And what about “polite”? We think of the word today as meaning, more or less, mannerly. A polite person is somebody with manners; somebody who has the kindness to say please and thank you. But in origin the word is closer to polish, with the sense that the polite person is a sort of gleaming silver teapot. From its Latin roots (politus, the past participle of polire, to smooth or polish) through its emergence in Middle English and well into the 1700s, the word meant a thing buffed up or cleansed or even organized, although other meanings also emerged. So it always is with important words.

After World War One [1914-1918] had been underway for 2 years, the long-reigning emperor of one of the warring empires --Austria-Hungary--died and the throne was succeeded by his grandnephew, Karl, a visibly saintly man, who spent his precious two years on the throne making multiple offers for peace that were rejected. This caused the war to be extended two more years and millions of more deaths. In 1918 WWI came to an end, the empire was dismantled with the help of masons and other anti-Catholics here and abroad, and Karl and his wife, Empress Zita, were arrested and literally shipped 2000 miles away to a Portuguese island called Madeira off the coast of west Africa, with their seven children following later. He died there soon after, in penury, at the age of 34, leaving his pregnant wife of ten years, the Servant-of-God Empress Zita, and seven young children.

When you work with your hands, you channel the way you’re made in the image and likeness of God. You resemble God the Father pouring Himself out in creativity, in divine generation.

In our attempt to revitalize masculinity in contemporary, secular society, there is an enduring threat. In trying to rediscover a robust, Catholic understanding of manliness, we might oversimplify it or flatten it out. We tend to emphasize aspects of masculinity that appeal to us personally, and latch on to cultural trends that correspond with our […]

So many men today walk around as if they have it all figured out and they don’t have a problem in the world. The “strong” silent type if you will. I know this for a fact. I used to do the same thing. So much of my life was spent walking like a one man army, convincing myself that I didn’t need anybody or anything.

The kids were out of control and so were the bills, my relationship with my wife felt strained, and I honestly didn’t think I could handle the stress at work anymore. I’ll never forget the day it all seemed to come crashing together. It looked like an ugly self-portrait, an American Gothic with me holding […]

As someone who sees perennial bachelorhood as a societal sickness, recommending Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry might seem counterproductive.  Jayber, Berry’s main character in the novel, is a small-town barber that finds himself an “ineligible bachelor,” as he puts it.  He never marries, never has kids, and in that way is “free” of the burdens […]

Within contemporary culture, manhood has been placed in a box, and a quite small one at that. The only accepted version of a real man is one-dimensional: aggressive, musclebound, dangerous, and unfeeling.   In saner times this was not so. There were many archetypes of manhood. The warrior. The poet. The philosopher. The king. While some exceptional men […]