Who was Nino Baglieri?

Friends, this morning at 8:20 eastern I will be on Morning Air to discuss a near-saint named Antonino “Nino” Baglieri. Nino, born in 1952 and passed in 2007, was a quadriplegic who lived a life of heroic virtue. He was not born disabled; at 17 he experienced a fall from a tall scaffolding, and became paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life. For the first decade of his affliction, he was depressed and despairing. However, following a prayer experience with a group from Renewal in the Spirit he underwent a profound interior change. From then on, he served others, in prayer, counsel, writing letters (with his mouth!), making phone calls, hosting visitors at his bedside as they sought his peace, and generally sharing the Gospel and being an example of accepting God’s will in his life. One of my favorite details from his life: After his death he was dressed in his running clothes, so that, as he said "on my last journey to God I can run to meet him."

An inquiry into his canonization has begun.

You can see how to listen here. If you do not live near a station, you can listen in the live player online here.

Nino Baglieri, pray for us!

Latest radio times: praying the rosary, and saints for mamas

Yesterday morning I once again joined John and the Morning Air crew to discuss: five saints all moms can go to for all our needs: Those saints are:

• St. Monica - patron of patience

• St. Joseph - patron of sleep

• St. Zita - patron of cleanliness

• St. Dymphna - patron of mental health and anxiety

• Plus: most important of all, the Queen of the Universe and Mother of God herself, Mary

The segment starts around 16:26.

Now these are just the first few I thought of. There could be more! Are there any other needs you have as a mom that require some special intercessory saint prayers? I bet you can think of a few.

And earlier this month, we talked all about the rosary, and Relevant Radio’s 21-day rosary challenge. You can listen to that conversation here.

It's worth checking in on the Rosary in a Year

You may be well aware of the mega successful podcasts coming out of Ascension Press the last few years, specifically Fr. Mike Schmitz’s Bible in a Year and Catechism in a Year. Well, Ascension is back with a new podcast, Rosary in a Year, with Fr. Mark-Mary Ames. Interestingly enough, just like its predecessors, it’s already the #1 podcast in the country. Yes, even beating out the true crime, news, and celebrity podcasts that you’d expect to be in first place.

You can listen to it wherever you listen to podcasts (and apparently Ascension has an app; I haven’t tried it). Here is a list of the show episodes on YouTube. I just listened to day 6, “Prayer is a Battle” and was struck by something Fr. Mark-Mary says. He says prayer is our lifeline of grace; when we aren’t praying, we are cut off from God in a particular way. And not only that, but that the enemy of our human nature would like to interfere with our ability to prayer and therefore keep us unable to hear the voice of God. Yikes! I will remember that next time I think my short prayers are not enough and I shouldn’t bother. Every little bit helps. Every effort we make to speak to God is hear by Him.

I say this because I often do not have enough time for a full rosary. I know they say it takes 15 minutes; that has never been my experience, especially once I add in the time it takes to actually name my intentions at the beginning. So then another day without really intentional prayer comes and goes. But this lesson calls me back to basics: just to be present with God, and pray sincerely, in the truth, for a few minutes, is better than nothing. It need not be a structured, fancy, 45 minutes, mystical mountaintop experience. God is already with us in all the day to day details of our lives; he will be with us in our small prayer, too. And glad to be there.

So, I do recommend the show, and i look forward to whatever further insights I will gain - prayerfully - by listening. And on that note, I will be on Relevant Radio’s Morning Air program this Thursday at 8:20ish, probably talking about this very topic.

God bless you in this new year! And God bless those moments where God is able to break through all our noise to show a little piece of himself to us.