FREE 365 Day Catholic Devotional

When Kevin Vost, Peggy Bowes and Shane Kapler got together to compose a Catholic devotional, the market was already flooded! But these three Catholics are known for their unique blend of Catholic health and wellness for mind AND body; soul AND spirit.

 

As a guest on EWTN's Journey Home, Peggy Bowes had one of the most watched episodes. Likewise, Vost has shared his story on air and in print. Kapler, whose knowledge in the Jewish faith as the foundation of the Catholic faith, brought a unique perspective as well.

 

Thus, Tending the Temple was born. A popular Catholic devotional, Tending the Temple really covers it all in succinct daily entries that offer something for mind, body, soul and spirit.

 

For a limited time, Tending the Temple is free on Amazon. Take advantage and enjoy!

 

And may God bless you with health of mind, body, soul and spirit.

The Rosary Workout...What It Is Really All About

An inspiring, eye-opening interview with Peggy Bowes, author of The Rosary Workout, on Catholic health and wellness. 

(What would you say is the most important benefit to exercise? The “Catholic” answer may surprise you!)

 1.      Give us a bit of background about yourself and your experience in the world of health and wellness.

First and foremost, I define myself as a devout Catholic wife and mother. My primary goal in life is to get to heaven and to help as many people as I can to do the same.

           

My career as a health and wellness specialist began while I was in the Air Force. I proudly served my country as an instructor pilot, but I became pregnant with my son and was no longer able to fly. I was reassigned to the Health and Wellness Center due to my experience as an aerobics instructor and personal trainer, and I truly enjoyed counseling Air Force members and their families and inspiring them to live a healthier lifestyle. I was blessed to be able to separate from the Air Force to stay home with my children. When they started school, I established a business administering metabolic and athletic performance (VO2) testing, with an emphasis on weight loss counseling and exercise program design.

I was inspired to combine my passion for exercise with my devotion to the Rosary by creating a unique exercise program called The Rosary Workout.Through this book and my other writings, I hope to lead more people to heaven and to help them enjoy a healthy lifestyle so as to best carry out their earthly vocations.

2.      Explain your own philosophy and approach to health and wellness.

I believe that the best way to live a healthy lifestyle is to incorporate healthy habits, one at a time, until they become second nature. Too often people make the mistake of trying to make dramatic changes and then become discouraged when they fail to meet unrealistic expectations. Instead, focus on creating one new habit every month or so. Here are a few ideas: If you don’t exercise, start with just 10 minutes, twice a week. Do you drink a lot of soda? Substitute water as often as possible. Are you trying to eat more fruits and vegetables? Make it a goal to add one more serving each day. If you’re always tired, set a timer to ensure you get to bed 15 minutes early each night. By making small changes, one at a time, you will set yourself up for success in the long run.

3.      What would you say is the most important aspect of health and wellness?

Definitely commitment.I have counseled so many people who want to live a healthier lifestyle but expect it to happen magically, without any effort on their part. You have to first decide that you are ready to make these changes, then you must set specific goals, create a plan to meet them, and take action. If you state your goal as “I want to get in shape and lose weight,” then you have not quantified your expectations, and it will be difficult to meet them. A better goal would be “I want to lose 10 pounds in 8 weeks by exercising 3 days a week for 20 minutes and keeping a journal to track my daily food intake.” This type of goal sets you up to succeed because you have a time frame, a concrete goal, and tools to meet it.

4.      What do you see as the most significant benefit of exercise?

It’s hard to choose just one benefit! Exercise is the closest thing we have to a “magic pill.” It builds and m healthy muscles, bones, and joints. It decreases anxiety and depression and improves psychological well-being. Regular exercise enhances work, recreation, and sport performance and improves the quality of sleep. It reduces triglyceride levels (fat in the blood) and increases HDL levels (good cholesterol). Exercise is powerful preventative medicine. It reduces the risks of and helps prevent heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cancer, and Type 2 diabetes to name a few.

That said, I think that the most significant benefit of exercise is that it helps a person to best carry out his or her vocation, whether it be wife and mother, priest or religious, business executive or custodian. If you take the time and effort to exercise, you will be rewarded with more energy and enthusiasm to meet the demands of your daily life.

5.      In your experience, what are some of the hurdles that people face when approaching their health and exercise pursuits?

I think the biggest complaint that I hear is not having enough time to exercise. Yet most people take time to watch TV, check Facebook, surf the web, shop and engage in other pursuits that could easily be limited or avoided, at least occasionally. Exercise does not have to be a long, drawn out process. Anyone can put on a comfortable pair of shoes and walk for 10-15 minutes without having to purchase special equipment, drive to a gym, or arrange for child care. If you have children, take them with you! Certainly most people can find 10-15 minutes for exercise just 3-4 days a week. Keep a journal of how you spend your time for a week, and I bet you will be able to find several places where you can convert unproductive time into time for exercise.

The same time crunch problem prevents most people from eating a healthy diet. It seems easier to grab a pizza or go through the drive-through, but those types of foods actually sap energy and contribute to weight gain. Instead, use some down time to research recipes that are easy to put together and use ingredients you can keep on hand. I call these recipes my “911 dinners” because they are simple and usually involve just a can opener or frozen vegetables, enabling me to cook a healthy meal in the same time it would take to wait for a pizza. Also, a crock pot or slow cooker and a few good recipes can ensure that you come home to a healthy meal at the end of a busy day. I find time on the weekend to plan a week’s worth of meals and shop for the ingredients. This ends up saving me time in the long run, and my family can look forward to spending our evenings eating a healthy meal and connecting at the end of a busy day.

6.      What have been some of your own obstacles in your personal goals towards health and wellness?

Oh, I do get lazy now and then and decide I’d rather sit on the couch and eat ice cream than go for a run. I definitely have a sweet tooth! I fall into the same traps as everyone else when it comes to finding time to exercise and eat healthy foods. What gets me back on track is that I truly miss exercising and find that my body just doesn’t feel right when I skip my workouts. My muscles ache, my energy level drops, and I don’t sleep as well. This motivates me to make the effort to fit exercise back in my schedule.

My husband and I joke about having a “veggie low light” that comes on when we have been indulging too much in unhealthy food choices. Even my children will complain if we’re on vacation and have been eating out too much. They once asked me, “Can we just go home so you can make some oatmeal and stir fry with lots of vegetables?” A lifelong commitment to a healthy lifestyle certainly involves a few detours, but you will find that you truly miss the benefits of your efforts and will take the time to re-establish your healthy habits.

7.      What have been some of your biggest personal achievements in your own exercise program?

I admit that I’m proud of my participation in triathlons, adventure races, circus performances, etc., as well as my sense of adventure in trying new sports and activities.Yet I receive the most satisfaction from the fact that my teenage son and daughter both exercise regularly, eat a healthy diet and understand the importance of a healthy lifestyle. I am glad that my husband and I took the time and effort to educate our children and to provide positive role models for healthy living.

8.      What sort of dreams do you have for the Catholic health and wellness arena?

I am really excited that more Catholics are writing about the combination of prayer and exercise. Dr. Kevin Vost is a dear friend and author of a great book on combining virtue and weight training called Fit For Eternal Life. In fact, Dr. Vost and I, along with Shane Kapler, wrote a unique devotional combining saint biographies and daily exercises to grow “fit in faith” in a book called Tending the Temple. Another informative book on this topic is Ten Commandments of Lifting Weights by Jared Zimmer.

I would love to see retreats and seminars focused on helping Catholics care for their “Temples of the Holy Spirit” through regular exercise in a way that emphasizes that our bodies are gifts from God that require an effort on our part to maintain. Taking time to care for the body God gave you is not selfish or vain unless taken to an extreme. Unfortunately, many Catholics avoid exercise because of the way it is sexualized and promoted in the media. Additionally, some Catholics seek out New Age exercises like yoga and Tai Chi, which focus on self and emptying the mind. My dream is for Catholics to learn to use the rhythm of exercise to help fill their minds with Truth by meditating on the Gospels. We can then be better equipped to carry out our vocations on earth with fit and healthy bodies.

9.      If there was one piece of advice you would give, what would it be?

Don’t be so hard on yourself! I have seen many otherwise confident and self-assured adults break down in tears over their perceived failures in maintaining an exercise routine or healthy diet. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as they say. Instead, focus on your success and keep a journal to discover what helps you to stay on track as well as what takes you off course. Don’t forget to harness the power of prayer. There are a number of athletic saints to serve as patrons and intercessors such as St. Gianna, St. Teresa of the Andes, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, and Pope Blessed John Paul II. Ask them to help and inspire you.

10. How can you be contacted for speaking events and presentations on Catholic health and wellness?

I can also be contacted through my email, peggybowes@gmail.com. I always enjoy meeting new people and inspiring others to share my passion for combining fitness and faith. The Rosary Workout is available in Kindle and in Paperback and really can be used as a personal exercise program or one to do with a few friends!

(Peggy on Marcus Grodi's Journey Home)

Our Lady of Lourdes Feast Day Coming Soon!

February 11

Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes

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From this grotto I issue a special call to women. Appearing here, Mary entrusted her message to a young girl, as if to emphasize the special mission of women in our own time, tempted as it is by materialism and secularism: to be in today's society a witness of those essential values which are seen only with the eyes of the heart. To you, women, falls the task of being sentinels of the Invisible! Pope John Paul II

H

ow fortunate we are to have so many ways and so many days to honor Mother Mary. Through her fiat—the yes, let it be done—that she answered to God, the omnipotent Lord of the universe took on human flesh to redeem us. Countless great saints and learned theologians, from St. Bernard of Clairvaux to St. Albert the Great to Pope John Paul II in our own time have felt and expressed their powerful and heartfelt devotions to Mary.

When Jesus said to his beloved disciple John, “Behold, your mother!” he was speaking to every one of us. On February 11, 1858, Mary appeared for the first time to a poor, humble, and not particularly devout young girl, Bernadette Soubirous (Feb. 18). On March 25, the beautiful lady announced herself with the words, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Little Bernadette had no idea Pope Pius IX (Feb. 7) had officially proclaimed—four years prior—the dogma of the Mary’s Immaculate Conception. The Feast of our Lady of Lourdes was declared by the Church in 1907. Countless pilgrims have journeyed to the healing waters of Lourdes, France in the century since. 

Exercise: Our Lady of Lourdes appeared with a rosary draped over her right arm. What better day for a rosary workout? If you have not explored the ways in which The RosaryWorkout combines the spiritual with the physical, we invite you today to do just that! Visit www.RosaryWorkout.com to see how caring for yourself spiritually and physically will energize you and will allow you to fulfill your vocation more joyfully!

(this excerpt is reprinted with permission from the Catholic daily devotional Tending the Temple)

Tending the Temple

January 10

 St. Gregory of Nyssa (330-395)

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For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 2 Peter 1: 5-7

A greedy appetite for food is terminated by satiety and the pleasure of drinking ends when our thirst is quenched. And so it is with the other things... But the possession of virtue, once it is solidly achieved, cannot be measured by time nor limited by satiety. Rather, to those who are its disciples it always appears as something ever new and fresh. St. Gregory of Nyssa

St. Gregory of Nyssa shared brotherly affection and love with St. Basil the Great (Jan. 2^), his own big brother. Along with St. Gregory, these three bishops from what is modern-day Turkey, formed the great “Cappadocian Fathers” of the Church, all fighting the Arian heresy that denied Christ’s full nature as God and man, and all defending the doctrine of the Trinity.

St. Gregory, echoing the admonition of St. Peter, also wrote much on man’s God-given responsibility to perfect his own human nature (with the assistance of God’s grace). Inspired by St. Paul’s words “forgetting what lies behind and pressing to what lies ahead, I prize the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,” (Philippians 2:13-14), St. Gregory wrote that humans are called to engage in a process of epektasis, epektasis, of “constant progress” in godly virtue leading us upward towards Christ.          

Exercise: Still early in our march through the calendar of another temporal year, in what ways are you seeking out constant progress in virtue and holiness, in body and soul, in preparation for eternity? Will you commit to God that this is the year you will develop the virtues of fitness within your soul? Will your knowledge of fitness grow, and along with it your affection and love for all around you? What about today? What thoughts and deeds might foster your own spiritual growth and share its bounty with those around you? Let’s think about that—and act upon it!

(This excerpt is reprinted with permission from the daily devotional Tending the Temple by Kevin Vost, Peggy Bowes and Shane Kapler.)

Health and Wellness...Catholic-Style

The path to Hell is paved with good intentions.

I don’t get that.

It seems to me that good intentions ought to be worth more than a ticket to Hell.

Having said that, I definitely get that the good intentions I have for any number of things can always be a hellish path.

Exercise comes immediately to mind. As does dieting and just keeping fit and well at 53 years old. I am filled with good intentions, but turning those passive good intentions into successful achievements is another story.

I suppose this also falls under the Scriptural category of the-spirit-is-willing-but-the-flesh-is-weak.

So maybe the whole path-to-Hell-is-paved-with-good-intentions does make more sense than I am willing to admit.

Either way, I have come to realize that while the initial good intention is a necessary first step to health and wellness, a viable course of action must accompany it—preferably something not too painful, boring, or time-consuming.

My goal this year has been to find the right-for-me, realistic balance of health and wellness while accommodating the real demands on my life as a wife, mother, author and speaker—all the while making my spiritual life a top priority.

I know, I know, I don’t want much, right?!

My efforts towards this goal actually began at Lent when I gave up Facebook in an effort to give more time to God and to my own journey towards Heaven. I never went back to Facebook—or any of the other online social outlets that had begun to take up too much of my time. I pretty much stopped writing articles and even put a book I was writing on hold.

I needed to get a handle on things. Big time.

Since then, I have continued to use the time I once gave to online activities to the things that now contribute to my newfound wholeness.

The time away from it all allowed me to sort through what I needed and wanted in terms of my spiritual and physical well-being. I was able to set priorities and developed a spiritual life that has really blessed me. I found a spiritual director and attended a retreat where I learned about Ignatius discernment. Ultimately, and not coincidentally, this all slowly turned my good intentions into a reality.

Maybe that is the key to success: taking the time necessary to pray and discern and truly understand who you are as a person created in the image and likeness of God—and how to tend to that unique person in the physical and spiritual sense.

With the New Year fast approaching, many people will begin making resolutions with good intentions. To help turn those good intentions into reality—and not become a path to Hell—I wanted to share some valuable resources that truly address the wholeness and holiness we all seek…

Kate Wicker is a delightful young mom whose writing I have always enjoyed. She has a nice balance of wit and reality—of reverence and candor. Kate has a new book out titled Weightless. Weightless is the sort of book that should be on every woman’s nightstand. And I don’t say that lightly (pun intended); I promise there are passages in it that will be highlighted and will be returned to frequently! Although Weightless begins with the oft-trotted-out warning about media messages—and maybe rightfully so—Kate really hits her stride in the chapters that follow.

(I know many women whose bad body images have nothing to do with media messages but was very much affected by things said to them while they were young; so while I can understand the influence of media messages, I really would like to see someone explore more in-depth how susceptible young girls are to ALL messages. I believe in Wicker’s capable hands, this could be an issue more fully explored and understood. My own interest in helping girls “vaccinate” themselves against bad body image at a young age is behind my work on the tween book Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…What is Beauty, After All?)


I absolutely loved when Wicker wrote about why we exercise; her insight and wisdom here is worth the price of the book. I also found her encouragement to see ourselves through the eyes of our family as truly words we ought to take to heart. They jumped off the page at me. Wicker’s Weightless combines just enough real-world statistics with Scripture to make it the ideal sort of book to be a background to whatever health and wellness you seek as a Catholic. This is why Weightless is first on my list of resources: Weightless is a book that women should give themselves and give their friends. Now, since I know that most women would worry about why their friend has given them such a book—but because I also think this book should be a gift given to every Sister-in-the-Lord—I ask that if you receive the book, you receive it with the spirit in which it was given—love! I highly recommend Weightless as the foundational piece for the health and exercise program you seek as a Christian woman.

The next two books I recommend are actually listed in Wicker’s Weightless book: The Rosary Workout by Peggy Bowes and Fit for Eternal Life by Kevin Vost. Working with Peggy on her book a few years ago, I truly began to see how my Catholic faith and my interest in physical health could be combined. Peggy is one of the most interesting women I have ever met and her understanding of wholeness and holiness is something I truly admire. Her book, The Rosary Workout, isn’t just about walking and saying the Rosary. Bowes’ book is about understanding the ways in which our bodies work—and when they are working well how we can more fully live out our vocations. Bowes flew planes for the Air Force and is a certified health and fitness instructor. Her knowledge of health and passion for her Catholic faith are beautifully shared in The Rosary Workout.

When I first read Fit for Eternal Life a couple of years ago, I was taken by Vost’s ability to draw from Scripture while explaining how to get the most out of my strength training. I found his book to be the perfect complement to the aerobic training I was being introduced to in The Rosary Workout. Since then I’ve been able to combine the two into what has become my routine. More importantly, each day, because of the works of Vost and Bowes, I am able to view my body in a more wholesome and holy way.


Since their work (Vost and Bowes) became so important to me, I invited them to write a devotional—which they did. Along with Shane Kapler (who followed Vost’s advice in Fit for Eternal Life and lost 40 pounds!) who is also an author (The God Who Is Love), the three recently released Tending the Temple: 365 Days of Physical and Spiritual Devotions which I have had the good fortune to publish. I’ve got to admit, for a daily dose of encouragement, nothing beats what these three authors offer in Tending the Temple!


The other resource I want to mention for the Catholic health and fitness enthusiast—or the enthusiast in the making—is the book and DVD by Michael Carrera, Catholic Workout. Like Wicker, Vost, Bowes, and Kapler, Carrera’s great passion helps us see the whole self as a temple to be cared for and whose purpose of serving God is best accomplished through its loving care. Although simply made, the DVD does offer something new for anyone seeking a Catholic bent on their exercise routine.


(I’d actually like to see some entity or production company or person with great vision to use the talents of all these excellent, knowledgeable and creative authors and explore what can be brought to bear in the way of a Catholic Health and Fitness television or radio program—or a DVD series or something!)


In the meantime, wherever the Holy Spirit is taking you in terms of your physical and spiritual journey, I am sure that you will be greatly blessed by any—or all—of these resources so that your good intentions become actions. You will be more fully equipped, with knowledge obtained through their passions and expertise, to better serve God who created you.