The Devotional has been carefully designed with a number of new and innovative approaches to help you to effectively learn and successfully practice the faith in your daily life to grow in holiness and happiness. The Devotional has been carefully crafted to help you:
Become a better Catholic Son and Catholic Father on the path to Sainthood
While there are many very good sources for learning and practicing the Catholic faith, there are few materials which are specifically written which focus exclusively on helping Catholic men grow in holiness and happiness. Every Catholic man is called by Jesus Christ to ascend in the faith starting as a Catholic Son, maturing into a Catholic Father (in the vocation of married life, single life, as a consecrated brother, or as a priest or deacon), and ultimately becoming a Catholic Saint who is received into the eternal happiness of being united with God in Heaven.
The Devotional is written to focus on Jesus Christ, the Perfect Man, with an unapologetic masculine approach which recognizes the unique challenges men face and strives to help you successfully fight in the daily spiritual combat to become a more holy Catholic Son and Catholic Father who leads your wife, children, family, friends and many others to Jesus and His Holy Catholic Church. The Devotional includes a comprehensive guide to help every Catholic man grow into maturity of Catholic manhood as a Catholic Son and Catholic Father.
Focus on practical ways to achieve the happiness Jesus promises
Rather than dry theology, lists of rules and Catholicism overload, the Devotional is designed to challenge a man each day to choose the happiness Jesus promises and learn what he needs so he can take concrete action. The Devotional starts with the goal of achieving greater happiness and harnesses the daily Gospel and the Catechism to help achieve the real goal, which is to choose the happiness Jesus promises. Every day, you will be able to take practical and immediate action to grow in happiness.
Make real progress in knowing and practicing the faith in one easy Daily Devotion
Learning the faith or renewing your understanding of the faith can be a challenge because you have a full and busy life. If you are not regularly renewing your understanding of the faith, remembering parts of the faith from long ago Confirmation classes that you need to meet the spiritual battles of today can be tough.
Existing approaches to study Scripture or the Catholic faith usually require a substantial time commitment and consist of many time-intensive lessons. Existing approaches also typically separate the study of the Gospels and the Catechism so the important linkages between the life and teachings of Jesus and the doctrines of the Catholic faith which help you learn and practice the faith can be lost.
The Devotional has been designed to integrate and distill the study of the whole of the Gospels and the entire Catechism into simple, standalone Daily Devotions that you can complete in just 15 minutes or less a day; each day you will be able to continually renew and build your understanding of the Gospels and the Catechism through the Devotional, put your understanding in to practice, and grow in holiness and happiness. By praying the Daily Devotions you will grow in your understanding of the stupendous blessing of the Catholic faith and grow in your comfort, confidence and love of the faith. See “Committing to God’s Holy Catholic Church Militant”.
Because the Devotional has a comprehensive and integrated structure which is designed to help you effectively and efficiently use your time, you can make real progress by committing to giving your best efforts for just 15 minutes per day; over a year, you will have spent over 90 hours in your quest to grow in holiness and happiness, the equivalent of taking a two-week spiritual retreat.
Advance in the practice of the faith based on a man’s individual needs and desires
Every Catholic man is at different stages of his faith life and faces different challenges and opportunities to grow in holiness based upon what is happening in his life today; some Catholic men are just starting out in the faith, some are seasoned and well on their way to Sainthood, and most are somewhere in between. Every man’s circumstances and his will to grow in holiness and his skill to be able to do so are unique to him.
The Devotional is designed to be flexible so that you are challenged to grow every day but also provides many resources which can help you when you are ready to accelerate your progress, including: indexes which allow you to study each individual Gospel and the Life of Christ in chronological order, guides to help you better know the Almighty Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a guide to understand the great blessing of being a Catholic man, deeper study of the entire Catechism, weekly guides to be a better Catholic Son and Catholic Father, guides to the Virtues, the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the Sacraments of Penance and the Sacrament of the Eucharist, guides to help you better understand and practice the Works of Mercy and how to build Catholic fraternity, resources to focus on specific aspects of Jesus life and teachings, an index to find guidance on specific challenges a man faces, etc. No matter where you are in your faith life, the Devotional offers many resources to help you accelerate your practice of the faith and grow in holiness and happiness.
Get to know Jesus in a broad and deep way
Most studies of Jesus are organized based on observing His life story or by focusing in on a small handful of attributes which offer insights into some aspects of Jesus. The Devotional incorporates an innovative new model which will help you get to know Jesus by meditating each day in the Daily Devotions upon His Divinity, Humanity and Mission; within these categories, there are over a hundred subcategories which give you a deep and rich perspective to help you really know Jesus. One powerful way of knowing Jesus is through His perfect demonstration of Virtue: throughout the Devotional you will be able to meditate upon dozens of different ways Jesus demonstrates heroic Virtue so you learn to better imitate Him. See Drawing Closer to Jesus Christ.
Grow in relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through daily prayer
Though Jesus deliberately revealed that God is one and there are three Persons of the Trinity, it is not uncommon for a man to neglect building a deep relationship with one or more of the Persons. To help you deepen your relationship with each Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Devotional provides you with multiple opportunities every week to pray to the Almighty Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In addition, the Devotional includes guides to better know and draw closer to each Person of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and Drawing closer to God in prayer.
Draw closer to Our Lady, St. Joseph, the Apostles and the Saints and Angels
Every Catholic man is blessed through the Communion of Saints to be able to receive the powerful intercession of all the Saints and Angels. The Devotional will help you better know Our Lady, St. Joseph, the Apostles, selected Saints and Angels and encourage you to regularly seek their intercession in your life.
Pray with the Communion of Saints in the daily sacrifice of the Mass
Rather than an isolated and independent prayer life, Catholic men are called to be united with the whole Communion of Saints in the source and summit of our faith, the Sacrament of the Eucharist in the daily Mass.
The Daily Devotions are based on the Gospel reading from the Liturgy of the daily Mass and will unite you in prayer with other Catholic men around the world and with the whole Communion of Saints; you will be regularly encouraged to deepen your fraternity with your priest, deacon, and other men of your parish to build your own band of Catholic brothers.
Be encouraged to regularly receive the power of the Sacraments
Christ’s gift of the Sacraments is a great blessing to every Catholic man and the Sacraments are a necessary help in the pilgrimage to Heaven. The Devotional will help you grow in your understanding of the supernatural power of the Sacraments and remind you each week to receive the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, and regularly encourage you to make a holy hour with Jesus in Adoration. See the guides to the Sacrament of Penance and the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
Receive the Gifts of the Holy Spirit to grow in Virtue
To ascend on the pilgrimage towards Heaven, every Catholic man must confront the sins in his life, eliminate his Vices (bad habits) and grow in Virtues (good habits). While any man who has the will can exert his human effort to grow in Virtue, every Catholic man is blessed by God with the supernatural power of the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit which help him accelerate his growth and to achieve supernatural levels of Virtue on his path to Sainthood.
The Devotional is uniquely designed to help you grow in holiness every day in the Virtues and through the reception of the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit; by simply praying with the Devotional, you will be automatically encouraged to grow in dozens of subcategories of the Theological and Cardinal Virtues and receive each of the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit to help you grow in holiness. See Drawing closer to the Holy Spirit, Growing in Virtue, and The Every Catholic Man Litanies of Virtue.
More fully live a life of mercy and fraternity
To more fully experience the true and lasting happiness that Jesus promises, every Catholic man must extend the joy he experiences in the Almighty Father, Son and Holy Spirit to others by taking regular and practical action to love others. The Church has preserved and passed down Jesus Christ’s teachings about the necessity of practicing love in the Works of Mercy which need to become perfectly integrated in how every Catholic man lives out his daily life in love. The Works of Mercy are built into the Daily Devotions so a man is regularly prompted to take action; See also Christ’s call to perform the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.
Jesus Christ, through His strong emphasis on building unity and fraternity in the Apostles, the original “band of brothers”, gave men the model of how men are to learn, grow and practice the faith through fraternity with other Catholic men, particularly in their local parishes. The Devotional regularly reminds men to draw together in unity and fraternity with other Catholic men and provides a guide to Building Catholic Fraternity to help men begin to build a more robust men’s ministry in their parishes.