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The fact that I had a heart attack is nothing extraordinary. People have heart attacks all the time – over 800,000 in the U.S. every year. What makes my 2021 heart attack remarkable is the circumstances surrounding it. On Ash Wednesday that year, I went away on a 3-day silent retreat with a friend. I fast during Lent and find it helpful to get started at a place with Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration and no food temptations. While praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament, I often pray using symbolic images of my heart. Sometimes I sit silently and ask our Lord to make my heart beat in sync with His. Sometimes, I ask Him to heal it. Oftentimes, I imagine Him reaching into my chest with both of His warm hands. Together, they completely cover my heart. I then imagine Him lifting it out of my b...

1st Sunday of AdventBy Fr. Victor Feltes Our season of Advent has now begun — a season of Christian preparation. Throughout Advent, we the Church are getting ready in two different respects: we are preparing to celebrate and commemorate the historical birth of Christ at Christmas and, at the same time, we are preparing for the day Jesus will return to this world in unveiled glory. In today’s Gospel, Jesus recalls the story of the days of Noah’s Ark, in which a few were prepared for the flood and saved while most were unprepared and swept away. “So too, you also must be prepared,” Jesus tells us, “for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” Will we be prepared for the day of Jesus’ return? How well prepared and open were people for Christ’s first arrival and what can their ...

Would you believe Noah if he were building his ark right now in your neighborhood? Would you believe Jesus Christ himself if he said you need an ark of your own right now? That’s the question the Church puts to us in the First Sunday of Advent, Year A, because, before we can look forward to the arrival of the Baby Jesus, we need to wake up to the Second Coming of Jesus the Judge. We are living in the time of Noah right now, says Jesus. It helps to imagine sitting there with his apostles on the Mount of Olives as he says this. His disciples can’t help but see his intensity and passion when he says, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” He describes people eating, drinking and marrying – in other words, say St. John Chrysostom, indulging in “gluttony...

Happy Friday friends, And a very Happy Thanksgiving to you all. I confess that what I want most from this holiday every year is a very specifically defined “perfect meal” with my family. For me, that means my immediate family, with more or less the entire day spent gathered around a smoker tending to a whole turkey, pork belly burnt ends, and several pounds of beef. If that sounds like overkill for food, bear in mind that my “immediate family” runs to 30 people with spouses and children. Beef: It’s what’s for dinner that’s worth giving thanks for. This year, the table actually got a bit bigger still, with suitors to my youngest two siblings flying in to meet everyone, and a whole other family joining us to experience Thanksgiving in America for the first time. Ordinarily,...

Reason #10 Show that you are not so uninformed as to believe that “Black Friday” is actually on Friday. In case you did not know, Walmart started its “Black Friday” sales on Monday, Nov. 21. Target’s started the day before that, last Sunday. Amazon’s “Early Black Friday” sales started days ago. And likewise for other retailers. If you didn’t go to stores the last couple of days, when things were quiet, but you line up with a crowd on Friday morning, you’ll look like a fool. Reason #9 Don’t be the victim of a scam. The term “Black Friday” was coined originally by policemen to refer to the huge crowds in cities on the day after Thanksgiving. It had nothing to do with businesses reaching profitability and finally being “in the black.” Neither does it have any such real business meaning today....

As we wrap up November and the traditional meditation we make on the four last things (death, judgement, heaven and hell), A classic meditation of St. Cyprian comes to us in the Office of Readings of the Liturgy of the Hours. It is a meditation on a fundamental human struggle to be free of undue attachment to this world and to truly have God, and the things waiting for us in heaven, as our highest priority. St. Cyprian Writes: The world hates Christians, so why give your love to it instead of following Christ, who loves you and has redeemed you? John is most urgent in his epistle when he tells us not to love the world by yielding to sensual desires. Never give your love to the world, he warns, or to anything in it. A man cannot love the Father and love the world at the same time. All that ...

November 18, 2022 Citing the body as a temple of the Holy Spirit, “It is a call to properly care for our bodies,” said Dr. Kevin Vost, Psy.D., a professor and author whose many books include, “You Are That Temple! A Catholic Guide to Health and Holiness” (Sophia Institute Press). “We’re not talking about just the capacity that you can run miles or lift some huge weight, but just that we’re properly maintaining our bodies, trying to minimize the chances of getting any diseases that are going to slow us down. So that we’re hopefully going to feel good and have energy and be able to use our bodies to serve our families and to serve other people.” Learn more at his website, drvost.com. Join Our Telegram Group : Salvation & Prosperity&nb...