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The Catholic Man Show: Daily Summaries Delivered
by The Catholic Man Show
Promoting the virtuous life. Adam and David have been best friends for 30 years and love being Catholic, husbands, and fathers. They enjoy whisky, beer, bacon, flamethrowers, St. Thomas Aquinas, virtue, true leisure, and authentic friendship. The show is typically broken down into 3 segments - A drink, a gear, and a topic. We are on the Lord's team. The winning side. So raise your glass. #CheerstoJesus
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- 1 weeks ago1h 3m
Finding Jesus in the Temple: The First Words of Our Lord | The Catholic Man Show
Dave took another trip to the emergency room this week — though this one wasn't for him. His daughter Bernadette and one of his boys built a foam block bridge, she went off the side of it, landed on the wall, and broke her clavicle. Clean break. When Adam got the x-ray, he zoomed in, screenshotted just the broken collarbone, and sent it to Lady Haylee with no context — let her think Adam had been out grinding, building fences, shouldering it like a tough guy. Bernadette, for the record, is doing great. Three weeks and she's back to normal. As Dave put it, if you're going to break your clavicle, do it young. Don't do it at Jim's age.A lot of life packed into this one before the topic. Adam and his boys, Luke and Jude, are going to read the Aeneid together this summer — Luke already read it at Holy Family Classical School, so he'll lead the way. Adam helped Dave harvest wheat (the invoice is coming), and the two of them talked homesteading honestly: you don't get into it to save time or money. It's a lifestyle, and the pork chop costs $400 if you're foolish enough to count your own labor. Adam also turned 40 — by the time this airs, the birthday's passed — and he spent his Substack this week reflecting on the four ten-year cycles he's got left, if he's lucky. The big lesson from 30 to 40: he had it backwards. He was making his life serve the business instead of the business serve his life. Build the habits of prayer, reading, and friendship young, because life only gets busier, and it's far easier to keep a habit than to add one.Two prayer requests worth holding. Lady Pamela's due date is this week — baby Niles number seven, two middle names this time, names not yet shared. And baby Mary is still in the NICU. They're going to try again this week to take her off the breathing tube. She's weaning off sedation — which means withdrawals, which is hard — but she's gaining weight and getting stronger. Get past the tube and the next hill is open heart surgery. Adam's grateful for every prayer, and for the guys who sent DoorDash cards. Keep praying for Mary. And a shout-out to Dan O'Brien, David's father-in-law, walking the Camino as this drops — Dan, hope the feet are holding up.This week's pour is a funny one: WhistlePig's 250th Anniversary of America 10-Year "Piggy Bank" Limited Edition Straight Rye, 55% ABV. The box is a literal piggy bank and the bottle is a chrome-plated ceramic pig. Spicier and more herbal than your Weller or Buffalo Trace — but smooth for the proof, with caramel and warm undertones. Picked up at Broken Arrow Wine and Spirits, owned by a good Catholic family from St. Benedict. Jim's yummy scale (bourbon scale): 5.87 out of 6.Then the main course: the Finding of Jesus in the Temple. Luke 2, the last joyful mystery, the only Gospel that records it — and the very first time Jesus is recorded speaking. Adam walks through it with the Catena Aurea, Aquinas's compilation of the Church Fathers edited by St. John Henry Newman. The caravan to Jerusalem split women and children up front, men in the back, and a twelve-year-old could be in either — so Mary thought He was with Joseph, Joseph thought He was with Mary. Theophylact says it wasn't negligence. A logistical blind spot. Any father who's left a kid at church after coffee and donuts gets it.The three days they searched? St. Ambrose says that's no accident — a rehearsal for the three days of the Passion, lost and then found again. The age of twelve is no accident either: right before the bar mitzvah, the Lord fulfilling the law perfectly, right on time, and twelve standing for the tribes and the apostles. Watch Mary, too. She brings her grief straight to her Son without accusation — "why have you done this to us?" — modeling how a soul carries pain to Christ: honestly, blaming no one, trusting before she fully understands. Watch Joseph, who says nothing, and pursues his mission relentlessly without drama. That's the masculine answer to adversity: very well, and you handle it. Protect, provide, establish.Was Jesus being disobedient? The Fathers say no — His higher obedience to His Father's business ran underneath the surface, and verse 51 shows Him going home and being subject to them. God first, then family, and that order doesn't fracture the home. It grounds it. And where did they find Him? In the temple. His Father's house. Which is the whole point: you can find Jesus in nature, in the car, anywhere — but you are guaranteed to find Him in the church, body, blood, soul, and divinity, in the tabernacle of every Catholic church in the world. If you want to become holy, go be with Him. Get an adoration hour. Holiness doesn't happen the way Adam's buddy Juan figured he'd "just kind of one day have a six pack." You have to do something about it. Raise your glass.TOPICS COVERED<
- 2 weeks ago58 min
The Divine Importance of Manual Labor | The Catholic Man Show
Adam's youngest son, John, locked himself in the bathroom. No big deal — kid's fine, sang songs in there for forty-five minutes like a champ. The problem was the doorknob. Broken cam, broken spring, faceplate screws on the wrong side, and no way in. So Adam did what any father of six at the end of a long day does: he took an angle grinder to the thing and ground the entire doorknob into a pile of metal shards on the floor. Dave's suggestion — order the door open under holy obedience — came in a little too late.Then Dave told on himself. Reseating a toilet, scraping the wax ring, already in a state of borderline rage. He bumped the tank against the tile and cracked it. In a fit of Herculean fury he hoisted the seat over his head, ready to Hulk-smash it into a million pieces — and heard, somewhere, his guardian angel. Jesus doesn't want you to do this. He set it down. Didn't destroy it. And got rewarded for it: American Standard honored a lifetime warranty he didn't know he had and shipped him a $1,600 toilet, free, to replace the $200 one he broke. Resisting the rage paid out at eight to one.Then a quieter note. Baby Mary is still in the NICU. They got her off the breathing tube — she lasted about 24 hours before she had to be re-intubated. Good progress, long road still ahead. Oklahoma City's two hours off, the kids are out of school, and the Minihans are looking at hiring a nanny. But Adam wanted to brag on Lady Haylee. A stranger at the NICU left her a handwritten note and a crochet sweater with Mary's name on it — telling Haylee her faith had been an encouragement, that God is using her right there in that place. Haylee wasn't trying to be a witness. She was just being a mother in a hard place. That's exactly why it landed. Keep praying for Mary.This week's pour: Smoke Wagon Uncut Unfiltered Straight Bourbon from Nevada H&C Distilling out of Las Vegas. 59.29% ABV — hand-written on the bottle, so every batch runs a little different. Hot, full-flavored, plenty of grit. Jim's yummy scale gave it a 6.0, which broke the scale, because the scale apparently only went to four until tonight.Then the real work. The spiritual significance of manual labor. Summer's coming — the season of labor — and the guys make the case that work isn't a curse of the fall. Adam was tending the garden before sin entered the world. His very name comes from the dirt — adamah — made from it, named for it, made to work it. St. Augustine: what's more wonderful than to watch God's creation respond to human hands? Aquinas gives his four reasons for manual labor — obtain your livelihood, remove idleness, curb concupiscence ("I'm almost too tired to sin"), and give alms from the surplus. And the deeper distinction: servile work, done out of necessity, and liberal work, done for the sake of rest. We don't work to work. We work so we can look at what we've made, see that it is good, and rest. Same thing a man does in the soil, he does for his wife — order the environment so the thing entrusted to him can thrive. Protect, provide, establish.It's hard. It's supposed to be. What did you think hard was going to be? The man who can fix things is a threat to the throwaway culture — and the same will that fixes a thing is the will that prays the rosary on the morning you'd rather not. Raise your glass.TOPICS COVEREDAdam grinding his kid's bathroom doorknob into shards with an angle grinder after his son John got locked inDave nearly Hulk-smashing a toilet seat in a fit of rage — and the guardian angel that stopped himHow resisting the rage earned Dave a free $1,600 American Standard toilet under a lifetime warrantyBaby Mary update — off the breathing tube for 24 hours, re-intubated, long road still aheadThe Minihans looking at hiring a full-time nanny with the kids out of schoolThe handwritten note and crochet sweater a stranger left Lady Haylee at the NICUHow you carry suffering as a Christian can be a witness even when you're not trying to be oneBourbon of the week: Smoke Wagon Uncut Unfiltered Straight Bourbon, Nevada H&C Distilling, 59.29% ABVJim's yummy scale hitting 6.0 and breaking its own four-point ceilingWhy we even have to talk about manual labor when it used to be everybody's daily lifeAttention as agency — guarding what you direct your mind toward in a world built to fracture itAcedia, apathy, and becoming a cog flung to and fro like Francesca in Dante's ninth circle"The world fears the man who can fix things" — Fr. Mori of Clear Creek AbbeyThrowaway culture and why things are programmed now instead of built to be repairedAdam's M6 Marketing memo on "character without exception" — work and life are one line, not twoManual labor in Genesis — Adam tending the garden before
- 3 weeks ago1h 36m
The Virtue of Study and the Books That Formed Us | The Catholic Man Show
Dave's been throwing parties. Three in four days. Confirmation sponsor for a friend's son, family and friends over the next night, and then — because the universe has a sense of humor — some local gentleman decided to remodel Dave's brick mailbox. With his truck. At speed. Bricks were found over a hundred feet away. The guy left his license plate behind, which Dave is now holding like a man who accidentally picked up evidence and doesn't know what to do with it. The driver's fine. Well — he's in jail. But he's alive. Dave wants him to know that God's mercy is always ready and present, even for the man who turned a brand-new brick mailbox into gravel.Meanwhile, Adam got a new plum tree. Planted a maple. He's getting oaks for the pig pen so they'll drop acorns someday. One of his chickens died in a water barrel trap that nobody designed on purpose — the lid flipped, the chicken couldn't get out. Farm life. And then the real news: baby Mary is doing better. Haylee got to hold her. Adam held her for over three hours — only his second time since she was born in February. Three months of NICU, and the man finally got to just sit with his daughter. Praise God. Keep those prayers coming.Also — Adam's turning 40 on June 2nd. And Lady Pamela is due with their next baby on June 4th. They floated the idea of recording an episode in the delivery room. Pamela has not been consulted.This week we're sipping 13th Colony Distilleries Southern Rye Whiskey, French Oak Finish, Small Batch — 47.5% ABV. Platinum award-winning. Silky texture with hints of rye, apricot, and brown sugar. The rye's there but it doesn't overpower — still has a lot of bourbon elements to it. About forty bucks. That's a great buy.Then the conversation turns to something Adam's son Jude sparked. Jude — Adam's second oldest — just finished reading the entire Bible, Genesis through Revelation, straight through. Now he's reading the Council of Trent Catechism. He's a kid. Nobody told him to do this. He just had good books lying around the house and picked them up. That's the whole point.The virtue of study — studiositas — isn't what school taught us it was. It's not cramming. It's not memorizing facts to dump after the test. Aquinas calls it a habit of the mind ordered towards truth. Classical education at its best doesn't fill your head — it forms the way you think. The more you read rightly, the more you can arrive at correct conclusions through a sound process, not just recall. Study leads to contemplation. Contemplation is rest in truth. And it's not about finishing the book. If you're reading to check the box, you've already lost the plot. Sit with it. Let yourself be carried. The intellectual life doesn't compete with the family — it serves the family.From there, Adam and Dave go back and forth on the books that actually formed them. Adam leads with Joseph Pieper's In Tune with the World — a short, devastating argument for why festivity dies when we strip the divine out of celebration. Dave counters with The Soul of the Apostolate — the book that reordered his understanding of what has to come first before any ministry means anything. Adam brings John Senior's The Restoration of Christian Culture — hard opinions, harder truths, and a quote worth sitting with: the virtue of study requires a canon, a body of great works proven across time. Without tradition to guide what's worth studying, you're just chasing novelty.Dave goes deep on Fr. Timothy Gallagher's The Discernment of Spirits — a practical walkthrough of St. Ignatius's rules that shed light on the stages of the spiritual life and how the enemy shifts tactics as you grow. Adam responds with Raymond Arroyo's biography of Mother Angelica — a story of suffering, faithfulness, and a woman who said yes without knowing where it would lead. Dave makes a case for the Psalms — Psalm 51, the De Profundis in Latin, and the realization that there's a psalm for every moment of a man's life, and he'd been skimming past them for years.Adam goes deep cut: Fr. Paul Murray's Aquinas at Prayer — a book that reoriented his understanding of St. Thomas from pure intellect to contemplative soul. Dave brings Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Faustina — hundreds of pages of our Lord's words on mercy that are sometimes scandalously generous. Adam throws in Simon Sinek's Start with Why as the non-Catholic book that changed how he thought about business, marriage, and fatherhood. Both men land on fiction that haunts them — Adam with Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter, Dave with Candice Millard's Hero of the Empire on young Churchill. They touch on <stro
- May 18, 20261h 1m
The Fatherly Papacy: Authority as Service and Pope Leo's First Year | The Catholic Man Show
Indian paintbrush showed up at Porter Prairie Family Farm this week — native Oklahoma wildflower, first time Adam's seen it on his property. He didn't plant it. Nobody did. The seed bank was just dormant, waiting for the soil to be right. Two years of cattle grazing in the back pasture, no mowing, better land management — and something long dormant finally decided it was safe to bloom. Joel Salatin talks about this: when the practices change, when a property gets new stewardship, the land seems to know it. So does grace.David's been busy in a different direction. He wired up an automatic door for the chicken coop — actuator, relay, battery, timer — a sliding gate that covers the nesting boxes so the younger chickens stop sleeping in them and fouling the eggs. Under $150 total, including an actuator that lifts 300 pounds for thirty bucks. When he asked Lady Pamela what she wanted it to look like, she said: prison bars coming down. "We'll call it the Henna Tincture." David said say no more. The Henna Tincture it is.This week we're sipping Heaven Hill Bottled in Bond, Kentucky Straight Bourbon, 7 years — same distillery as Elijah Craig and Evan Williams. No gimmicks, under fifty bucks, smooth finish with a peanut butter quality that works. Bottled in bond since the Act of 1897. Very solid.Quick update on baby Mary: she's still having good days. Praise God. Keep her and Lady Haylee in your prayers. Adam also headed out to Arkansas over Mother's Day weekend to be with his goddaughter JoJo Kleine for her First Holy Communion — and got to watch nephew Danny Kleine go two-for-two at the plate with at least one RBI. After months of watching a daughter fight for her life in a NICU, sometimes what a soul needs is family, a Mass, and a kid absolutely cranking baseballs.Then we get into it: the papacy. A year in with Pope Leo XIV — the first American pope, the man who took the name knowing exactly whose shoes he was stepping into — and what does all of it mean? Where does that authority come from, and what's it actually for?Dave traces it back to the Davidic kingdom. When the king left for war, he handed the keys to his steward, who operated with full royal authority until the king returned. Matthew 16 isn't symbolism. "What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven" — the Jews at the time knew exactly what that meant. That's why Peter is listed first among the apostles almost every time. He was their leader. He had the keys. Two thousand years of unbroken succession later, here we are.But then the conversation goes somewhere unexpected. Authority is given to you so that you might serve those over whom you have authority. Not for your own glory. Not so people owe you. The pope is literally titled Servant of the Servants of God. The same authority Christ handed to Peter is the same authority He described in the upper room — the pagans lord it over their subjects, but not so among you. You will be the one who serves.For fathers, that cuts. Pope John Paul II stood up against governments, even after taking a bullet. He kept going out. What does that courage look like in an ordinary household? Probably not a wound in the square. More likely a different kind of martyrdom — the kind where you make a decision for your family that nobody else understands, that your kids resent for a season, that costs you something in your social circle. You make it anyway. Because you've prayed about it, talked it through with your wife, and you know in your gut it's the right thing for your people. You stand on the island by yourself if you have to.Dave closes with something worth trying: he prays specifically to the Holy Spirit to give Lady Pamela strong motherly intuition into the inner lives of their children. When she says something feels off, he pays close attention. That's him exercising his authority — his fatherly papacy — to draw more grace into his household. Not to control everything himself. To pray for the right graces for the right people.The fatherly papacy, if you will.Raise your glass.TOPICS COVEREDIndian paintbrush flowers appearing at Porter Prairie — and why the land responds to new stewardshipJoel Salatin and the School of Traditional Skills on how cattle and management change soil biologyDavid's automatic chicken coop door: actuator, relay, timer, and the Henna TinctureDavid's wheat harvest coming up — 12,000 square feet, building a grain cradle for the scytheBourbon of the week: Heaven Hill Bottled in Bond, 7-year Kentucky Straight BourbonJoJo Klein's First Holy Communion and nephew Danny Klein's two-for-two at the plateBaby Mary update — still having good days, keep her in your prayersPope Leo XIV's one-year anniversary — the first American pope and what it means t
- May 11, 20261h 6m
Spiritual Friendship: St. Aelred of Rievaulx and the Bell Curve of Zeal | The Catholic Man Show
We open the show on a wiffle ball game in the backyard. Adam's pitching. Jude's at the plate — right-handed, like always. Adam throws a sinker. Jude cranks it. Home run. On dad. In front of the whole family. Adam shakes it off, gets ready to deliver some justice on the next at-bat… and Jude steps over to the left side of the plate. "Jude, what are you doing?" "Dad. Just pitch the ball." Brushback pitch. Second swing — gone. Out of the park. Left-handed. Turns out Jude found out earlier that day he can bat from either side and forgot to mention it. Adam took it like a man — somewhere between humiliated and proud. Dave's response: this is why he still brushes his teeth left-handed. To stay coordinated. (Adam also has four cavities. Unrelated.)This week we're sipping Laphroaig Càirdeas 2024 — Triple Wood & PX Casks. Aged ten years in ex-bourbon and quarter casks, finished in Pedro Ximénez sherry casks. 52.4% ABV. Dark cherry-amber in the glass — uncharacteristic for an Islay. The classic peat smoke is there, then it opens into ginger, fruit, sherry sweetness. Càirdeas means friendship in Gaelic, which is exactly where the episode is headed. About $130-$140. Limited release, every year a little different.Mary update: she's off the paralysis medicine. Still heavily sedated, but her eyes are open. She's looking around. Oxygen, blood pressure, heart rate — all trending in the right direction. More good days than bad right now. Adam and Lady Haylee are grateful. Keep them in your prayers.Then we get into it: spiritual friendship, through St. Aelred of Rievaulx — the 12th-century Cistercian abbot whose book Spiritual Friendship is basically the Catholic doctrine on what a real friend is. He opens it with this line: "Here we are, you and I, and I hope that Christ makes a third with us." That's the whole thing.Adam walks through the bell curve of zeal every man hits when he starts taking his faith seriously. Phase one: you read everything, you want to tell everybody, you should start a podcast. Phase two: you realize you know almost nothing and you go quiet. Phase three is where Aelred meets you — somewhere between "let me lecture you" and "I'm not qualified to say anything." The answer isn't to forfeit the zeal. It's to ground it in humility. You don't have the answers because you are not the answer. Christ is. But you do have your own experience, and what He's done in your life is yours to share.Aelred's rules for friendship cut right through the noise. Spiritual friendship is not a teacher-student relationship — both men give, both men receive. Don't sacrifice your own vocation to be a "spiritual father" to someone else. When you meet, it's not the depth of the conversation that matters most, it's the consistency. And the cheat-code question for getting under the surface: how's your prayer life? Try that on a buddy this week and see what happens.We close on Aristotle and the Eucharist. Nicomachean Ethics lays out hierarchies of friendship — friendship of utility, of pleasure, of virtue — but you can't be an authentic friend if you don't first know the good. And the good, ultimately, is Christ in the Eucharist. If the man you call your friend doesn't live a Eucharistic life, you may have a buddy. You don't yet have a spiritual friend. Make one. Be one. Bring him to Christ.Raise your glass.TOPICS COVEREDJude's ambidextrous wiffle ball ambush and the inevitable day every dad gets cranked onAdam's left-handed toothbrushing regimen and his four cavities (related, probably)Why the Càirdeas release is one of the most interesting Islay bottlings out thereAn update on baby Mary — off the paralytic, eyes open, more wins than lossesThe bell curve of zeal — and why most men quit halfway up the back sideSt. Aelred of Rievaulx, the 12th-century Cistercian abbot the Church basically credits as the doctor of friendship"Here we are, you and I, and I hope that Christ makes a third with us" — the opening line of Spiritual FriendshipWhy spiritual friendship is not a teacher-student relationship and why treating it like one ruins itThe danger of becoming the guy who turns every conversation into a lectureDon't sacrifice your own vocation to play spiritual father to someone else'sConsistency beats intensity — and why a Pelagian attitude toward your men's group will wear you out"How's your prayer life?" — the question that breaks past small talk in under thirty secondsVulnerability as a man's strength, not his concession to a cultural buzzwordWhy one man's honest confession in a group does more for the listeners than the speakerLady Haylee and Lady Pamela both telling their husbands, in diffe
- Apr 30, 202656 min
The King in the Tabernacle: Real Presence & the Eucharistic Man | The Catholic Man Show
We open the show on Oz Pearlman — the mentalist who's been showing up on every podcast and somehow keeps reading minds for a living. Adam just caught him on Modern Wisdom, where Pearlman walked the host through his exact internal thought process — what he picked, what he second-guessed, what he settled on — like he had a pipeline straight into the man's head. Adam now rearranges his schedule whenever Oz pops up on a screen. So consider this a formal invitation: Oz, come drink whiskey with us. Tell us our favorite bourbon. We'll pour the Glencairns.Speaking of — this week we're sipping High West Campfire. A blend of straight rye, straight bourbon, and blended malt scotch. Yes, scotch. Peat smoke gives way to orange zest, English toffee, toasted brioche, salted caramel, leather, dark chocolate. It works.Then Adam gives an update on baby Mary. New listeners — Adam's daughter was born very early with a heart condition and a long list of complications. She's been in the NICU since birth. This past weekend was her actual due date, and after a long string of holding-the-line W's, she's turned a meaningful corner. Off the paralytic. Better oxygen, blood pressure, heart rate. Swelling coming down. Still a long road — likely nine to twelve more months in the NICU. Adam and Lady Haylee are deeply grateful. Keep them in your prayers. Both of them.Quick note from Dave: Good Shepherd Sunday in Tulsa. The pastor handed out cards and asked every man in the pews to write down the name of a young man who'd make a good priest. A thousand men doing that work together. Tulsa's per-capita priest count is already top five in the country — and we still need more.Then we get into it. The King in the Tabernacle.If the Eucharist is just a symbol, the Catholic Church is a 2,000-year deception. Flannery O'Connor's line — to hell with it — is the right one. But we don't believe it's a symbol. We believe what Christ said. Body, blood, soul, and divinity. The continuation of the Incarnation, until the end of the age.David's been reading The Real Presence by St. Peter Julian Eymard (Cor Jesu Press). Eymard is the patron of Eucharistic adoration — one homily in him, gave it for a lifetime. And one chapter lays out a battle plan for how to actually spend a holy hour. Not just sit there. Spend it.The four ends of worship — ACTS: Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, Supplication. Eymard breaks the hour into four fifteen-minute sections. First fifteen: adoration. You don't walk into the royal court making demands. You fall on your knees and salute the King. Second fifteen: thanksgiving — for yourself, your family, the world. Thank Him for instituting the Eucharist at all. (Most of us forget that one.) Third fifteen: reparation. Stand in the gap. For your sins, for the world's, especially for the sacrileges against the Eucharist itself. Fourth fifteen: petition. Now you can ask. Ask large graces. Ask for the triumph of His Church. By the time you get there, you're asking for the right things.We talk about the difference between knowing the Eucharist is Christ and acting like it. You don't accidentally get a six-pack at 40. You don't accidentally get holy, either. We're body-soul composites — what we do with our bodies forms our souls. That's why we genuflect. Dress for Mass. Kneel after Communion. St. Charbel had two modes: preparing to receive, or thanking God for having received. The bar he set is the right one.We close with Eymard's image of the guard of honor. Jesus has made Himself vulnerable in the host. Heart pierced. Defenseless. Waiting on His men to show up and adore Him. That's the work. Guard duty. Get to adoration. Change your life.Raise your glass.TOPICS COVEREDOz Pearlman the mentalist — and Adam's open invitation to come on the showBaby Mary's update: off the paralytic, turning a corner after months in the NICUWhy prayer for Lady Haylee matters as much as prayer for MaryGood Shepherd Sunday in Tulsa — a thousand men writing down names of future priestsWhy the Eucharist is the reason to be Catholic — and why "to hell with it" is the right answer if it's a symbolSt. Peter Julian Eymard, the patron of Eucharistic adoration, and his book The Real PresenceWhy the real presence is the continuation of the IncarnationThe actual battle plan for a holy hour: ACTS in fifteen-minute sectionsWhy thanksgiving in adoration is the most perfect act of loveReparation — standing in the gap for sacrileges against the EucharistWhy your petitions get sharper after you've adored, thanked, and made reparationKnow
- Apr 22, 20261h 17m
The Dinner Table Is a Liturgy | The Catholic Man Show
Adam went out to the shop and heard birds. Which would be fine — except the shop has closed-cell spray foam insulation. Thick stuff. Solid. Apparently it doesn't matter, because the birds had been pecking through it anyway, six spots deep, living inside the walls like they owned the place. He grabbed a can of expanding foam, took his six-year-old Leo out to help seal the gaps, and watched Leo immediately stick his hand in the wet foam. It went everywhere. On Leo. On the shop doors. On a previous car that is now long gone. If you've ever tried to wipe expanding foam off anything, you know how the rest of that goes.He opened the show with that story. Then Jim Spencer showed up — back after a long hiatus, cowboy hat on, ready to weigh in — and they cracked a bottle of Kilchoman's 14th Edition, an Islay scotch that doesn't get the attention of a Laphroaig or Ardbeg but probably deserves it. A $110 bottle. Jim put it at a 3.91 on the yummy scale (it was a prime number recording day, so that's out of 7 — work it out yourself). They all agreed it was legitimately good.Before getting into the main topic, Dave gave an update on Baby Mary. She's been on a paralytic to help her grow, and they're trying to wean her off it. She tolerated the second attempt better than the first, but not well enough. They'll try again Monday or Tuesday. Pray for her blood pressure to stay stable when she comes off, and for her heart and lungs to stop fighting the ventilator. Dave said it directly and without dramatics, and that's the right way to hear it.The episode is about the dinner table. Not as a feel-good idea — as a liturgy.Adam had done a piece on this for his Substack: what makes a good day? Not an emotional high. A good day. He landed on three things: early morning prayer and reading, honing his craft in some way, and making it to the dinner table. They spent the hour unpacking why that third one carries so much weight.Dave brought in the biblical thread — Abraham hosting God and the angels, Moses eating with the elders on the mountain, the Passover meal, the Last Supper, Christ asking for fish in his glorified body just to show the disciples he wasn't a ghost, the Road to Emmaus where he revealed himself in the breaking of bread. The pattern is not subtle. God keeps showing up at tables. There might be something to that.Adam made the distinction between communication and communion. A lecture is communicative. The dinner table — done right — is a place of communion. The giving and the receiving. The statement and the response. That's not an accident. It's what the table is for.They got into the practical mechanics: one conversation at a time, husband and wife starting the conversation before the kids are brought in, ending dinner with prayer for the souls in purgatory, the escalating formality through the day (breakfast is just survival, lunch gets the flowers on the table, dinner gets the candles). Dave's daughters were wearing hoop skirts on the grass at the contra dance they hosted the night before. He mentioned a Clear Creek inspiration — the monks don't even sit at breakfast. He's pondering it. Adam is not.The story that landed hardest was from Alabama. He and Dave were on their way to EWTN — they recorded an episode in Mother Angelica's office, and Adam has video of Dave in makeup, which is apparently a treasure. They had dinner at the home of a man named Charlie Remore, a friend of a friend they'd never met. Large family. Long dinner table. Every child had a job, and they knew it cold. One managed silverware, one managed plates. When dinner ended, one stood up and cleared. Adam tried to stack the plates to help, and Charlie's kid corrected him — politely, but clearly. Don't stack the plates. We have to wash both sides. That's my job.That's disinterested service. The Catechism (CCC 2223) actually names it. Charlie's household had made it habitual. No one was waiting for a thank-you. The family is the mission.The picky eater section was, as promised, a hot take. Adam doesn't tolerate it. Eat what's served or it goes in the fridge and that's what you're eating next time. He said it, Dave agreed, and they both acknowledged it's hard — the chicken nuggets are right there, it's easier, you're tired — but the long-term cost of caving is worse than the short-term cost of holding the line. Your kid spreading butter with their fingers in your presence, knowing the rule, is an event that requires a response. Even when it happens to be this morning.After dinner prayer. Pray it. For the faithful departed. It's been jettisoned by most Catholic families, including strong ones, and it shouldn't be. You're feeding those who can no longer feed themselves. That's what it is.Raise your glass.TOPICS COVEREDBirds pecking through closed-cel
- Apr 20, 202650 min
St. Bonaventure, Holy Detachment & the Silence That Opens the Soul | The Catholic Man Show
Dave's cows got out again.The gate was shut. Just not latched. There's a difference — a difference Dave now knows in vivid detail, courtesy of the Broken Arrow Police Department and at least one very stressed heifer on the turnpike. Nobody died. The cows are back. The neighborhood is bonded. And apparently this is just a tradition they keep at Niles Ranch and Fecundity Farm.This week Adam and Dave sat down with a glass of Dancing Panda — a straight Kentucky bourbon, eight years, 100 proof, with an unexpected apple-cinnamon finish — and got into someone most Catholics have heard of but few have actually read: St. Bonaventure.Before you dive in: Adam's daughter Mary is in the hospital. Her lungs keep deflating. The situation is hour by hour. Please pray for her.St. Bonaventure is, in a word, underrated. He was the Franciscan answer to Aquinas — less systematic, more contemplative, every bit as deep. Best friends with Thomas Aquinas. Minister General of the Franciscan Order. Seraphic Doctor. Second founder of the Franciscans. The man who, when Aquinas read his contribution to the Mass reform aloud, said "That's perfect. There's no need for mine" — and meant it.The book on the table is Holiness of Life, published by Coriaceous Press. Written to a Poor Clare nun. Short — you can finish it in an afternoon. Dense — you'll carry it for a long time after.Bonaventure lays out a ladder. Self-knowledge first. Then humility. Then poverty. Then silence. Then prayer, the remembrance of Christ's passion, perfect love of God, and final perseverance. Adam and Dave cover the first four.Self-knowledge is not a journaling exercise. It's a brutal, honest accounting of where you actually are — seeing your dignity as an image of God and your misery as a sinner, both at the same time, clearly. Bonaventure names three root causes of sin: negligence, passion, and malice. He also gives you a mirror: are your interior promptings pulling toward pleasure, curiosity, or vanity? Most of us don't have to think long.Humility follows — because you can't see yourself honestly and still puff up. Bonaventure says humility is the guardian and foundation of all virtues. To excel in virtue without humility is to carry dust before the wind. If pride is the root of every sin, humility is the root of every virtue. And Adam drops the Aquinas line that's worth writing on a wall: A man is truly wealthy when he lacks nothing that he truly needs for salvation.Poverty, in Bonaventure's framing, isn't about being broke. It's about holy detachment. The unburdening of the soul so you can actually run toward Christ. We're not trying to anchor ourselves in this world. The more you sink your teeth into worldly things, the less you can sink your soul into heavenly ones.And then silence. Not just quiet in the house — interior silence. Bonaventure says poverty and silence are twins. Those appetites you feed don't just cost you. They're loud. They lie. They drown out everything you need to hear about who you actually are.Bonaventure wrote: "Silence has another advantage. It shows that man belongs to a better world. If a man lives in Germany and yet does not speak German, we naturally conclude that he is not German. So too, we rightly conclude that a man who does not give himself up to worldly conversation is not of the world, although he lives therein."That'll stay with you.Topics covered in this episode:Dave's cows, the Broken Arrow Police Department, and the difference between shut and latchedWho St. Bonaventure actually was — and why he's been undersold for centuriesWhy Bonaventure is called the Seraphic Doctor and the second founder of the FranciscansThe four-part structure of Holiness of Life: self-knowledge, humility, poverty, silenceThe three root causes of sin: negligence, passion, maliceWhy holiness costs everything — and there's no negotiating a discountHumility as the guardian and foundation of all virtueThe Aquinas line on what real wealth actually isPoverty as holy detachment — practical application for married men with mortgagesWhy poverty and silence are twins — how attachment to things creates interior noiseThe German analogy for silence: belonging to a better worldStoic meditation vs. Christian prayer — why entering into yourself is not the same thingSelf-knowledge as an ongoing relationship with our Lord, not a box to checkFulton Sheen's Emmy speech and Mother Teresa — what God actually usesFinal perseverance — and why Adam wants it more than anything elseReferenced in this episode:Holiness of Life<a href="htt
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About The Catholic Man Show
Promoting the virtuous life. Adam and David have been best friends for 30 years and love being Catholic, husbands, and fathers. They enjoy whisky, beer, bacon, flamethrowers, St. Thomas Aquinas, virtue, true leisure, and authentic friendship. The show is typically broken down into 3 segments - A drink, a gear, and a topic. We are on the Lord's team. The winning side. So raise your glass. #CheerstoJesus
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