This Catholic Life is celebrating its first annivesary!  I cannot believe that it has already been a year since I started the podcast show and the blog!  I want to thank all of my listeners and readers who have motivated me and helped me to continue on with the show.  I know I haven’t blogged and podcasted as regularely as I’ve wanted (life is busy!), but when I hear from some of you that my content has helped you grow in some way in your faith, that gives me immense joy and causes me to praise God.  To Him be all the glory, and may the Holy Spirit continue to work through this ministry!

Also, remember to leave feedback for the anniversary show this weekend because I want to hear from you, dear listener!  Remember too, that there will be a big announcement on this week’s show, so stay tuned!

God bless you and keep you!

I know I haven’t done a show in about a month, but I’m hoping to do one this weekend.  Some changes are coming to This Catholic Life and I’ll be sharing them with you in the next show!  Stay tuned!

Praised be Jesus Christ!

This Catholic Life has now started a video series on YouTube to explain chaplets, sacramentals, and other devotions that involve physical representations of the prayers.  Stay tuned to see more videos!

First video: Chaplet of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Currently, the podcast for This Catholic Life is running shows about Marian apparitions approved by the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church.  The first two installments talk about Our Lady of Lourdes in France and Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal and the messages that Mary brought in both instances.

What are Marian apparitions, you ask?  Marian apparitions are supernatural appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary as seen in visions by one or more people and are approved by the Church for the faithful to believe in.  If an apparition is approved, it is not required for the faithful to believe in them, but they are deemed worthy for belief and are considered free of scandal and heresy, which is something that is discerned by the Magisterium so as not to lead the faithful astray.

These apparitions add a rich tradition to our spirituality and direct our minds and hearts to God, as Mary implores us to do so.  Check out the story and devotion of these apparitions on the podcast!

St. Catherine of Siena was a mystic and one of the few saints who received the stigmata.  She was also a mystic and had visions of Christ and conversations with her divine Spouse.  After she was canonized, she would be declared a Doctor of the Church, one of the first women to have the title (along with St. Teresa of Avila).

Want to know more about this wonderful saint?  Check out the latest podcast episode of This Catholic Life where I talk more about her life!

The album cover and banner art contest is still effect – send in your entries to feedback@thiscatholiclife.org!

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Holy Week and Easter Triduum!  Right now, we are in the Octave of Easter where on each day of the Octave we celebrate Easter Sunday morning and the joyous discovery of the empty tomb.  Alleluia, He is risen!  If you haven’t checked it out already, I did a little Podcast Extra on Holy Saturday where I recited the Exultet and provided some of my own reflections of the Easter Triduum.

Also, there is a new page under the Podcast menu called “Prayer of the Week”, which lists the prayer I offer in each podcast episode so far.

There is currently a contest going on for This Catholic Life also.  I am looking for someone to design new album art for the podcast and banner art for the Facebook fan page and this homepage (the WordPress Theme will change once I have a new banner).  Send in your entries to see if you win!

I wish I had went with WordPress a little bit sooner for my main page!  It’s very user-friendly and I have a lot of plans in store for making a simple, yet useful homepage that links out to the blog and the podcast (you can now see that there are menu items at the top of page for those sites).  Also, you can find me on Twitter and Facebook through the icons at the top.  Things will get fleshed out a little bit more as we go.

I hope to use the posting aspect of the site to keep you update on little things here and there, but not make it into another blog.  The blog itself will be reserved for longer, more in-depth posts.

God bless!

Hello everyone!

As you can see, if you have visited This Catholic Life before, the site has now changed.  And, if you have listened to the podcast, I was planning on switching some things around because I haven’t been able to keep up with the site the way that it was.  With having a 40-hour-a-week job, a social life, and doing lots of ministry stuff at my parish, it’s been hard doing enough research to keep the site up to date as well as the blog and the podcast.  Don’t worry, the blog and the podcast are still available.  These will eventually show up as menu items on this page, and I’ll use this site to do little updates here and there for everyone to read about.

Thank you for your support!  God bless!

Channing