The Manly Catholic: Training Soldiers for Christ

The serpent walked right into the garden. So where was Adam?

That one question will change how you look at your home, your parish, and your own fight. In this episode, we dig back into the archives with our deep-dive Into the Breach. Fr. Dominic and I crack open Bishop Thomas Olmsted's apostolic exhortation and ask: where are the gaps in our defenses, and who's standing in them?

We're going into the archives for now. We're working on a new structure for the show, and I can't wait to share it with you.

In this episode:

• Why "breach" is military language, and what Shakespeare's Henry V has to do with it
• Where Adam was when the serpent showed up, and what it means for every man who's been given a garden to guard
• The numbers Bishop Olmsted lays out: 14 million Catholics gone since 2000, Catholic marriages down 41%, infant baptisms down 28%
• Why we've lost our sense of the supernatural, and why you can't fight a roaring lion alone
• Masculinity isn't passive, and it isn't toxic
• Why nobody gets cut from this team
• "The duty of every man is the dignity of every woman."

Christ is already in the breach. He's waiting on you. Push play.

References from the episode:

• Into the Breach: An Apostolic Exhortation to Catholic Men by Bishop Thomas Olmsted
• Knights of Columbus Into the Breach video series
• Behold the Man by Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers
• Five Loves of Pope John Paul II by Jason Evert
• Witness to Hope by George Weigel

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In this homily for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, the rich biblical imagery of the vineyard found in both Isaiah and the Gospel is explored to reveal God's enduring call for righteousness. Beginning with a lighthearted childhood memory of farm life, the reflection dives into the historical and spiritual significance of Jesus's parable of the wicked tenants. Christ, the rejected heir who was crucified outside the city walls, becomes the cornerstone of a new kingdom, inviting baptized believers to labor in His vineyard through the grace of the sacraments. Tying this Gospel message to Respect Life Sunday, the homily challenges the faithful to produce good fruit by protecting human dignity from womb to tomb, defending the vulnerable from evils like human trafficking and euthanasia, and upholding God’s design for marriage and society.

Subscribe to our https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxrRLZNk4WqPdgcac5vuWEQ page Get delicious coffee from https://www.mysticmonkcoffee.com/ Download https://tanbooks.com/tan-digital-app/?gc_id=10316277314&h_ad_id=730848595836&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=10316277314&gbraid=0AAAAADyykAwicqF-HKPia6TTPy8QAcIPz&gclid=Cj0KCQiAtfXMBhDzARIsAJ0jp3BvOz3u8c1HzCclma7fM0Vf-DUe6eJ5O0dUN0jTbV4sZZaLuCg6lZMaAomQEALw_wcB to access the incredible TAN Library! Use code ‘MANLYCATHOLIC’ to get 50% OFF your subscription!  Contact us at mailto:[email protected]

Who are guardian angels, and what is their specific mission in our daily lives? In this episode of The Manly Catholic, host James Caldwell welcomes back author, speaker, and content creator Patrick O'Hearn to discuss his book, Angel of God.

Patrick breaks down Catholic theology surrounding the heavenly hosts, exploring the nine choirs of angels, how angels serve as unique guardians, and the seven specific roles assigned to them by God—from defending us against temptation to offering our prayers before the Heavenly Father. The conversation covers:

• How guardian angels protect us in physical and spiritual dangers.
• Practical advice for fathers and husbands on invoking their family's guardian angels.
• Catholic teachings on naming guardian angels and navigating occult misconceptions.
• Daily practices to deepen your devotion to your angel through prayer and the Sacraments.
• A sneak peek at Patrick's new children's book, A Tale of the Sanctuary Lamp.

Whether you are looking to revitalize your prayer life or teach your children about their best heavenly friend, this conversation provides inspiring insights into spiritual warfare, angelic devotion, and God's protective grace.

Consider supporting the podcast on our https://buymeacoffee.com/tmcpage (https://buymeacoffee.com/tmc) to help grow the show to reach as many men as possible!  Subscribe to our https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxrRLZNk4WqPdgcac5vuWEQ page: (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxrRLZNk4WqPdgcac5vuWEQ) Check out our https://themanlycatholic.riverside.com/ (http://themanlycatholic.riverside.com/) Get delicious coffee from https://www.mysticmonkcoffee.com/ Downloadhttps://tanbooks.com/tan-digital-app/?gc_id=10316277314&h_ad_id=730848595836&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=10316277314&gbraid=0AAAAADyykAwicqF-HKPia6TTPy8QAcIPz&gclid=Cj0KCQiAtfXMBhDzARIsAJ0jp3BvOz3u8c1HzCclma7fM0Vf-DUe6eJ5O0dUN0jTbV4sZZaLuCg6lZMaAomQEALw_wcB to access the incredible TAN Library! Use code ‘MANLYCATHOLIC’ to get 50% OFF your subscription!  Contact us at mailto:[email protected]

What does true spiritual toughness look like when the world demands passivity?

In this episode of The Manly Catholic, host James Caldwell welcomes back Dr. Dan Schneider—professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville and expert on spiritual warfare—for his fourth appearance on the show. Together, they break down a lineup of the most relentless, courageous, and "gangster" saints in Church history—men and women who refused to back down in the face of violent empires, interior vices, or demonic forces.

From a Capuchin friar leading 20,000 men into battle holding only a wooden crucifix, to an elite Roman Praetorian Guard left for dead who walked right back to confront the Emperor, this discussion pulls no punches on what it takes to forge heroic virtue today. Dr. Dan and James explore the difference between physical combat and the interior battles every man must fight, the trap of spiritual softness, and why modern men need to direct their strength toward the true enemy rather than those they are called to protect.

Consider supporting the podcast on our https://buymeacoffee.com/tmcpage (https://buymeacoffee.com/tmc) to help grow the show to reach as many men as possible!  Subscribe to our https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxrRLZNk4WqPdgcac5vuWEQ page: (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxrRLZNk4WqPdgcac5vuWEQ) Check out our https://themanlycatholic.riverside.com/ (http://themanlycatholic.riverside.com/) Get delicious coffee from https://www.mysticmonkcoffee.com/ Downloadhttps://tanbooks.com/tan-digital-app/?gc_id=10316277314&h_ad_id=730848595836&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=10316277314&gbraid=0AAAAADyykAwicqF-HKPia6TTPy8QAcIPz&gclid=Cj0KCQiAtfXMBhDzARIsAJ0jp3BvOz3u8c1HzCclma7fM0Vf-DUe6eJ5O0dUN0jTbV4sZZaLuCg6lZMaAomQEALw_wcB to access the incredible TAN Library! Use code ‘MANLYCATHOLIC’ to get 50% OFF your subscription!  Contact us at [email protected]

Fr. Dom's homs is back this week (well, the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time). He talks about the one thing that can destroy that love in us.

Sin.

The first line of today's reading from Sirach tells us that wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight. Fr. Dom admits he gets that one personally. Before he gave his life to God at 27, anger and pride felt good in a twisted way...like control. Sound familiar? That grip broke the day he actually let God in, and he's been trying to hand that same freedom to other people ever since.

Sin drags you down, he says. It drags you down into the cold and dark, and the only way out is to actually let go of the weight. Don't play with it. How often do we try and justify our actions in our minds?

We've been forgiven a debt we could never repay, and the real test of whether that's sunk in is whether we'll forgive the small stuff we're owed.

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Alphonse Ratisbonne hated the Catholic Church. He put on a Miraculous Medal as a joke, just to win a bet with a Catholic friend. Days later he walked into a church in Rome, saw Our Lady standing exactly as she's pictured on that little medal, and walked out a changed man. He became a priest. That conversion, and the hidden nun behind the medal that caused it, is the whole episode today.

Shaun McAfee joins James for his fifth appearance on The Manly Catholic (he's officially in the Five-Timers Club now) to talk about his newest release for TAN Books, Saints and Sacramentals: Saint Catherine Labouré and the Miraculous Medal, the second book in his Saints and Sacramentals series written to give parents a way to explain Catholic devotions to their kids.

In this episode:

• Who Saint Catherine Labouré was, and how a farm girl became the visionary behind the most-produced medal in Church history
• Why she refused every bit of credit for the rest of her life, and how nobody knew it was her until after she died
• What's actually on the Miraculous Medal, and what the serpent, the twelve stars, and the two hearts on the back really mean
• The wild true story of Alphonse Ratisbonne, an atheist who wore the medal to mock it and ended up a missionary priest

PRODUCTS & REFERENCES MENTIONED:

• Saints and Sacramentals: Saint Catherine Labouré and the Miraculous Medal by Shaun McAfee
• Compendium of Sacramentals and Compendium of Eucharistic Miracles
• Saints and Sacramentals: Saint Dominic and The Rosary
• Shaun McAfee's website

KEY TAKEAWAY:
Stop outsourcing your faith to a shopping cart. This week, go find a local Catholic bookstore and pick out a sacramental in person — a medal, a scapular, a rosary. Hold a few in your hand before you choose one. The intimacy of picking it yourself is part of the point.

Thank you for your prayers and support!

Consider supporting the podcast on our Buy Me A Coffee page to help grow the show to reach as many men as possible!

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Check out our website

Get delicious coffee from Mystic Monk Coffee

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With the school year kicking off, Fr. Dom ties together three straight Sundays of readings around one line from St. Catherine of Siena, which is also this year's parish (OLC) theme: "Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire."

And that only happens when the three virtues we're given at baptism, faith, hope, and charity, actually get put to work.

He starts by walking back through the last two weeks. Elijah, hiding in a cave from a queen who wants him dead, finally hears God in the whispers of the wind and that's what steadies his faith.

Then Peter, watching the storm swallow the boat, doesn't ask Jesus to calm it. He asks to get out and walk toward him instead. Fr. Dom's point: faith, hope, and charity don't get unlocked when life is calm. They get unlocked when we actually step out of the boat.

From there he circles back to last Sunday's gospel regarding the Canaanite woman who won't take no for an answer, even after Jesus tests her with a hard line about dogs and table scraps. Her comeback earns her one of the only "great is your faith" lines in all of scripture. Wit is one of her strong suits.

Fr. Dom notes the real audience for that moment was the apostles, who'd wanted to send her away. Jesus was showing them the kingdom was bigger than they thought.

Which brings him to today's gospel: Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi, standing in front of a pagan temple built over what people believed was a literal gate to the underworld. "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." And Jesus hands him the keys right there. Fr. Dom shares that this exact passage is what pulled him into the Catholic Church in the first place.

He wraps it all up together: every one of them had faith, hope, and charity unlocked by leaning into something hard, not by avoiding it.

That's the challenge this week: let God do the same in you.

Consider supporting the podcast on our Buy Me A Coffee page (https://buymeacoffee.com/tmc) to help grow the show to reach as many men as possible! 

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"Quo vadis, Domine?" Lord, where are You going?

That's the question Christ asked Peter on the road out of Rome, and it's the last thing Peter heard before he chose to die on a cross turned upside down. Fr. Robert Nixon is back on the show with a brand-new translation almost nobody has read: the Life and Martyrdom of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, written by a man who was practically an eyewitness. Simon Magus, a demonic flying "miracle," a Roman emperor demanding Peter read his mind, and two apostles who walked to their deaths without a shred of fear. This is the episode that'll make you rethink what courage actually looks like.

Fr. Nixon's latest translation for TAN Books brings us the lives of Peter and Paul as recorded by Saint Abdias of Babylon, one of the seventy-two disciples and a near-contemporary of the apostles themselves.

Grab a coffee, brothers. This one puts real flesh and blood on two men you think you already know.

PRODUCTS & REFERENCES MENTIONED:

• Life and Martyrdom of Saint Peter and Saint Paul by Saint Abdias of Babylon, trans. Fr. Robert Nixon (TAN Books) -- use cpde "manlycatholic" at checkout for a discount and suppor the podcast
• Fr. Nixon's prior episodes: #167 (Eucharistic Visions of Saint Frances of Rome) and #208 (The Mystical Meaning of Numbers in Sacred Scripture)

Thank you for your prayers and support!

Consider supporting the podcast on our Buy Me A Coffee page (https://buymeacoffee.com/tmc) to help grow the show to reach as many men as possible!

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Subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxrRLZNk4WqPdgcac5vuWEQ

Check out our website (https://www.themanlycatholic.com/)

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Contact us at [email protected]

TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Intro & Welcome 01:55 - Opening Prayer 02:25 - How Fr. Robert Nixon Translates Ancient Texts 04:45 - Who Was St. Abdius of Babylon? 09:00 - St. Peter & St. Paul’s Personalities Beyond Scripture 14:20 - St. Peter vs. Simon Magus (The Showdown in Rome) 22:40 - The Preaching Styles of the Apostles 25:30 - The Martyrdom of St. Peter (Quo Vadis & Vatican Hill) 29:45 - The Martyrdom of St. Paul (Via Ostiense) 32:10 - Key Takeaways for Catholic Men Today 34:40 - Fr. Robert Nixon’s Final Blessing & Upcoming Books

Every reading this Sunday (from the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time that is) sets up the same move: chaos first, faith second. Fr. Dom's point is God doesn't calm your storm before He grows your faith. He uses the storm to grow it.

Elijah gets wrecked before he gets strong. After torching 450 prophets of a child-sacrificing false god at Carmel, Elijah's a fugitive. He is alone, starving, nobody wants him, living in a cave...or a desert. God doesn't lecture him, He feeds him. Twice. Then sends him to Horeb, where God isn't in the earthquake or the fire but in the whisper of the wind. That's the moment Elijah's courage gets rebuilt from the ground up.

Paul gets knocked flat before he gets convinced. Damascus. Blinded, confronted by the risen Christ, and it's that collision that turns a guy hunting Christians into the man who writes half the New Testament.

Peter walks into the storm instead of asking Jesus to fix it. Everybody else in his position begs Jesus to calm the sea. Peter asks to get out of the boat. Fr. Dom's read: that's the only way the faith already in you actually gets unlocked. He sinks the second he stares at the wind instead of Christ and Jesus grabs him anyway.

Bottom line for you this week: stop praying the storm away. Whatever's raging isn't proof God left. It's the terrain faith gets built on. Faith isn't a feeling, it's a decision to submit and step out anyway.

Consider supporting the podcast on our Buy Me A Coffee page (https://buymeacoffee.com/tmc) to help grow the show to reach as many men as possible! 

Subscribe to our YouTube page: (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxrRLZNk4WqPdgcac5vuWEQ)

Check out our website (themanlycatholic.riverside.com/)

Get delicious coffee from Mystic Monk Coffee

Download TAN Digital to access the incredible TAN Library! Use code ‘MANLYCATHOLIC’ to get 50% OFF your subscription! 

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Shaun is back on the show for round four, and this one will change how you walk up for Communion.

A host that leaps out of the ciborium and hits the ceiling. A stolen host that boils over with blood the moment it hits a pan. A doubting priest who watches the Body of Christ turn to bleeding human tissue in his own hands. These aren't legends but documented, forensically studied Eucharistic miracles, and Shaun McAfee just spent a year and a half compiling the most thorough collection of them ever written.

We get into how the Church actually investigates a miracle claim (it's closer to a forensic crime scene than you'd expect), the science behind Lanciano's bleeding, liquefying host, the story of a woman who stole a consecrated host to brew a love potion, and why reverence matters more than most men ever stop to think about.

🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY

Before your next Communion, stop and actually examine your conscience first. Shaun lays it out plain: how you approach the Eucharist says something about whether you understand what you're receiving.

Treat that walk up the aisle like it's the most important thing you'll do all week. Because it is.

💬 QUOTES WORTH REMEMBERING

"A miracle only exists to draw us closer to Him."

"This is the most important thing we do in our lives — to receive Him."

"Sometimes God gives us miracles He asks us to keep in the silence of our heart."

📚 MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Compendium of Eucharistic Miracles by Shaun McAfee --> USE CODE MANLYCATHOLIC TO SUPPORT THE PODCAST AND GET A SPECIAL DISCOUNT CODE

• Shaun McAfee personal website

• RealPresence.org — Eucharistic miracle archive inspired by Bl. Carlo Acutis

Thank you for your prayers and support!

Consider supporting the podcast on our Buy Me A Coffee page to help grow the show to reach as many men as possible!

Subscribe to our YouTube page

Check out our website

Buy coffee from Mystic Monk Coffee

Download TAN Digital to access the incredible TAN Library! Use code 'MANLYCATHOLIC' to get 50% OFF your subscription!

Contact us at [email protected]