ISAIAH 40:29

By Peter Vuono

   When I was a young boy I always, like many boys, wanted to be strong. I was inspired by wrestlers, bodybuilders, powerlifters, muscle men of the movies and my two cousins Ronnie and David who were Mastodons!

   I then embarked in powerlifting in 1967 and finished 2nd to last in my first meet in Nashua in Jan. of 1973. As time went on I achieved modest success but as the wights got heavier, so too, did injuries. On 3 different occasions, I ruptured both bicep tendons and herniated the L5 lumbar. However I never had surgery and in 85 after a hiatus from my broken back I pulled a 575 deadlift. I marveled how lucky I was but it got worse as I aged.

   After I retired from the school department I, at age, 59 had a heart attack and quadruple bypass. However I spent only 8 days in the hospital and was lifting weights two weeks later! Two years later, events fell into place that bordered on the miraculous. I completed my Black Belt training and humbly received the degree after 10 full years of training. In 2014, I pulled a 400 deadlift, again only two years after surgery, for an Elite Powerlifting Federation American record. However, more calamity struck. In the years that followed I had skin cancer surgery, cubital tunnel surgery, carpal tunnel surgery and lastly, in 2021, a knee replacement. It was then that more miracles occurred and I began to wonder.

 I walked the day after surgery on my knee without a cane or walker. On day 4 after surgery, I drove the car. I then decided to get back into powerlifting and on December 10, 2023, I at age 70, broke a world deadlift record for the Revolution Powerlifting Syndicate. Spurred on by the success, I unwisely went into another meet just six months later in Yarmouth Port. After missing my 1st attempt, I made it and then succeeded in breaking my own world record in the deadlift. I was filled with emotion.

  I fell into my wife's arms crying like a baby when I had the epiphany of why things went so positively. No, it wasn't the 7 days a of week training.

It wasn't the 3 days a week of cardio,

It wasn't the protein shakes or the vitamins.

It wasn't my own determination or tenacity

It wasn't just plain luck!

It WAS my decades long devotion to the Rosary which saved me.

It was God's accomplishment and not mine!.

Saint Padre Pio calls the Rosary the "Weapon of the age" but you can petition to the Lord in your own way!

It doesn't matter if you do it as a Muslim or a Buddhist, or  a Hindu, a Jew, a Christian or a Catholic so long as you petition the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. THAT is the true solution to the mystery of life. This is certainly NOT written as a statement of braggadocio but one of testimony! As Pope John Paul once said, "This is no time to keep the gospels secret but to preach them from the housetops."

   The Prophet Isaiah lived in the 8th century but his words are just as true now as the were thousands of years ago "The Lord gives comfort to the weary and strengthens the weak".