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Faith-based pro-life silver rounds are here! GET YOURS TODAY!

(LifeSiteNews) — The swift collapse of Silicon Valley Bank late last week, as well as all the turmoil afflicting the Church and society, is making it clear just how important it is to financially and spiritually protect yourself and your family.

Today on The John-Henry Westen Show, Drew Mason of St. Joseph Partners reacts to the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, addresses whether or not another financial crisis is on the horizon, and offers another meditation on the importance of fasting in the spiritual life.

Mason says there are reasons to believe the sudden failure of Silicon Valley Bank will not cause widespread ripple effects across the financial sector and economy, in the way that the failure of major banks like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns in 2008 portended the Great Recession. But, he adds, there are some other data points that can be cause for concern.

“This year we’ve had data points showing that the housing sector, broken up across the different verticals — meaning industrial, commercial, retail, and the darling of Wall Street, which they call multifamily or apartment housing — has begun to turn down,” Mason says. “And the significance of this is that if you go back and look at the data, particularly in the apartment setting, has not had a downturn since we came out of the 2008 crisis. This is the first downturn it’s seen, and the trajectory of it is even faster than what we saw going into the ’08 crisis.”

“Additionally, we just saw the data from the auto loan sector, which is a very important barometer of the health of the American consumer. And auto loan delinquencies were north of 6%. The peak in 2009 was 5%,” he adds.

WATCH: How to pray: a brief practical guide on drawing closer to God

Pivoting to fasting (click here if you missed our previous show on the topic), Mason points out how there is no instance in Scripture where God didn’t rescue His people after they fasted, and thus reminds us that prayer alone is not sufficient to overcome evil.

“If we are praying and fasting, we will have victory. And in one of her apparitions Our Lady made a couple of incredible statements about fasting,” Mason says. “One, that should be so encouraging to us, she said we have forgotten that with prayer and fasting, wars can be averted, natural disasters can be reversed. I mean, that’s a wonderful statement.”

“And another statement to share with everyone that I think is so comforting is she said if we do novenas of fasting and renunciation, evil will stay far from us.”

Especially because we are called to focus on praying and fasting during Lent, Drew Mason and I are therefore encouraging you to fast with us for three days Tuesday, March 14 through Thursday, March 16, for the protection of ourselves and our families in the face of tough times, financially and spiritually.

Faith-based pro-life silver rounds are here! GET YOURS TODAY!

The John-Henry Westen Show is available by video on the show’s YouTube channel and right here on my LifeSite blog.

You can send me feedback, or ideas for show topics by emailing [email protected].

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John-Henry is the co-founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews.com. He and his wife Dianne have eight children and they live in the Ottawa Valley in Ontario, Canada.

He has spoken at conferences and retreats, and appeared on radio and television throughout the world. John-Henry founded the Rome Life Forum, an annual strategy meeting for life, faith and family leaders worldwide. He is a board member of the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family. He is a consultant to Canada’s largest pro-life organization Campaign Life Coalition, and serves on the executive of the Ontario branch of the organization. He has run three times for political office in the province of Ontario representing the Family Coalition Party.

John-Henry earned an MA from the University of Toronto in School and Child Clinical Psychology and an Honours BA from York University in Psychology.

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