by Geoff Fox
He’s a priest, but he’s also an author. Rev. Jack Lombardi, the parish priest at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Hancock and St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Little Orleans, recently released his eleventh book, titled Mystic Mantras, the power of the Christian Aspiration-Mantra.
Lombardi said over the years, he has prayed different aspirations or mantras that have been handed down over the years, such as the Jesus prayer and “Jesus I trust in you.”
He said he found those both helpful in his spiritual life.
Over the years, Lombardi found himself creating his own and compiling them, losing some along the way, and put them into a book as way to offer them to people to help them pray.
In the book, there’s 33 mantras with 20 Lombardi created. The other 13 are traditional Catholic prayers from the last 2,000 years.
Lombardi said the best way to read the book is reading chapter one to understand what they would be doing and applications, but in chapter two, he said you can see what the aspirations/mantras are and go on to chapter three to pick the ones you’d want to pray.
Lombardi has written a total of 11 books. Being a preacher, he must be able to create and spin off ideas, think on his feet, be artistic and entertaining when it comes to his homilies at Mass.
With books, some of his homilies, or sermons, have turned into a book by expanding what was said at Mass.
Lombardi gave the example of a time when he was speaking about a pilgrimage and he had written a few essays about them and realized it could end up as a book with even more essays.
“So they just snowball, snowballing good ideas,” he said.
Even some of the Clergy Corner pieces he’s written for The Hancock News have turned into books.
Some come out of the skies fresh to him, but more likely it’s what he’s working on that week.
Lombardi also works on the church bulletin and his radio show on WDTF radio station.
There are a few books still being compiled on Lombardi’s computer with one nearing being sent back to the publisher. That book is a Covid journal.
There’s also a small book about mindfulness that is also almost ready to be sent to the publisher.
Lombardi said the Covid book has been the longest as it’s been months since he started.
After writing the book, it was sent to the publisher who puts it in a PDF format before sending it back with a number of corrections that need to be made.
There’s been a few things that have kept Lombardi from finishing up the corrections, which he got about a month ago.
“I do want to punch that out,” he said. “That’s probably the longest time of book writing.”
Lombardi said the mantras are prayers to help you be closer to God and be in the present moment.
“So they’re very spiritual and pragmatic and I encourage everybody to pray those small prayers,” he said.
The book is available at St. Peter’s Catholic Church where you can pick it up during normal business hours or after Mass on Sunday mornings.
