I love to ask the people I interview about spiritual champions they personally know, and if someone was to ask me that question the first two names that would come to mind are today’s guests: Brian and Mary Vorginc. They are honestly the holiest people I’ve ever met, they are like second parents to me, and I love them dearly. They’ve had an enormous impact on my life, and I’m a better husband, father, and man for their example. 

Why did I want to interview them? Because, simply put, they have lived my dream. They raised five children who know, beyond a doubt, that their parents love them dearly, and above and beyond that, each one of those children intimately knows the love of God. They have a strong and loving marriage of nearly forty years, and so, for me as a father of young kids who dreams of nothing more than raising happy and holy children and as a husband who dreams of a happy and long and holy marriage, I can honestly tell you that if I live half the life they have lived, I’ll consider myself a lucky man. 

They are fountains of wisdom, and we really get to dig into how they raised a happy and holy family, and how they built a strong and holy marriage through prayer, the sacraments, and persevering difficult circumstances in life. 

In today's episode you will hear from Sr. Serena Deters!

After graduating from Benedictine College in 2003 she entered the Marian Sisters in the Diocese of Lincoln, where she has been serving as the  vocation director and a spiritual director for the last 10 years.

In this episode we dig into the nitty gritty of spiritual direction. How to use your imagination to meditate on scripture, how to interpret the thoughts that come up during prayer, how to go through prayers of healing, and much more. 

Today’s episode is brought to you by The One-Week Challenge. The one-week challenge is a community of people who want to be better people and live better lives, but they also know that changing your life in even the smallest way is incredibly difficult. So, instead of trying to make one giant change that sticks for a lifetime, we try to make one small change for one week. Sign up and each Monday morning you’ll get a new challenge sent straight to your inbox. Challenges can be anything from drinking only water for one day, writing a handwritten letter to someone, or waking up thirty minutes early everyday for one week. If you want to join in visit dominickalbano.com, click on the free resources page, and get yourself signed up.

In today's episode you are going to hear from Fr. John Hollowell!

Fr. Hollowell is a priest for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and serves as pastor for Annunciation Catholic Church in Brazil, IN as well as pastor for St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church near Depauw University's campus. 

In the first fifteen minutes of this episode I think Fr. Hollowell uses the word 'evangelical' about fifteen times. It's clear the man has a real heart for evangelization and for inspiring people to live an evangelical Catholicism. This passion likely came from his parents, who modeled an evangelical Catholicism for Fr. Hollowell as he was growing up through leading small groups in the family home.  

We spend a fair amount of this episode diving deep into what it means to be evangelical as a Catholic. The problem is that the evangelization paradigm is so far from what we are used to as Catholics. Many Catholics are open to the idea of evangelization, but the 'how to' is where the problem comes in. We spent a fair amount of time digging into that how-to, and tried to come away with some serious practical takeaways into how to live a more evangelical Catholic life. 

This episode is brought to you by the Secular Books with Spiritual Insights reading list. Each month I send out a book review that typically falls in the business or personal development arena, but rather than give a typical book review, I lay out the spiritual insights that can be gleaned from reading the book. It's a list that you can't find anywhere else, so visit dominickalbano.com and click on the free resources page to get signed up. 

In today's episode you will hear from Fr. Bryan Stitt!

Father Bryan Stitt doesn’t remember much of the day of his First Holy Communion nor anything of his Baptism.  So the most significant day of his life was July 19, 2003—the day he was ordained a priest.  He and his younger siblings were raised in Crown Point by Maria and the late-Douglas Stitt. 

After graduating from St. Mary’s Catholic School and Crown Point Central School, Bryan attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.  There he began a degree in Civil Engineering with plans to minor in architecture. 

Those plans got dramatically changed when he finally decided to respond to a call that he first considered in the 4th grade.  Bryan entered Wadhams Hall College Seminary in Ogdensburg in 1996.  There he completed a degree in philosophy in 3 years and was then sent by Bishop Loverde to the Pontifical North American College in Rome.

In Rome his life was blessed as he experienced the Catholicity of the Church.  There he studied with people from across the U.S. and from around the world.  In Rome he also had exposure to the timeless history of the Church—praying not only with Pope John Paul II but also at the tomb of his predecessor, St. Peter.

After three years in Rome, Bryan was ordained a deacon by Archbishop Timothy Dolan (now the Cardinal-archbishop of New York) and the following year he was ordained Father Bryan Stitt by Bishop Gerald Barbarito back in Ogdensburg. 

Since then, Fr. Stitt completed a license in Spiritual Theology at the Angelicum University, served as the personal secretary to Bishop Cunningham, and has had a variety of pastoral assignments.  He has served at St. Peter’s in Plattsburgh, St. Mary’s Cathedral in Ogdensburg, St. Mary’s in Clayton, St. Patrick’s in Colton, St. André’s in Malone, St. Mary’s in Massena, St. Mary’s in Fort Covington, not to mention serving 9 years in the Vocations Office.  Finally, in 2016, Fr. Stitt became the pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Canton, NY where he ministers to 600 families, a grade-school, and two college campuses.  He is also the Diocesan Director of Worship.

When he is not in the church or the classroom, Fr. Stitt enjoys hiking, fly fishing, downhill skiing, doting on his three nieces and two nephews, but most especially he loves spreading the Word of God to people hungry to be nourished by the Bread of Life.

Enjoy hearing the two step path to growth in holiness that this pastor would prescribe to his typical parishioner. My favorite quote from the podcast:

"The spiritual life is a response to an invitation from God." 

This episode is brought to you by the Secular Books with Spiritual Insights reading list. Each month I send out a book review that typically falls in the business or personal development arena, but rather than give a typical book review, I lay out the spiritual insights that can be gleaned from reading the book. It's a list that you can't find anywhere else, so visit dominickalbano.com and click on the free resources page to get signed up. 

In today's episode you will hear from Fr. Gale Hammerschmidt!

Fr. Gale is the pastor at St. Isidore's parish in Manhattan Kansas, right on the edge of Kansas State University, and the vocation director of the Diocese of Salina. 

One of my favorite parts of this episode is when Fr. Gale speaks about how deeply he loves his faith, and how seriously he believes that the way to live Catholicism proposes is the greatest way to live. And with that belief, he believes he must share that with all the people around him, because you can't really claim to love someone if you don't share that message with him. 

When we get to our section on spiritual growth, Fr. Gale lays out a practical and straightforward method for evaluating where you are spiritually, and how to figure out where to go next. It's super helpful for anyone looking to grow spiritually who doesn't know what to do next. 

This episode is brought to you by the Secular Books with Spiritual Insights reading list. Each month I send out a book review that typically falls in the business or personal development arena, but rather than give a typical book review, I lay out the spiritual insights that can be gleaned from reading the book. It's a list that you can't find anywhere else, so visit dominickalbano.com and click on the free resources page to get signed up. 

In today's episode you will hear from Fr. Dennis Saran. 

Fr. Dennis is the pastor at St. Dominic parish in Brookfield, WI. He was ordained a priest in 2015 after spending more than 20 years as a pediatrician. A late in life vocation, Fr. Dennis has been through it all: he was married and had three daughters, his marriage ended in divorce, he got an annulment, got married again, his wife was diagnosed with cancer and died, two of his daughters left the faith, and finally - after many years of trying to discern what God wanted him to do - Fr. Dennis entered seminary. 

In this episode you'll hear practical advice from a priest who has actually lived through the stuff that so many people are trying to deal with: death of a spouse, divorce, children leaving the faith, and more. He's a great dad, an awesome man, and the St. Dominic community is lucky to have him!

This episode is brought to you by The One-Week Challenge. The One-Week challenge is a weekly email program with Dominick Albano. Each Monday morning you will receive in your inbox a simple and powerful challenge for the week. The goal is to help you be a better person and live a better life. Sign up at www.dominickalbano.com/oneweekchallenge. 

In this week's episode Dominick interviews Dr. Gregory Bottaro. 

Dr. Bottaro received his Psy.D. (Doctorate in Clinical Psychology) from the Institute for the Psychological Sciences, a graduate school in Arlington, VA that integrates Catholic philosophy and theology with sound, empirically validated psychology. Before finishing his degree, he discerned a religious vocation with the Community of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFRs).  

He lived four years in the Bronx, serving the poor in the tradition of St. Francis.  These years were emotionally, spiritually, and professionally formative as Dr. Bottaro tested his vocation and ultimately felt the prompting of God’s will to pursue family life.

Six years after leaving NYC as a friar he returned as a psychologist.  His aim is fundamentally the same – to serve.  Instead of serving those suffering material poverty, he now seeks to serve those with psychological needs. Dr. Bottaro formed the CatholicPsych Institute in 2012 to connect Catholics around the world with therapists trained to integrate the faith with the practice. 

This episode is brought to you by The One-Week Challenge. The One-Week challenge is a weekly email program with Dominick Albano. Each Monday morning you will receive in your inbox a simple and powerful challenge for the week. The goal is to help you be a better person and live a better life. Sign up at www.dominickalbano.com/oneweekchallenge. 

In this week's episode you'll hear from Mother Mary Catherine, foundress of the Missionaries of the Word. 

Mother Mary Catherine wanted to be a nun when she grew up and spent a decade after college with the Missionaries of Charity under Mother Teresa. After going back home and spending another ten years as a Catholic school principal, Mother Mary Catherine brought to her Bishop the desire to follow God's will to start a new religious order. After years of testing the Missionaries of the Word were established in 2014 with Mother Mary Catherine as their first leader. 

Mother Mary Catherine is warm and loving - and she does an awesome impression of Mother Teresa, which you'll get to hear in this episode. She'll share what it was like to discern through some tough moments in her life, and what we can do when we aren't sure what God wants us to do next. 

This episode is brought to you by The One-Week Challenge. The One-Week challenge is a weekly email program with Dominick Albano. Each Monday morning you will receive in your inbox a simple and powerful challenge for the week. The goal is to help you be a better person and live a better life. Sign up at www.dominickalbano.com/oneweekchallenge. 

In this week's episode you will hear from Fr. Joe Mueller, S.J.!

From a large family, Fr. Mueller grew up in suburban Detroit, Michigan.  After having attended the University of Detroit High School and Marquette University, he joined the Jesuits in 1982.  Since then he has lived in Detroit, Chicago, Washington, Boston, Paris, Abidjan in the Ivory Coast and, since 1999, Milwaukee, where he teaches theology at Marquette University.  Along the way he has worked on three continents in Jesuit schools from the kindergarten level through the doctorate. His published works focus on Christian theology of ancient times and on the nature and mission of the Church.  He is currently head of the Jesuit Community at Marquette University.

One of the reasons I was really excited about this episode was to dig into the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. I've always been fascinated by the Spiritual Exercises, so the chance to speak with a thirty-plus-year Jesuit veteran was pretty awesome. 

This episode is brought to you by The One-Week Challenge. The One-Week challenge is a weekly email program with Dominick Albano. Each Monday morning you will receive in your inbox a simple and powerful challenge for the week. The goal is to help you be a better person and live a better life. Sign up at www.dominickalbano.com/oneweekchallenge. 

In this week's episode you'll hear from Fr. Jerry Herda. 

Fr. Jerry has served as a priest in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee for the past 28 years. His served in parishes, as a campus minister and Cross Country coach at Catholic high schools, and he currently serves as the Vicar for Clergy for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. 

Besides his work as a priest, he is also kept busy with his love for baseball! Fr. Jerry currently serves as the Catholic Chaplain for the Milwaukee Brewers. He follows every game, cheers on the team, celebrates mass, hears confessions, and even performs baptisms. And being a Wisconsin native, he loves a good fine cheese and beer. 

In his words, "most of all I love the Lord, I am proud to be Catholic and faith is the most important thing in my life."

In this episode we really dive into spiritual friendship, and how we can encourage each other to grow spiritually without formal spiritual direction relationships. He opens up and makes himself incredibly vulnerable, and it's a fantastic conversation. 

This episode is brought to you by The One-Week Challenge. The One-Week challenge is a weekly email program with Dominick Albano. Each Monday morning you will receive in your inbox a simple and powerful challenge for the week. The goal is to help you be a better person and live a better life. Sign up at www.dominickalbano.com/oneweekchallenge.