Dear Kayla,
I just found some of your videos and I see the religious art in the background and I heard you mention the rule of St. Benedict, are you Catholic?
Signed,
Father Bolek
Dear Father Bolek,
Thank you for your question! When I first started eating OMAD in 2016, I wondered whether this new way of eating was safe. In my research, I ran across a few articles that mentioned Benedictine monks had practiced OMAD starting about 1500 years ago. Not only that, they lived longer, healthier lives!That laid my worries to rest. I continued practicing OMAD six days a week and watched as the pounds dropped off and my life got better.
Fast-forward a few years to 2019. I read a splendid book called Meaningful Work by Shawn Askinosie. I read it because I was interested in, well, work that was meaningful. His book applied the rule of St. Benedict to business, and I nodded along the way as he outlined each principle. It rang true to me. He mentioned in the book that he was an Episcopalian Benedictine Oblate.
You’d think that at that point my ears would have pricked up and I would have delved into who this St. Benedict person was. After all, I kept coming across his principles unintentionally, and each time, I agreed wholeheartedly with them. Alas, I simply did not bother, and went along my merry way. I didn’t run across Benedict again until 2021, when I finally started going to church after a twenty-year hiatus. I have a Catholic to thank for that.
How it happened was this. In 2020, I started listening to a podcast about Christianity and work called Call to Mastery. One day, I heard a guest recommend the book Christianity for Modern Pagans by Peter Kreeft, a Catholic professor. The title intrigued me, and I bought the book on the spot. As I read it, I realized to my dismay that I had become a bit pagan in my thinking. Worse, I was unintentionally raising my kids to be more pagan than Christian. Another thing pricked my conscience. I was angry with the government for forbidding people to go to Church during this time. And then I asked myself, why should I be upset? The opportunity had been available to me all those years, and I had stayed away, isolating at home, voluntarily.
After I googled “good church for introverts,” I came across a Reddit wherein many people recommended the Orthodox Church. I fired up Google maps and found out there was a Western rite Orthodox parish just down the street from us. We loaded up the kids the next Sunday morning and went to our very first Divine Liturgy. Each of us felt right at home and we joined the church five months later.
Western rite Orthodoxy is very similar to traditional Catholicism. We celebrate the Mass, say the Rosary, and go to Confession regularly. And, as you’ve seen in my videos, we love our icons. Quick aside: Redditors also recommended the Catholic church, and that plus my love of Peter Kreeft had put it next on my list of churches to try. Instead, I found what I was looking for in the Orthodox Church. And in this church, I’ve once again encountered St. Benedict on multiple occasions. Each time it’s happened, I’ve thought to myself, I really should read more about him.
As you know, St. Benedict’s feast day is July 11. Well, this year that finally spurred me to sit down and read his Rule. As I read, I nodded along with the precepts as he laid them out. One sentence that stood out specifically: idleness is the enemy of the soul. How true I have found that to be on the weight loss journey and life in general. Practicing OMAD and keeping myself occupied in both work and study has brought peace and joy into my life, as well as more time for reflection and prayer. I think St. Benedict was onto something.
Kayla