06 Jan En Route Books and Media – supporting LIFE Runners!
“En Route Books and Media is proud to support with 10% of its revenues… LIFE Runners! Every book you buy helps fund the growth of an organization that connects parents in crisis with centers that provide direct material assistance for their children. This kind of support addresses issues that may otherwise lead young mothers into abortion clinics or cause young fathers to abandon the mothers and their children. Dr. Sebastian Mahfood, OP, is a LIFE Runner! You can join LIFE Runners yourself!” See entire announcement at enroutebooksandmedia.com/life-runners-project.
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Please get your holy reading from En Route Books and Media to help fuel LIFE Runners mission to REMEMBER The Unborn – Jer 1:5. For yourself or as a gift, order Dr. John Acquaviva’s “Raising Kids with a Healthy Body Image” at enroutebooksandmedia.com/raising-kids. LIFE Runners founder Dr. Pat Castle wrote the Foreword (below) to this much needed book.
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“As parents, our primary mission is to coach our children to Heaven. To accomplish this, we need to witness that God is first and everything else is second. We can model to our children how to witness through the attention we give or, just as importantly, do not give, to the body. Our children will come to know through us how to offer up for God’s glory all things, including fitness, nutrition, and body image. The National LIFE Runners Team, an apostolate I founded, has a creed that begins, “We run as a prayer.” To illustrate this creed, the LIFE Runners jersey has a cross on the front and Jer 1:5 (“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”) on the back. Of course, it doesn’t take a jersey to be prayerful. People will recognize us as such through our words and actions. We witness through our sport to healthy living and an authentic sense of our bodies. What does it mean to witness through healthy living and an authentic sense of our bodies? Foremost, it’s our recognizing that God is the creator of this great work our souls have formed – namely, our bodies – and our expressing gratitude every day for God’s gift of our being. Such an expression of gratitude is accomplished through our fulfillment of God’s command for us to love Him with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves (Deuteronomy 6:5, Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:37-39, Mark 12:30-1, Luke 10:27). This command is a spiritual endeavor, but we demonstrate it corporally. That demonstration begins, then, with our placing our bodies, and the image we have of them in our minds, into God’s service. As a LIFE Runner, I challenge myself and everyone else to respond to God’s command by surrendering ourselves to His will. If it is God who is calling us to “run so as to win,” then such a surrender requires us to define winning from God’s perspective. We will be at our best when we can see ourselves as God sees us. A good body image is, after all, not about ‘being skinny’ or looking a certain way; it’s about being ‘fit to fight’ the good fight for God. Having a poor body image or an obsession to good looks can keep that from happening. We must train our children, therefore, in the ways of faith so that they know how to recognize and follow The Way. I hope that we will all run to God, as His children, with the zeal in our souls animating the bodies that He Himself has formed. If that’s the case, then how can we view our bodies, which are, as Saint John Paul II expressed, signs of the person, in any other light? May God find us respecting and exercising our bodies as gifts, as the holy temples our souls have formed. May we honor our bodies by taking care of them to fight the good fight when God calls our name to serve Him and His children. Heaven is a Team effort. May our example of exercising our faith, witness with fitness, help our children remain fit to reach God’s Kingdom and life everlasting. All In Christ, high five!” ~ Dr. Pat Castle, National LIFE Runners Team coach & founder