'Women of the Bible' Premieres Sunday, December 7th on Lifetime

Mark your calendars! 'Women of the Bible' premieres Sunday, December 7, 2014 at 7/6c on Lifetime!  From Executive producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey (Son of God and The Bible Series).

Vicka Ivankovic Dicusses Apparitions of Virgin Mary on Television Show in Ireland

Gloria.tv: Vicka in Ireland on RTE One

Vicka Ivankovic is interviewed in Ireland on the television show RTE One by host Ryan Tudbridy. Her message is regarding the apparitions Our Lady of Medjugorje which are happening in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Vicka's interview is translated into English by Manuela Spinelli.

New Catholic Travel Series Debuts on EWTN March 4, 2010

The Faithful Traveler -- Press Release

Philadelphia, PA - This March 4th a new travel television series with a Catholic focus debuts on EWTN (Eternal Word Televison Network). The Faithful Traveler™ television series captures the faith, fun and excitement of Catholic travel. The show’s host, Diana von Glahn, takes you on a fun and faith-filled tour of some of the most amazing churches, shrines, and places of pilgrimage throughout the United States!

“You don’t have to travel all the way to Europe and beyond to experience breathtaking churches and shrines,” says Diana von Glahn. “We have so many Catholic treasures right here in the U.S. and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to bring these glorious sites into people’s homes and hearts!” Diana is not only the host of the series, she is also the writer, editor and co-creater with her husband David. A cradle Catholic with deep religious roots from her Mexican/American heritage, von Glahn presents the history, architecture and religious significance of each site in a fast-paced show that will leave viewers thirsty for more.

The first season of The Faithful Traveler™ focuses on the East Coast with travel destinations in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Viewers will walk along with Diana von Glahn as she travels to such majestic sites as St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, NY, the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, NJ, the National Shrine of St. John Neumann in Philadelphia, PA , the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and many more!

Shot in high definition, the series is not only a treat for the eyes but also for the ears: it features the music of some of today’s most talented musicians, including Sarah Bauer, Nichole Akhoury Lanthier, Popple, John Grassadonia, Rise, Isabel Rivera, Robby Alleman, Christine Wittman, Ceili Rain, Kitty Cleveland, and many others.

The Faithful Traveler™ debuts on EWTN on March 4

Airing on Thursdays at 1:00 pm EST

Repeating on Sundays at 5:00 pm EST

Season One Schedule:

March 4 & 7: National Shrine of St. Rita of Cascia, Philadelphia, PA

March 11 & 14: National Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel, Bensalem, PA

March 18 & 21: Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton at Our Lady of the Rosary Parish and St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, New York, NY

March 28: National Blue Army Shrine of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Washington, NJ

April 1 & 4: St. Mary’s Spiritual Center & Historic Site on Paca Street in Baltimore, MD and the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Emmitsburg, MD

April 8 & 11: Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, Philadelphia, PA

April 15 & 18: Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York, NY

April 22 & 25: Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, Baltimore, MD

April 29 & May 2: St. Alphonsus Church, Baltimore, MD

May 6 & 9: National Shrine of St. John Neumann, Philadelphia, PA

May 13 & 16: Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Newark, NJ

May 20 & 23: St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York, NY

May 27 & 30: St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York, NY

*Dates and times are subject to change. Check your local listings for final times.

For more information about The Faithful Traveler™ series, visit http://www.thefaithfultraveler.com/ or  http://www.ewtn.com/

To schedule an interview with the series' host, Diana von Glahn, call: 610-537-3535 or email: diana@thefaithfultraveler.com

Dominican Nuns Appear on Oprah Winfrey Show

In my opinion, it's wonderful news to be willing to share the Catholic faith on television with the general public. 

With the Dominican Sisters appearing on Oprah Winfrey, perhaps the doors will open for other inspirational stories to be televised that are connected to the Christian faith, especially about caring individuals who have devoted their lives to God's work in supporting world peace and charitable causes.   -Loci B. Lenar

The photograph and following story is from Catholic Online:

INSPIRE: Called to Freedom: Dominican Nuns Image the Church on Oprah Winfrey - Catholic Online

The sisters were everything beautiful and truthful that the Church has to offer: they were Christ to Oprah and to a world in need of its meaning in Him.

By Sonja Corbitt

BETHPAGE, TN (Catholic Online) - It was a luminous report, burgeoning with respect, ripe with joy. It was a shot of glory between baking salmon fillets, disciplining a wayward 3 year old, and folding a load of colors.

Having previously abandoned Oprah for her politics and new-ageism after years of following, I was a little anxious at the treatment our Dominican convent in Ann Arbor, MI might receive at the hands of reporter Lisa Ling and Harpo producers.

But when, straight out of the chute, the convent was described as “thriving,” the young women “flocking” to it as they never had before, and the laughing, bright, fresh faced sisters proceeded to preach a full Catholic sermon simply by sharing their home and way of life, my apprehension turned to laugh-out-loud delight.

A Golden Opportunity Seized Through the Virtue of Hospitality

A golden opportunity rejected by other convents in the nation, the Ann Arbor Dominicans’ hospitality challenged conventional worldly wisdom in a forum that can only be characterized as miraculous and that represented Catholic women in the most refreshing way I have ever seen on TV. Because the convent is home to 100 sisters whose average age is 26, the feature communicated the vitality of a relationship with a living Christ in the most captivating way.

What constitutes restriction and freedom, happiness and joy, contentment and emptiness? How can I find fulfillment when the fabulous job, the designer duds, the handsome, fascinating boyfriend, and all the comforts and ideologies of modern life are not enough? Where can I “give who I am”? Where does consumerism and “being skinny” cease to matter for women?

These were the questions raised by the sisters’ testimonies of being called by God to religious life. “Did you hear an audible voice?” Oprah asked.

“God wanted me here and made it very clear,” 22 year old sister Francis Mary answered.

Those unexposed to Catholicism or religious life who might have expected inanity or “girliness” from a community of young women, were handed what amounted to a Catholic treatise wrapped in pithy packaging by one of the professed sisters: “Everyone is on a journey in life. But we are on a more intimate journey.”

Another went on to add that in the religious life [people] are “free to pursue God fully,” while admitting that such a life is not “for every woman,” only those in whom “noise gnaws at the human soul” and pleads for silence there.

Those who imagined religious life requires rulers hidden in the recesses of religious habits or faces clouded by somber melancholy were shocked at the brightness, the transparency and the unrehearsed sincerity of the nuns’ answers and a look at their daily routine and experiences.

What About Sex?

When asked about sex, and leaving it behind along with physical motherhood, one sister pointed out how the pervasive sexualization of our society “undermines the dignity of the human person,” while another took up the same thread by expressing that religious men and women “use the same desires [that “regular” people experience] for a greater calling.”

One postulant expressed her recent willingness to abandon sex and physical motherhood for the greater intimacy of spiritual motherhood, in part, because she did not “want to be an object.” Speaking of most nuns and their “spiritual marriage” to Jesus, Sr. Francis Mary admitted, to raucous laughter, that He is a “hard husband, because if something goes wrong in the relationship, I know it’s me.”

By far though, one of the best accounts was given by one of the sisters whose very loving, pre-convent relationship ended in separation, only to ultimately be rediscovered again later in God; she had entered the convent, and he the priesthood! What a breathtaking image of the Christian life, and it was on the world stage.

Spiritual Motherhood and Freedom

The sisters were everything beautiful and truthful that the Church has to offer: they were Christ to Oprah and to a world in need of its meaning in Him. I felt as though, finally!, someone was speaking with my voice and my faith, and not by rejecting men, sex, society, or even necessarily material things, but by their acceptance of something inexplicably more holy and beautiful. It was real feminism at its best, and true spiritual motherhood, for who knows how many vocations will be born from the womb of this broadcast?

Lisa Ling’s investigative report for Oprah inspired me to deeper love: to a greater, more total, more radical obedience, a brotherly love on which I place no limits, shocking generosity and simplicity, and an attractive, positive modesty and its accompanying spiritual allure.

In a world where religious brothers and sisters probably hold the seams of a morally teetering earth together with their invisible, fervent, ceaseless prayers for us all, the broadcast revealed the Church in all her glory through our religious brothers and sisters. Surely those sisters inspired Lisa Ling to investigate true freedom, for the last words about them before the end of the show were hers, “Their lives are much more liberating.”
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Sonja Corbitt is a Catholic Scripture teacher, study author and speaker. She is a contributing writer for Catholic Online. Visit her at http://www.pursuingthesummit.com/ and http://www.pursuingthesummit.blogspot.com/.