Jeannie Ewing is a Catholic spirituality writer who focuses on the topics of grief, redemptive suffering, and waiting. Her four books include a meditation journal, a devotional, and two books on the topic of discovering joy in the midst of grief and waiting with expectation. She is a frequent guest on Catholic radio and contributes to several online and print Catholic periodicals. For more information, please visit her website lovealonecreates.com.
Rocco Fortunato
Rocco Fortunato grew up Roman Catholic, but God had little part in his life. Television, movies, and disordered music attracted his heart to the life of sin they promoted. After years of living in mortal sin and believing he was beyond hope, Rocco was set free by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ in sacramental Confession, experiencing the unfathomable love and mercy of Almighty God in a very PROFOUND way!!!
(Listen to Rocco’s interview–Partial Testimony–on Encounter Radio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-XicIvlYTs)
Through Sacred Scripture, the Most Holy Rosary, daily Mass, and Eucharistic Adoration, he experienced a RADICAL CONVERSION!!! He’s been teaching, preaching, and/or writing on the fullness of the truth of the Catholic Faith since 1993. In 1995, Rocco founded Spread the Blaze (http://spreadtheblaze.com/), an apostolate dedicated to the conversion and sanctification of souls. He’s organized, led, and been the main speaker for Confirmation programs, Youth Groups, a Young Adult Group, a Men’s Group, Conferences, Retreats, a Street Apostolate, First Saturday Rosary Rallies, and served as Director of Evangelization. He’s also been on Catholic radio and had several television interviews.
Rocco runs a very unique Youth Group (Knights of Mary Immaculate) made up of middle-school and high-school youth including multi-cultural, homeschooled, inner-city, and special needs youth; he also runs a Young Adult Group (Crusaders of Mary Immaculate). In both groups, all souls are being challenged to become Saints through radical Marian devotion! These apostolates are leading souls into Holy Mother Church and helping those already there to grow in holiness.
His audio CD “God is Love” (http://spreadtheblaze.com/god-is-love/) and YouTube talks (https://www.youtube.com/spreadtheblaze) give ample testimony to his zeal for souls! To invite Rocco to share his love for Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and ALL things Catholic, please contact him at Spread the Blaze (http://spreadtheblaze.com/).
Gabriel Garnica
Gabriel Garnica is crazy enough to believe that we can all be saints, and he refuses to buy the lie that we cannot. He is a college professor with degrees in law and mental health counseling. He was born in Colombia and came to the U.S. as a young child. While Gabe continues to enjoy teaching law, his greatest fulfillment as an educator has come from his ten years as a catechist at two local parishes. Gabe is passionate about sharing his faith through writing and speaking; and he has enjoyed giving numerous talks to children on such topics as Divine Mercy, David and Goliath, The Ten Commandments, and prioritizing one’s faith. While he enjoys talking to children, it is in writing and speaking to adults that Gabe truly feels he has found his calling. His goal is to continue developing his Catholic speaking and write several books on his topics of interest, which include meditations on the Ten Commandments, Divine Mercy, the saints, parable stories, general Scripture, Pro-Life, and The Virgin Mary. He enjoys writing for his blog Deus solus https://wordpress.com/posts/deussolus9.wordpress.com and as a columnist at Catholic Stand ww.catholicstand.com/author/gabriel-garnica/
Gabe’s favorite saints are Tarcisius, Therese “The Little Flower”, and Alphonsus de Liguori, whom he describes as giving us a powerful glimpse of the loving challenge which God has given each of us. As mentioned above, Gabe believes that we are all called to be saints, but we spend more time convincing ourselves why we cannot become one than trying to fulfill our true purpose in becoming precisely that. Gabe also speaks about Catholic marriage as being the true “Love Triangle”, with each partner and God.
Deanna Bartalini
Deanna G. Bartalini, M.Ed.; M.P.A, is a Catholic writer, speaker, presenter, and educator. Married to Deacon John they have two married children. Deanna loves teaching about Catholicism and how it fits into our daily lives. She has served in the diocese of Palm Beach since 1985 in both paid and volunteer positions in the areas of religious education, youth ministry and stewardship. Prior to working in full-time ministry, Deanna worked in the field of English as a Second Language as a teacher, consultant, teacher trainer, curriculum developer and publishing sales manager. Deanna writes at DeannaBartalini.com, and contributes to CatholicMom, Amazing Catechists, and New Evangelizers. She contributed to A Catholic Mom’s Prayer Companion published by Ave Maria Press and has written “Invite the Holy Spirit into Your Life: Growing in Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control”” one book in the series of the Stay Connected Journals for Catholic Women.
Deanna is available to lead retreats and speak at catechist and ministry events. Learn more about her on her website, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and Pinterest.
Elizabeth Ficocelli
Elizabeth Ficocelli is a best-selling, award winning Catholic author of fifteen books for adults and young people, including Seven from Heaven: How Your Family Can Find Healing, Strength and Protection in the Sacraments and The Imitation of Christ for Children. She has spoken at the LA Congress, NCEA, and various catechetical conferences, as well as at numerous schools and parishes. Elizabeth also hosts “Answering the Call” on St. Gabriel Catholic Radio AM 820, in which she interviews priests, deacons, and religious about their spiritual journeys and current vocations. For more information, visit www.elizabethficocelli.com
Karee Santos
Karee Santos is a happily married mom of six and a popular writer and speaker on Catholic marriage. Karee and her husband, Manuel P. Santos, M.D., began teaching marriage preparation and enrichment classes in New York City in 2003. They are also co-authors of The Four Keys to Everlasting Love: How Your Catholic Marriage Can Bring You Joy for a Lifetime (Ave Maria Press 2016). Karee’s writing can be found at Catholic Match Institute, Aleteia, CatholicMom and her personal blogs Can We Cana? and Comencemos en Caná.
Sarah Reinhard
When Sarah Reinhard set off in her life as a grown-up, she had no idea it would involve horses, writing, and sparkly dress shoes. In her work as a Catholic wife, mom, writer, parish employee, and catechist, she’s learned a lot of lessons and had a lot of laughs. She’s online at SnoringScholar.com and is the author of a number of books, including A Catholic Mother’s Companion to Pregnancy: Walking with Mary from Conception to Baptism andCatholic Family Fun: A Guide for the Adventurous, Overwhelmed, Creative, or Clueless.
Peggy Clores
Peggy Clores has been engaged in Catholic Adult Education at Our Lady of Mercy Parish and in the RVC Diocese for almost 30 years. In addition to holding a B.A. in Psychology and Theatre Arts from the State University of New York at Stony Brook , she is Co-Coordinator of her parish Adult Ed/RCIA Program, a catechist, speaker, Conference organizer, the LI contact for EnCourage, and a founding member of Catholic Writers of LI. In all her endeavors, her primary mission is to challenge each heart to the dynamism that is the Catholic Faith! Peggy resides in Huntington Village, with her husband, Peter, and has three grown sons, Michael, Sean and Paul. Peggy may be reached at imcon630@aol.com.
Topics:
1) Effective Evangelization for Adults
2) Building a Successful RCIA Program
3) Making Sense Out of Suffering
4) Dangers and Errors in New Age Spirituality
5) Jesus Christ: Not “One of Many Prophets or Spiritual Teachers”
6) What’s Wrong With Being “Spiritual, Not Religious”
7) Our Catholic Rights in the Public Square: Getting Past the “Imposition of Morality” Argument
8) Daughter of a Holocaust Survivor Defends Pope Pius XII
9) Daughter of a Holocaust Survivor Speaks Out Against the Abortion Holocaust
10) Euthanasia is Here: Understanding the Present Danger
Ellen Gable Hrkach
Ellen and her husband, James, have been certified NFP teachers for the Couple to Couple League since 1984 and have worked since 1983 in marriage preparation and chastity education. Ellen’s also an award-winning, bestselling author (her books have recently topped 580,00 downloads on Kindle). Her newest book is A Subtle Grace, which just hit #1 in Christian Historical Fiction and Christian Romance. Her other books can be found at her Amazon Author Page. She writes frequently for CCL’s Family Foundations magazine, a columnist for CatholicMom.com, a reviewer for CatholicFiction.net and she and her husband create the “Family Life” cartoons. She and her husband own a small Catholic publishing company called Full Quiver Publishing. Her blog is at http://ellengable.wordpress.com. She lives in Pakenham, Ontario Canada with her husband and sons. Contact her at: info@fullquiverpublishing.com
Lisa Mladinich
Catholic wife and mom Lisa Mladinich is the host of Shalom World TV’s WOMAN: Strong Faith, True Beauty. She is a best-selling author and speaker whose dynamic presentations on faith, catechetics, and women’s issues can be heard around the country, as well as on Catholic TV and radio.
A regular voice on Relevant Radio’s Morning Air with John Harper and On Call with Wendy Wiese, Lisa has also appeared on EWTN TV’s Women of Grace, Sunday Night Prime, BookMark, and Catholic Mom’s Café, as well as CatholicTV’s This is the Day, the Son Rise Morning Show, The Jennifer Fulwiler Show, Busted Halo, and many other Catholic television and radio programs.
Her award-winning best-seller, True Radiance: Finding Grace in the Second Half of Life (Servant Books) sparked a renewed conversation about authentic beauty and aging, and her newest full-length book of rich, instructive prayers for adults and children is due out in March of 2017: Heads Bowed: Prayers for Catholic School Days (Liguori).
Lisa contributed to two best-selling devotionals from Ave Maria Press: The Catholic Mom’s Prayer Companion, edited by Lisa Hendey and Sarah Reinhard, and Word by Word: Slowing Down With the Hail Mary, edited by Sarah Reinhard. She has also contributed to, “Why Should I Learn This?” from Homeschool Connections, and “Tending the Temple: 365 Days of Physical and Spiritual Devotions,” from Bezalel Books.
Her writing can be also be found at AmazingCatechists.com; her blog at Patheos.com, Water into Wine; her columns for CATECHIST Magazine, and her booklets, “Be an Amazing Catechist: Inspire the Faith of Children” and “Be an Amazing Catechist: Sacramental Preparation,” available from Our Sunday Visitor in English and Spanish.
Lisa is very proud to be an instructor of tween and teen homeschooled students at Homeschool Connections Online, where she teaches academic writing, as well as classes that unpack the Church’s views on authentic beauty.
For more information, visit Lisa’s dedicated page, here at Amazing Catechists, or connect with her on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Google Plus.