(76) Fr. Larry Richards: Building a Holy Family: Affirming Each Other

A homily by Fr. Larry Richards on the Feast of the Holy Family December 30, 2012.  Fr. Richards was the main speaker at the March 2013 Men’s Day of Renewal at St. Stephen’s Church in Caldwell (see Blog #48 for a summary of his talk).  The homepage of his website http://thereasonforourhope.org/ gives his current radio schedule and publications.  He teams up with Dr. Ray Guarendi on his weekly television program on EWTN cable/satellite and internet www.ewtn.com/tv “Living Right with Dr. Ray” 7 pm Eastern on Saturdays and 5 am on Fridays. To see numerous samples of Fr. Larry's talks, go to www.youtube.com and type in Fr. Larry Richards.    

Building a Holy Family: Affirming Each Other

By Fr. Larry Richards

Good morning.  We hear in the Second Reading: “and this is His commandment that we should believe in the name of His son Jesus Christ and should love as He commanded us.” That is what we need to focus on as we begin this Feast of the Holy Family. And I love the Holy Family, this Gospel, because it shows, you know, we all just came from Christmas, or still in the midst of it, of course, because there are twelve days, and we are in the midst of this Christmas season so we have all got to spend time with our families. And that is always such a joyous perfect time, is it not? Where everybody gets along and everybody hugs each other and tells them how much they love each other and all that kind of stuff.  When you go and Aunt Sally comes and she has had too much to drink but that’s okay whatever it happens to be. All our families are imperfect.  Right?  Even the Holy Family. Not that they sinned, the only one that would have sinned in the Holy Family would have been who? St. Joseph.  But they were far from perfect if you will.

Because listen to the Gospel today.  First of all, how does Mary, the Mother of God lose the Son of God?  Right?  Here, now you would think that if you were given a great gift, Joseph and Mary now take care of Jesus.  They lost Him in Jerusalem.  How do you do that?  Don’t you think someone would have said, “Hey, where is Jesus,” before they left Jerusalem?  But no.  They were a day away and all of a sudden someone says, “Where is Jesus?” “We don’t know.” “Oh, well wait. He is with other people.” “Oh He wasn’t there.”  And then they come back.  And there is Jesus doing His thing in the synagogue or in the temple and He is talking to them and they say, “Hey, why did you do this to us?” And He says, “Why are you asking?”  Now my mother would have hit me.  “I am asking because I am your mother.”  But I am sure she didn’t do that.  But again, was there anxiety there? Was there imperfectness there?  Yes.  Was there sin there?  Of course not.  But, when we sit there and play all the games… oh it must have been just so peaceful in that family, I don’t hear anything about peace today in this Holy Family reading.  None.  Filled with anxiety.

So that should give us some hope that none of us come from a perfect family.  Right?  But what are we supposed to do in this family to make it the way Christ commands us to love?  To have this belief in Him, how does this work?  Well I could focus on many things of course, but today I just want to focus on three things. That in our families we have to ask how each other is, how we are, how they are feeling,  how are they doing?  We have to sit there and affirm one another.  And we have to be generous with each other, not be selfish, for our families to grow.  And, that is what the Gospel says, “Jesus grew and was obedient.”  But let’s focus on how we can do that.  The first thing we have to do is we have to ask.  So often in families because we become so comfortable with each other, we put each other down.  We tell people what they haven’t done right.  We sit there and take advantage of them or we take them for granted.  Until someone gets sick and we start losing them and all these things go crazy and then all of a sudden we have to make this right.  Why wait for someone to get sick and die?  Let’s start today.

So one of the things you can do every day……You should be able to go and look at your spouse and say,  “How are you?”  And really find out how they are.  To be able to look at your children and say, “How are you today?”  And find out how they are doing.  I have told the story on my Family CD and different things, about ten years ago, when I first became pastor here.  I was still on the road as much as I am now, and I was still teaching and doing campus ministry at Cathedral Prep.  And I was going completely out of my mind.  Still am, but the reality is I am going crazy.  I go home to my mother and it’s Christmas.  I drop off all the Christmas gifts under the tree as I did this past Christmas Day and I went downstairs….a mess.  And my mother came down, closed the door, walked in, and said to me, “What’s the matter?  How are you doing?”  And she was the only one that actually sat there and did that to me in almost a year.  And it was what I needed the most.  That someone went beyond the external, me being mad or me being impatient, or being rushed and looked inside and tried to find out what is going on inside.  What’s the matter?

Do we do that with our spouses?  Do we do that with our children?  Or do we just take them for granted?  Or do we think worse?  That we know them, we know what is the matter.  Really?  You are usually wrong.  So you have to ask somebody.  So, make it a habit that every day after they have come home from work or you have come home from work, you just take five minutes with each other.  Make it an effort.  “How are you?  What’s going on?”  On the inside, not the exterior.  Let’s not work with the masks.  Let’s find out what is going on interiorly.  To have this intimacy in our relationships.  To do the same thing with our children.  Ask each other “how are you doing; what’s going on?”

The second thing you have to do of course is you have to affirm each other.  And again, affirmation is not something we are normally used to, especially the Irish/Germans like myself.  But it is something that needs to happen.  We need to affirm each other.  Again when I was called in, once upon a time, by one of the bishops, years ago, he sat there and he yelled at me a lot, it was one of those things.  And I looked at him and I said, “Listen, you cannot yell at me until you affirm me.”  He goes, “I do affirm you.”  “No, you don’t.” 

Trust me on this.  That again sometimes at the dinner table or in families we always tell our children what they have done wrong.  We tell our spouses what they do wrong but when was the last time you told them what they did right?  And see that is very important and again years ago when I was in Indianapolis doing a men’s conference, there were a 1,000 men there and there was a kid in the back.  And this kid in the back had his arms folded.  He had a Mohawk.  He had a long black jacket on.  He had the big black boots on.  He would go, (sigh) every time I talked.  Can’t get everybody and I missed this kid.

As I am running out the door, I am running out and this kid comes over to me and I thought he was going to kill me.  And when he came running over to me, he says, “Here, Father.”  And he handed me a little sheet of paper, which I still carry in my bible for all my parish missions; again we talk about this on my Family CD.  In the midst of it I said, “Okay, thank you.”  And they are usually hateful letters when I get letters. It is usually like, Father you know you are arrogant.  Yeah we know.  But anyways, so I sat in the car and I looked at this piece of paper and it says, “Pax Undique”, which means peace everywhere.  Then I open it up and it says a quote, and he made this quote up.  It says, “Maybe a thousand young people die from too much praise but every day a kid dies inside from lack of it.”  Is there too much praise in our families or not enough?

Do we sit there and say something good for our spouse every day, something good for our children every day? At least one thing because we always say the bad; you know you do.  Everybody here tells them when someone gets you mad or they haven’t done something right.  Bam, “I am a good parent. I told them what they did wrong.”  But are you a Christian parent?  Do you tell your children how they are good every day?  Do you tell your spouse what’s right with them instead of what’s wrong with them?  And you know you do it.  Would it kill us to tell our spouses and our kids one good thing a day?  I don’t think so. But let’s try.

The last thing we have to do again as I am convinced a thousand times is we need to be unselfish people.  The surest sign to me of someone being in Christ Jesus is generosity.  I don’t care if you spend every day on your knees before the Blessed Sacrament, you say twenty rosaries.  If you are not generous and giving your life away to people, there is no hope for salvation, because it is all about me.  And Christianity, as I have said a thousand times, is the forgetfulness of self never ever, ever, ever the focus on self.  So when we are in the family, are we generous with each other?  Do you do an unselfish act every day?  Right?  Like you’re in the bathroom in your house.  And in the bathroom you’re doing  your thing and you go and you use the last part of the toilet paper roll. It’s all gone.  Do you put another one there for the next person?  Or do you leave it that way? Very practical reality and a very easy way to be unselfish.  But I bet most of you let it go.  And the next person goes in, “That miserable, who was the last one in the bathroom?” And then you don’t own up to it.

Do we do selfless things in our family?  Do we do something at least once a day unselfishly for someone in our family or am I the selfish person in my family and they are all here to serve me?  Let me give you a hint. If everyone is there to serve you, there is not much hope for you because you are a pagan. It is time for you to forget about yourself and learn to reach out to family.  Now listen; it has to begin in your family first. I don’t care if you give all kinds of time here in the church and everybody thinks you are very generous.  I could care less. When you get judged, it’ll be first on how you treated your family.

So, do you ask each other how you are doing every day? Do you affirm each other every day? Are you unselfish with your family every day?  That is where it begins.  Our families aren’t going to be perfect; neither was the Holy Family as much as we theologize and say that it is.  But, they can be ones that grow. Jesus who is God had to grow in wisdom and grace.  So must our families grow. So if they are not perfect now, no problem. But, they can grow.

So make it your thing today on this the Feast of the Holy Family, 2012, that you are going to grow as a family and I gave you three suggestions. There are a lot more, but pick at least one, would you?   And, decide to grow this new year of 2013.  You got it?  Get it?  Going to do it?  You don’t sound very excited about this one.  May each of you know His love today and forever, amen.

(75) Coach Danny Abramowicz on Spiritual Workouts: A Game Plan for Spiritual Fitness

Danny Abramowicz, our main speaker at the 2012 Diocesan’s Men’s Day of Renewal at St. John’s in Bellaire (see Blog #19 for a summary), has been promoting Men’s Spirituality and Men’s Sharing Groups for years.  Prior to that Coach Abranowicz was an All-Pro wide receiver for the New Orleans Saints.  Later he was Mike Ditka’s assistant coach for the Chicago Bears and later his Offensive Coordinator of the New Orleans Saints (see Blog #8 for an interview regarding his football background). For some excellent video clips of his playing and his talks, click on https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Danny+Abramowicz. 

He promotes men’s spirituality on his website, www.crossingthegoal.com and on his weekly television program on EWTN cable/satellite and internet www.ewtn.com/tv every Thursday 10:30 pm (Eastern), Sunday 6:30 pm, and Monday 6:30 am.  His publications can be ordered on the website.

 

Another article by Danny Abramowicz may be found on our January 2013 Blog #30, “Why Men’s Small Groups”.  This blog is taken from his website, www.crossingthegoal.com and examines men’s support groups in greater detail as shown below.

Spiritual Workouts: A Game Plan for Spiritual Fitness

Introduction to Men’s Spiritual Workout Groups

What are Spiritual Fitness Workouts?

Spiritual Fitness Workout Groups are groups of 10-15 men that meet bi-week/or weekly, for 90 minutes. They reflect on an episode from the Crossing the Goal series, usually watching from a DVD set, along with corresponding questions that serve as a discussion guide.

Mission

Spiritual Fitness Workout Groups are Crossing the Goal's official Catholic Men's Ministry program that serve to train and strengthen men inwardly through these workouts so that they become Godly men who will make a positive difference in their homes, parishes, workplaces, and communities.

Purpose

• To gather men together in order to honor God in prayer and worship.
• To invite the Holy Spirit to penetrate our hearts to change us interiorly.
• To educate ourselves through the teachings of the Catholic Church utilizing the Scriptures and the Catechism.
• To share with one another how God is working in each of our lives on a daily basis.
• To recruit and encourage other men to join us in spiritual training and workouts.

The main goal of Spiritual Fitness Workout Groups is to increase the number of strong, vibrant, and active Catholic men in our parishes.

Crossing the Goal Resources

• DVD'S
• Each disc contains a number of shows that make up a series (8-12 episodes) (ex: Godly Man, Becoming Disciples, etc.)
• Each show contains four parts--Kick Off, Game Plan, Red Zone, End Zone.
• Total time of content on each episode is approximately 25 minutes.
• Questions
• A set of (warm up and workout) questions has been designed by the CTG team that correspond to each episode of a particular series.
• These questions can be downloaded from the CTG website (www.crossingthegoal.com) for free.
• The men utilize the episode questions by answering them prior to attending the meeting so that they will be better prepared for discussions in the breakout segments.

Structure of a Men’s Spiritual Workout Group

Schedule and Format

-Schedule: Workouts are usually held bi-weekly/or weekly (90 minutes).

-Examples - Thursdays, 7:30-9:00 PM--1st and 3rd Thursdays

-Saturdays, 7:00 – 8:30 AM --2nd and 4th Saturdays

-Tuesdays after 6:30 AM Mass

-Crossing the Goal (CTG) Workout Format

Segment-I: Warm-up-(large group)

   -Welcome--any new member

    -Prayer--song (optional)

    -Accountability: Leader have the men review previous week's action item

.

    Total time: 15 min.

Segment-II: Workout-(large group)

    -Workout leader starts the workout by showing the large group the DVD-kickoff, game plan, and red zone.

    Total time: 20 min. (approximately)

Segment-III: Sharing-(small groups)

    -Large group breaks into small groups of 5-7 men

    -Leader appoints Facilitators for each small group

    -Facilitator leads the men in discussion of episode by utilizing the questions downloaded from the website.

    -Questions are divided into two categories: 1) Warm-up questions; 2) Workout questions

    -Total time: 45-50 minutes

Segment-IV: Action item-(large group)

    -Workout leader shows large group the end zone.

    -Each man takes a couple minutes to write down one action item he would like to accomplish before the next workout.

    Total time: 5 min.

Coaching Points for a Great Workout

   -"Starting team" no more than 10-15 members.

    -Each team member should purchase his own DVD (website group pricing) or watch episodes streaming on www.crossingthegoal.com.

    -Questions can be downloaded from the Crossing the Goal site (www.crossingthegoal.com) on the link marked 'Workout Questions'. FOR FREE

    -Make a hard copy of the questions.

    -Each team member should view the episode for the week prior to attending the workout.

    -The questions should be completed prior to the workout.

    -Bring the questions to the workout, so that you can refer to your notes during the sharing/discussion portion of the workout.

    -Make a concerted effort to accomplish your action item for the week.

Note: If possible, review and reflect on prior week's content to help make it stick.

Workout Group Leader Responsibilities

    -The initial "Starting Team" should be no more than 10 members including group leader. Build from that base until you reach a cap of 15 men. Once you reach 15, a couple of the men should break off and form a new "Starting Team" of no more than 10 new men.

    -Prepare for each meeting. (example: watch the episode and review the questions.)

    -Make sure the room is properly set up.

    -Double-check all of the equipment. Make sure the TV and DVD are properly connected.

    -Have a CD player on hand for the music--if necessary.

    -Have designated facilitators planned for each meeting who can lead the small group discussions.

    -Find several guys who can take turns opening and closing meeting rooms.

    -Refreshments – Purchase soft drinks, coffee, cookies, etc.--makes for a nice touch. (optional)

    -EVERYONE makes sure room is put back in order.

Tips for Facilitators

    -Create a “safe place.” Everything said in the group stays in the group and is held in STRICT CONFIDENCE.

    -Keep everything moving. If the discussion lags, move on to the next question. Keep an eye on the clock.

    -Stay on the subject at hand: don’t get off-base.

    -Don’t allow one person to dominate the sharing. You must kindly interrupt so that you can move on.

    -You don’t need to comment on the men’s answers to the discussion questions.

    -All members, and their sharing, are of equal value; no gurus.

    -Discussion of public figures and issues should be discouraged – not a debating session.

    -Discussion of church figures and issues should be discouraged.

    -Personal counseling during the meetings should be avoided.

    -Personal experiences can be shared but any major issues should be handled outside of the meeting.

    -Sensitive and difficult disclosures and sharing can be followed by taking time out to pray.

    -Be sensitive to the movement of the Holy Spirit and flexible to follow that movement.

    -Start and stop on time.

(74) The Priest of the Gulag: Walter Ciszek, S.J.

From the December 8, 2014 issue of
Crisis Magazine

Far in the bitter Russian north, word of the death of Joseph Stalin spread—even among the political prisoners and criminals who toiled ceaselessly, doomed and forgotten, in the mines and forests of Siberia. The news was a spark of hope that lit the fuse of rebellion. The camps erupted in violence as prisoners’ pent up frustrations with hard labor, hunger, and indignity were loosed. They never had a chance. By the butt of the rifle and the muzzle of the machine gun, Soviet soldiers put the uprising down. Among the prisoners of Camp 5, sprawled in the dirt and desperately trying to avoid the gunfire, was a Catholic priest from Pennsylvania. How he came there—and how he came back—is a study in, as the priest himself put it later, “the strange and mysterious ways of divine providence.”

Walter Ciszek’s seemed an unlikely vocation. By his own account, he was a “bully, the leader of a gang, a street fighter … I had no use for school, except insofar as it had a playground where I could fight or wrestle or play sports.” Walter’s Polish immigrant parents—his father was a mine worker and then a barkeeper in eastern Pennsylvania—were so exasperated by their difficult son that they once asked the police to take him off their hands. It was not the typical childhood of a follower of Ignatius of Loyola, who was required, among other things, to observe strict obedience to superiors and to achieve intellectual prowess through a long and rigorous regimen of academic study. But Walter Ciszek did not lead a typical life.

Born November 14, 1904 in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, Walter was the seventh of Martin and Mary Ciszek’s thirteen children. His mother’s devotion eventually inspired Walter to form aspirations to consecrated life, though his father remained skeptical that such an obstreperous youth could ever embody the piety and kindness that Martin thought proper to the Catholic priesthood. In the “strange and mysterious ways of divine providence,” however, the path of Walter Ciszek was already laid out: God would use the young man’s very contrariness as a lever to nudge him toward his vocation. His father’s opposition to the idea confirmed Walter’s determination to enter the seminary, and Walter’s own inclination away from the communal religious life and extensive training of the Jesuits convinced him to accept both: “since it was so hard,” he declared, “I would do it.”

In 1929, Pope Pius XI founded a Roman university for the purpose of training Western priests to work among the eastern-rite Catholics of Russia. Early in his religious life Walter learned of “the Russicum” and by the time he took vows in 1930, the dream of ministering to Russian Catholics was planted ineradicably in the young Jesuit’s mind. Father Ciszek was ordained in Rome, June 24, 1937.

By the 1930s, however, Soviet Communism’s implacable opposition to all independent religious activity made it impossible for a Catholic priest to enter the country. Fr. Ciszek was therefore assigned to a small town in eastern Poland, to work among the eastern-rite Catholics of the area and bide his time until a route into the USSR might somehow be discerned.

That day came quickly. Shortly after war broke out in September 1939, the Soviet army overran eastern Poland. Its envelopment by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia was a disaster for Poland, but it was a godsend for Ciszek. He now found himself within the boundaries of the Soviet empire. The American embassy recommended that he leave the country, but he declined. Instead, with the approval of his Jesuit superiors and the local archbishop, he conspired with two fellow Jesuits to enter the Russian heartland and realize his missionary dream.

Aided by his local friends, Ciszek forged papers to show that he was a widowed Polish peasant and volunteered to work in the Soviet war industry, which was hiring recruits throughout Soviet-occupied territory. Thus he found passage on an eastbound train and crossed into Russia proper. Notwithstanding his careful efforts to hide his identity, he was arrested after only a year spent as a logger in the Ural Mountains. The Communist state had spies everywhere, and they quickly discovered the true identity of the American priest.

So began a brutal, years-long series of interrogations, incarcerations, and forced-labor assignments. The Soviet imagination could not comprehend the religious and charitable motives that impelled a young American man to sacrifice all for the sake of a ministry amidst the embattled and impoverished Catholics of Russia; therefore, they determined that he must be a spy. At first, they insisted that he was in the service of Hitler, then that he was involved in some kind of plot masterminded by the pope. In any case, they would not accept his explanations. He was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to fifteen years of labor in the Gulag.

The early years of his sentence were served in Moscow, within the confines of the notorious Lubyanka prison. Ciszek could not know at the time that the cell at Lubyanka would appear to be luxurious accommodations compared to later hardships. In 1946 he was transferred to Norilsk, Siberia, where his toils over the next decade included construction and coal mining. Daily life was a constant struggle for survival, but Ciszek made the most of his spiritual opportunities, saying Mass when possible, offering solace and sacraments to the religious, and sharing the rudiments of faith with those who had none.

Ciszek’s sentence ended in 1955. He was released into Siberia, but he was not free. As a treasonous ex-convict, not only would he never be permitted to leave the country; he must also seek permission for every transition of employment or residence. This period of relative freedom, however, was Ciszek’s most fruitful as a minister. Priests were in short supply in Russia and Ciszek found grateful parishioners wherever he went. The KGB discouraged Ciszek’s religious activity by harassment and threat, but by this time the hard-bitten priest was not easily cowed, even by the Soviet secret police.

Meanwhile, in the United States, Ciszek was presumed dead. The last contact with his relatives and Jesuit brothers was a postcard sent from Poland in 1940. In 1947, the Jesuits said a memorial Mass for him and his name was added to the official list of the Society’s deceased. Then, suddenly, came a letter, postmarked Siberia. Fr. Ciszek was alive! He remained in sporadic contact with his native country while his family sought to secure his liberty.

On October 11, 1963, the U.S. State Department announced to the world that a deal had been struck with the USSR. Two American prisoners were to be released in exchange for two Soviet spies captured in the United States. One of the Americans was a Jesuit priest. On the morning of October 12, Fr. Ciszek stepped onto the tarmac at Idlewild Airport (now JFK) in New York.

Friends and colleagues implored the repatriated priest to record his experiences, and he did so in two books: With God in Russia (1964) and He Leadeth Me (1973). It is no wonder that his accounts of life “behind enemy lines” were a sensation in Cold War America, but for Catholics they hold a meaning that goes beyond the historical contingencies of a particular period. In the details of this particular life we see written again the themes that play across Christian history: proclamation, witness, sacrifice, death, and resurrection. Fr. Ciszek’s labors evoke the heroism of the great Jesuit missionaries who preceded him: Francis Xavier, Paul Miki, Matteo Ricci, Isaac Jogues, Eusebio Kino. Not to mention the bearers of the gospel who formed the Church for fifteen hundred years before the Society of Jesus existed: Paul of Tarsus, Patrick, Boniface, Cyril and Methodius.

During his time in Russia, Ciszek narrowly escaped death by drowning, freezing, starvation, illness, electrocution, firing squad, explosion, and beating. Millions of victims of the Gulag died in these ways and others. Why did Fr. Ciszek survive? The answer is once again the “strange and mysterious ways of divine providence,” but one might speculate. Fr. Ciszek did: “I felt that one reason that God in his providence had brought me safely home was so that I might help others understand these truths a little better.” Which truths? “That God has a special purpose, a special love, a special providence to all those he has created,” and that, therefore, “every moment of our life has a purpose, that every action of ours, no matter how dull or routine or trivial it may seem in itself, has a dignity and a worth beyond human understanding.”

In the midst of the Cold War, this was a message the West needed to hear. Fr. Ciszek was uniquely qualified to announce it. He possessed a combination of street-smart intelligence and genuine humility; an astonishing memory; an indomitable faith; and a native appreciation of American culture that was untainted by jingoism or xenophobia. His story helped to shape among American Catholics an anti-Communist ethos that was tethered to faith and fueled not by hatred of the Russian people but by a desire to free them from oppression—to restore to them the transcendent truth about man’s relationship with God that materialist ideology tried to stamp out.

Ciszek remained for the rest of his life in the United States, residing and teaching at Fordham University. He died on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1984, and his cause for canonization was formally introduced in 1990 at the behest of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic, New Jersey. By that time, the Berlin Wall had fallen, the Catholic Church was enjoying its freedom in Poland, and the Gulag where Ciszek had spent ten physically miserable years was largely dismantled. Yet changing circumstances do not diminish the timeless witness of the saints. The good news of God’s “special purpose, special love, and special providence” is a message the world still needs to hear.

This article is reprinted from Crisis Magazine.

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(73) Matthew James Christoff: 12 Ways to Become a Committed Catholic Man

By  Matthew James Christoff
 

There is a Catholic “man-crisis.” Large numbers of men who were baptized Catholic have left the Church and the majority of those who remain are “Casual Catholic Men”, men who do not know the Catholic faith and don’t practice it.

This large-scale failure of Catholic men to commit themselves to Jesus Christ and His Church has contributed to the accelerating decay of the post-modern culture. The long list of examples of cultural decay is obvious to those willing to look: industrialized slaughter of babies in the womb; the self-sterilization of contraceptives; epidemic promiscuity, pornography and sexual perversion; the avoidance of marriage; rampant divorce and adultery; so-called “marriage” of homosexuals; substance addictions; gender confusion; filth and coarseness in media; the loss of a connection to nature and escape into virtual “reality”; environmental exploitation; rampant materialism; the lost of the dignity of work; racial animas; commercialized gluttony; the dysfunctional political and legal system. Post-modern society is sick.

In midst of the societal decay, there are men who seek the true, beautiful and the good and are working to bring the peace and joy of Christ to the world: Committed Catholic Men. These men have completely committed themselves to the Almighty King, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and to His Holy Church, realizing that true manhood is Catholic Manhood. This is the truest of loves, to love God with one’s full being and to love one’s neighbor as one’s self.  Committed Catholic Men have realized the great blessings that flow from being committed to Christ and His Church.  Committed Catholic Men have made Sainthood their goal and have made their purpose to lead their families and as many as others as possible to Heaven.

Committed Catholic Men realize that behind the cultural decay, lurks Satan. They have come to know that Satan is real, Hell is real, Sin is real and that life is a battle to confront and defeat Satan, the Evil One who is waiting at every turn to devour the unprepared. Committed Catholic Men are not perfect, but take seriously Christ’s call to perfection. It is only in Christ, that Committed Catholic Men find the courage to persevere when they fall into Sin and are continually strengthened for the battle against Satan.

Every Catholic man is called to give himself fully to Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church. How does one become a Committed Catholic Man? Here are 12 steps to grow in loyalty and devotion to Jesus Christ:

1. Develop a rousing case for why Jesus Christ is your King – If a man is asked to describe why he loves his parents, wife, children or friends, most can quickly rattle off a long list of reasons for his love. But for most men, Jesus Christ is abstract, conceptual or a long-gone historical figure. Large numbers of men don’t know Jesus as real, alive and present. Each Catholic man must to be able to give a rousing argument for why Jesus Christ is the greatest Man and why Jesus is his King. If a man is not convinced about Christ’s greatness to the point of being able to articulate the case, his growth in faith will be stunted and he will be unable to draw others to Christ. Committed Catholic Men can make the case for Christ.  
2. Commit to be a Saint of Christ the King – There are no nice people or good people in Heaven, only Saints. Most men have not made a commitment to strive for Sainthood. Men are stuck in mediocrity and need to raise the bar higher; there is no higher bar than Sainthood. Christ’s first words of public ministry were to “Repent!” and every man must repent or die. By making a commitment to Sainthood, a man starts with repentance and aspires to greatness; in this he realizes his own spiritual poverty. In the recognition of spiritual poverty, a man comes to both humbly recognize his need for God’s mercy and to cry out for it. Aspiring to Sainthood changes everything.
3. Go to Reconciliation at least once a month – While the Church teaches each man must go to Reconciliation at least once a year, any man who is truthful with himself and Christ knows he needs the Sacrament of Reconciliation much more frequently.  Keep a guide to Reconciliation with you, recalling regularly the 10 Commandments. Make the commitment to go to Reconciliation on a pre-determined schedule each month and go to Reconciliation immediately when you fall into grave sin (e.g. when you view pornography). Regular and frequent Reconciliation changes men, for supernatural Grace flows to men during Absolution. 
4. Pray for 15 minutes every day – Only about a third of Catholic men pray daily; some smaller number, a much smaller number, pray for 15 minutes. How can a man know Jesus if he never talks to Him? He can’t. Commit to get to know Christ the King on a personal basis by approaching His Throne and talking with Him every day for 15 minutes. It is in this personal conversation that Christ will make His will known to each man.
5. Discover the majestic manliness of the Mass – The Mass is the “source and summit” of the Catholic faith, and yet, the majority of men claim to “be bored by the Mass” and to “not get anything out of the Mass”. This is because they don’t know what is occurring in the Mass: they have little understanding of the manly symbolism of the Mass, a Sacrament that has been devoutly passed down for 2000 years. They don’t realize that during the Mass they are witnesses to the actual Bloody Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross. If a man doesn’t actively participate in the Mass because of ignorance and boredom, he can’t receive the Graces that flow from the Eucharist. Learn the Mass to such a degree that you can explain it to others with the reverence and devotion that Christ’s Sacrifice deserves.
6. Participate in Sunday Mass + 1 – It is the minimum obligation of each Catholic man to attend Mass every Sunday; but only about a quarter of men do so on any given week. This is both a catechetical failure and an outrageous insult to Our King. In addition to attending Mass every Sunday, each man should go an additional step to encounter the Eucharist at least one more time during the week either by participating in daily Mass or by kneeling in Adoration for 30 minutes. Most men have much to make up for and precious little time; drawing closer to Christ more regularly will help men make up for lost time. A warning: never approach the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin.
7. Pray the Rosary regularly and carry the Rosary with you – Only about 40% of Catholic men ever pray the Rosary, and only 1 in 10 carry their Rosary with them. Praying the Rosary draws a man closer to our Holy Mother and to her Son, Jesus Christ; it is the manliest of rituals, prayed by the greatest Saints over centuries, in quiet places and in the din of the battlefield. It is a manly act of loyalty and fidelity. Commit to carry the Rosary as a sign of your loyalty and faith and as a weapon against the daily onslaught of Satan; Satan hates the Rosary and fears it. Have the Rosary handy at all times to pray a decade in times of gratitude and stress, relying on the Holy Mother to bring your prayers to Jesus Christ. The Rosary is part of the uniform of the Committed Catholic Man.
8. Get to know your Patron Saint and Guardian Angel – We believe in a Communion of Saints. Many men don’t have a personal relationship with a Saint or their Guardian Angel.   Many men don’t feel connected to the Church, in part because they are not connected to the Saints or to the Guardian Angel that Jesus Christ has appointed for each man. Saints and Angels intercede on men’s behalf and stand by to protect and defend men from daily assault of Satan and his demons. Don’t go into daily battle without a Saint and your Guardian Angel guarding your back.
9. Read Holy Scripture for 15 minutes each day – All of Holy Scripture is about Jesus Christ. When a man reads Holy Scripture, Jesus Christ is with him, not figuratively or conceptually, but in a real and actual way. Jesus Himself came to earth to speak the words of Scripture for all men, across all time, to read and contemplate, drawing strength and wisdom and Grace from His words. Reading Holy Scripture can be done by working through books of the Bible and by reading/praying the Divine Office. A man can’t know Jesus Christ without contemplating His Word.
10. Be a priest, prophet and king in your home – In the face of a secular culture that attacks valid patrimony, Catholic men need to reassert their rightful roles as priest, prophet and king of their family. We are not talking about being a chauvinistic tyrant, but a true Saint of Christ, with each man serving his wife and children with humble sacrifice, holy example and courageous commitment to lead his family to Heaven. Be a priest by leading your family in prayer. Be a prophet by teaching the truth of Christ and His Church. Be a king by defending your family from the perversions of the culture, correcting them when they fall into error and by leading them the Eucharist and Reconciliation.
11. Build a brotherhood with other Catholic men in your parish – In Acts 2:43, the Apostles from the earliest days of the Church give the “formula” for Catholic brotherhood: And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. For a man to grow in faith he must build brotherhood with faithful Catholic men who can challenge and help him grow in holiness. There is an epidemic of loneliness in modern men,  even in regular mass-attending men. Make the commitment to build brotherhood with other Catholic men, particularly younger men, men who are at grave risk as they enter adolescence and move into adulthood. Gather the men of your parish in large groups and small, to pray, to learn, to teach and to serve the poor. Be a catalyst, be a leader, working with your priest. Christ will hold all men accountable for their personal response to His command to “Go and make disciples.”
12. Commit to tithing and begin to work toward it – The willingness of a man to give his hard-earned money to the Church is a direct indicator of the strength of his devotion and loyalty to the King Jesus Christ. Sadly, many Catholic men give little to the Church, both in absolute terms and relative to other Christian’s gifts to their churches. Tithing is the giving of 10% of a man’s income to the Church including a parish and other Catholic charities. While you may not be able to give a full 10% due to economic constraints, commit to tithing and begin to work toward it, making progress each year, guided by the Holy Spirit.

Being a Committed Catholic Man is the greatest challenge to which a man can aspire to accept and the commitment can seem daunting. Don’t be deterred; be a Catholic Man! Make the resolution, right here, right now to be a Committed Catholic Man. Print this list off and post it where you will see it every day. As in all things, start with prayer. Pray that Jesus Christ will send the Holy Spirit to help give you the strength needed to become a Committed Catholic Man. Pray with your whole heart to Christ and do your best. Our King has promised to answer those who persist in prayer.

Jesus Christ will never let a man down who is committed to Him.

The post 12 Ways to Become a Committed Catholic Man appeared first on The Catholic Gentleman.

This article is reprinted with permission from our friends at The Catholic Gentleman.

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By Matthew James Christoff

Matthew James Christoff is a Catholic convert. He is the founder of The New Emangelization (http://newemangelization.com) Project which is committed to confront the Catholic “man-crisis” and to develop new ardor, methods and expressions for the re-evangelization of Catholic men. Matthew is also a co-founder of CatholicManNight, a parish-based men’s evangelization effort that has drawn thousands of Catholic men into Eucharistic Adoration, Confession, fellowship and lively discussion. Matthew lives in Minnesota with his beautiful bride (and childhood sweetheart); they have 4 adult children, 3 “in-law” children and two grandchildren.

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