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Have you been praying for the Rosary for years or maybe like me you avoided it because the very idea just screamed tedium. Thanks to some major Holy Spirit moments - I've been able to add this powerful prayer to my spiritual repertoire.  Spiritual Abacus My mind likes to wander, keeping my thoughts on a subject for longer than 15 seconds can sometimes be a challenge. My short attention span wreaked havoc on my ability to complete a Rosary until the Holy Spirit inspired a perfect plan for my brain. The beads on one of my favorite rosaries just happen to slide. As I was fingered my way through the prayers, I thought how it sort of resembled a Chinese Abacus. Suddenly, I thought, “What if I use each bead to as a counter – creating a ‘spiritual abacus’?” Now as I pray my Hail Mary's, I recall a particular person or intention as I moved from bead to bead. BUT wait there is more.... All rights reserved, Allison Gingas 2017

Lent is a time to focus on our discipline of prayer. Here is a prayer story from November, 2015: After completing my  54 Day Rosary Novena jaunt around the house  - I felt compelled to begin another when given a small tattered copy of  Rosary Novenas to Our Lady  (see image below) by a stranger when I attended a friend's Ultreya to hear her give her testimony.  As one who believes in GODCIDENCES (if you ask me there are no coincidences in life especially in spiritual matters), there was no way I was going to ignore this invitation from Our Blessed Mother to spend another month and half in prayer with her! The grace and blessings as I closed on the first 54 days was truly remarkable!! One of the most miraculous moments came when I went to my bank on November 30 - prepared to beg for leniency with overdrafts I was sure had been incurred after paying an unexpected HUGE house bill and then a creditor unwilling to hold off on their payment for just a few days,...

Congratulations to Jared Zimmerer for his Honorable Mention win in the Gender Issues category at the 2015 Catholic Press Awards! Jared's book  Man Up! Becoming the New Renaissance Man  is a gathering of twelve voices who speak to a variety of topics.   They include:  Fr. Dwight Longenecker: Foreword;  Jared Zimmerer: Where Have All The Good Men Gone?;  Jesse Romero: Do Not Be Afraid of the Culture of Death;  Marlon De La Torre: Theological Manhood; D eacon Harold Burke-Sivers: Biblical Manhood and many more! Author Zimmerer  is an avid weight lifter and sought-after conference speaker whose first book is the popular   Ten Commandments of Lifting Weights .