Western Mass Catholic

Mary Lenaburg

Mary Lenaburg is an acclaimed Catholic speaker and award-winning author of “Be Brave in the Scared” and “Be Bold in the Broken,” renowned for her international keynotes and contributions in Catholic media. Alongside her 37-year joyful marriage and serving in various parish roles, Mary’s journey through personal loss fuels her inspiring message of faith, resilience, and making the most of God’s plan for us.

Fr. James Brent, OP

Fr. James Brent, O.P. was born and raised in Michigan. He pursued his undergraduate and graduate studies in Philosophy, and completed his doctorate in Philosophy at Saint Louis University on the epistemic status of Christian beliefs according to Saint Thomas Aquinas. He has articles in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Natural Theology, in the Oxford Handbook of Thomas Aquinas on “God’s Knowledge and Will”, and in the Oxford Handbook of the Epistemology of Theology on “Thomas Aquinas.” He earned his S.T.L. from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, and taught in the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America. He is presently on the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC, and frequently gives lectures for the Thomistic Institute.

After graduating from the US Naval Academy, Sr. Maris Stella had a profound experience of God’s love and knew she was being called to lay down her life that others might live. She was captivated by the Lord’s invitation to become a Sister of Life and to live as Bride of Christ and a mother of souls. She entered the Sisters of Life in 2006, and professed her final vows in 2014. She has served in the Sisters’ mission to vulnerable pregnant women, accompanied those suffering after abortion, and served in the community’s mission of evangelization to college students; she currently lives in the Bronx, NY, and serves as the community’s vicar general and local superior of St. Frances de Chantal Convent.. The Sisters of Life are a religious community of women founded in 1991 by John Cardinal O’Connor who take a fourth vow to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life. Immersed in Eucharistic prayer within a vibrant community life, their missions include caring for vulnerable pregnant women and their unborn children; inviting those wounded by abortion into the healing mercy of Jesus; fostering a Culture of Life through evangelization; retreat works; spiritual accompaniment of college students; and upholding the beauty of marriage and family life.