his lessons. But at 16, he moved in with a friend. Asked if he'd miss his mother, he said, "Nah. She's never had time for me anyway. She'll hardly know I'm gone."

In some ways that was almost true, but of course, Lucille did miss Joe, and when she was honest with herself, she was ashamed of how poor a mother she had been to him. At first, she tried to see Joe once in a while, but he made it clear that he wanted no further contact. So she'd finally let the relationship go.

Things had gone on like that for several years. By the time Lucille, at age 54, found Jesus, she hadn't seen Joe for more than a dozen years. In fact, he hadn't stayed in touch and she now had no idea where he was.

Lucille had let Christ into her life as a result of the efforts of one of her few friends, a woman named Eileen, a member of our church. Several times Eileen had invited Lucille to come to church with her, and finally, one Sunday when Lucille couldn't think of any reason not to go, she came. To her surprise, she was touched by the service that morning, and she began to attend regularly. In time, through the constant acceptance and friendship she found in our church, Lucille gave her heart to Jesus and really began to change her life.

I guess I'm responsible for planting the idea that Lucille become a foster mother. After services one Sunday, she lingered to talk with me about the guilt she still felt because of how she'd wasted her life and how she'd been such a poor mother to her son. She was looking for a way to make up for that. I assured her that God had forgiven her past and that she wasn't required to make up for it. But when she persisted, I suggested that she check out the foster-parent program. "They're always looking for people to house kids from problem homes," I said.

"Do you think they'd let me, I mean, with my background?"

"I don't know. But you're a new person now, and I'll be glad to vouch for you."

That's how it came about that Lucille, after being thoroughly checked out by the Department of Children's Services, had arrived at her happy day when she'd been okayed for duty as a foster parent.

And that's also why members of our congregation started speaking about "Lucille's brood." For now, every Sunday when she arrived at church, two or three and occasionally even four little children trooped along behind her. Sometimes she even had a baby in her arms. Clearly, Lucille was in her glory.

Foster parenting being what it is, some children were only with her a few weeks while their home situations were being resolved or while adoptions were worked out. Others stayed several months, and one little girl had been with her from the beginning of her foster parenting. I knew the director of the Department of Children's Services, and she told me that they considered Lucille one of their better foster parents.

So I wasn't surprised when the department asked Lucille to take one of their sadder cases. The baby, the worker explained to Lucille, was a boy, 5 months old, named Jimmy. He'd been born to a teenage mother and her live-in boyfriend. The boyfriend, intolerant of the baby's crying and fussing, had beaten the child unmercifully several times, until finally, the mother had reported him and he'd been arrested. By then, Jimmy had been emotionally damaged as well. "He doesn't cry anymore," the worker said. "He just lays there in his crib, silently."

"Bring him," Lucille said.

When Jimmy arrived, it was just as the worker had said. Jimmy, a beautiful little boy, though frighteningly thin and pale, did not cry when he was hungry, or wet, or cold, or in any sort of discomfort. Lucille noticed that he occasionally whimpered quietly, but that was all.

At this time, Lucille already had two other children in her home, a toddler and a 5-year-old. They required attention too, but it seemed important to Lucille that Jimmy be held, and held a lot. And so for weeks, whatever Lucille was doing, she did one-handed. Her other arm was busy cradling Jimmy, who remained as silent as ever. When she needed two hands, she fashioned a large towel into a sling, and carried Jimmy in it, across her stomach.

Jimmy wouldn't cry to tell her when he was hungry, so Lucille made it a point to feed him on a regular schedule, to make sure he was not undernourished. Gradually color began to return to the child's cheeks and he gained a little weight ... but he did not cry.

Of course, when Sunday came, Jimmy went to church with Lucille and the other two children. Our entire congregation soon heard the story of this latest addition to Lucille's brood. Eileen had already put Jimmy on the church's prayer chain.

As often as she could, Lucille sat with Jimmy in her arms and rocked him, singing lullabies to him in quiet tones.

And so it went. Lucille would get up in the middle of the night and check on Jimmy in his crib. Sometimes he was asleep, but other times he just lay there, awake and quiet. When she found him like that, she picked him up, changed his diaper, and then rocked him until he drifted back to sleep.

"You must get pretty tired with carrying that baby around all the time," I said to Lucille one Sunday.

Lucille smiled and said, "I do, but it's okay."

On the fifth Sunday after Jimmy had been placed in Lucille's home, she took him to church with her as usual. The other two children, comfortable now in the church nursery, went there during the service, but as she'd done each Sunday, Lucille took Jimmy with her to the sanctuary.

I was well into my sermon when I heard something and stopped talking. In the abrupt quiet, a little cry could be heard, and when we turned to look, we saw Lucille, with a big smile on her face and tears pouring out of her eyes. But the crying sound wasn't coming from her; it came from the bundle she held in her arms.

Eileen, who was sitting next to Lucille, stared as the little boy took a deep breath and started crying louder. Finally Eileen could contain herself no longer, and in an action unusual for us quiet Methodists, she exclaimed, "Praise God."

At that, the entire congregation broke into an enthusiastic applause -- probably the first time in history that worshipers have clapped because a child cried in church.

Later in the week, I stopped over at Lucille's. There on a blanket on the floor, was Jimmy, clucking and smiling as he played with Lucille's 5-year-old.

"You're not holding him," I observed to Lucille.

"Oh, I still hold him plenty," Lucille said, "but he seems to want some time to play now."

Easter was two weeks away. In terms of Christian theology, it's the most important day of the year. Since I'd been at North Doncaster for five Easters already, I'd been wondering what I could possibly preach about the meaning of Resurrection that I hadn't already.

But that afternoon at Lucille's, I knew.

I knew.