c. 1998 Religion News Service

UNDATED _”It’s like when Christ told Thomas, `Blessed are those who cannot see and yet believe.'” Catherine Hicks is remembering a phone call two years ago in which her business manager gave her the bad news: If she didn’t sell the house she’d bought her mother, the actress might run out of money.

“I said, `I know, I know,”’ Hicks recalled. “`Something will come.”’

And then it came: the Hollywood equivalent of a phone call from God.

“Aaron Spelling called,” she said, “and he offered me this.”

What he offered was a little piece of heaven _ “7th Heaven,” an unabashedly mushy and thoroughly spiritual family drama starring Stephen Collins as minister Eric Camden, Hicks as his wife, Annie, and a batch of young actors as the five Camden kids ranging in age from 6 to 17.

It started slowly last season but built steadily into the WB network’s most popular drama series last fall; of late, it’s running a close second to the more ballyhooed (and _ how should we put this? _ less spiritual) “Dawson’s Creek.”

“Heaven” serves as the WB’s weekly offering to a growing trend of prime-time shows with religious over- and undertones _ “Touched by an Angel,” “Promised Land,” “Nothing Sacred” and “Soul Man” among them.

“I’ve not met a family who didn’t like it,” Hicks said, sipping coffee and munching beignets during a recent stopover in New Orleans. “At first I thought I’d get flack for playing an at-home mom. But I’m actually finding a lot of women at the peak of their careers who are staying home.

“It’s the timing. Eight years ago, this show would never have worked.”

Why now? It could be a backlash against the sex, violence and cynicism now synonymous with so much of television. Counterprogramming for people who see “South Park” as a sickness.

Or maybe, said Hicks, it’s indicative of something more fundamental in the culture, a return to our collective roots.

“`7th Heaven’ is sort of nourishing for a lot of people who seem starving for family,” Hicks said. “I’ve never done anything like this that was met with just unanimous gratitude. People are grateful _ I hear this a lot _ that they can sit down and watch this together.

“Has it been so bad the last few years that families can’t sit down together and watch TV? I guess it has.”

What viewers see in “7th Heaven” is a kind of ’90s version of “Family,” the ABC drama Spelling produced in the ’70s. This season so far, the Camdens have suspected a son of smoking pot, comforted a daughter whose friend died in a car accident, confronted racism in their congregation when a neighboring African-American church burned down, and worried about their high school daughter’s friendship with a young, single father.

But these modern issues are handled in a decidedly old-fashioned way, as if to reassure the audience that, yes, father still knows best. And if he doesn’t, maybe mother does.

“7th Heaven” qualifies as a hit only by the WB’s diminished expectations. It routinely ranks in the bottom 20, yet its 3 million viewers a week are a windfall for WB.

“That’s the beauty of a small network,” Hicks said. “And the pain. We know if this were on a major network, it’d be gone. But for your ego, you’re wondering: Is anybody in the business seeing this show?”

Even if they’re not, they’ve seen plenty of Hicks. Her first TV movie was a blockbuster: She played Marilyn Monroe in a 1980 ABC movie that earned rave reviews.

She later appeared in two series that weren’t as good as she was in them _ the ABC sitcom “Tucker’s Witch” and the Spelling midseason soap “Winnetka Road.”

“Stephen’s never had a hit, either,” Hicks said of her equally talented and just as unlucky co-star. “Neither of us has ever done 22 episodes of anything. So he’s very, very grateful. The odds are so against you.”

Hicks has some experience overcoming impossible odds. After all, she wound up in an acting career after four years at Notre Dame studying English literature and theology.

“I thought I’d teach English somewhere,” she said. “The theology was just to explore questions on a higher level. I flirted with thinking maybe I should be a nun and do some work with the poor somewhere.”

She rolls her eyes at the thought.

“Right, Cath. No wine, no men, you can’t paint your face.”

Now she gets to have it both ways _ an actress whose show is, in a TV sense, spreading the “good news.”

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” she said. `This is a real miracle. I believe in miracles. But you have to pray hard for them.

DEA END LORANDO