The Crisis of Masculinity (And What the Church Gets Right)

Why are so many men struggling today?

In this episode of The Catholic Couple, we dive deep into the crisis of masculinity, spiritual leadership, Catholic discipleship, marriage, fatherhood, and what authentic manhood actually looks like through the lens of the Catholic faith.

This conversation introduces the vision behind Sacramental Masculinity — a movement focused on forming strong, holy, Spirit-led men who live with purpose, discipline, virtue, and mission.

Modern culture often gives men two false options:
• passive and weak
or
• aggressive and toxic

But authentic Catholic masculinity is neither.

True masculinity is:
strength in the service of others.

In this episode we discuss:
• the masculinity crisis
• why men feel lost today
• Catholic masculinity explained
• spiritual warfare and men
• how husbands can lead spiritually
• fatherhood and discipleship
• the role of the Eucharist and Confession
• prayer and masculine virtue
• how men can become saints in everyday life
• building a Christ-centered marriage and family

Whether you’re a husband, father, young man, or someone searching for purpose and identity, this episode will challenge and encourage you to become the man God created you to be.

👇 COMMENT BELOW:
What does authentic masculinity mean to you?

—

FOLLOW PURPOSLEY CATHOLIC:
https://www.purposelycatholic.com/

VISIT SACRAMENTAL MASCULINITY:
https://www.purposelycatholic.com/

LISTEN TO THE CATHOLIC COUPLE PODCAST on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@thecatholiccouple1

#Catholic #Masculinity #CatholicMen #ChristianMasculinity #TheCatholicCouple #PurposelyCatholic #SacramentalMasculinity #CatholicPodcast #Faith #Jesus #Fatherhood #Marriage #MensMinistry #SpiritualWarfare #CatholicChurch #Catholicism #ChristianMen #CatholicLife #Discipleship #Prayer

https://linktr.ee/bobbyfred85

Purposelycatholic.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

A lot of men today don't feel like they're failing. They just feel tired. They're tired mentally, tired spiritually, tired emotionally. And they're trying their best. They're working hard to provide. They're trying to be the best husbands and fathers that they can be. But deep down, many men still feel disconnected from their purpose. They feel distracted all the time. They're spiritually passive. They're emotionally exhausted and honestly unsure what it even means to be a strong, grounded, holy man as a father and as a husband. And I think that's why this conversation matters so much right now, because the culture keeps giving men two terrible options: either become passive and retreat, or become aggressive and domineering. Be soft and directionless or be harsh and controlling. But neither of these look like Christ. And I think a lot of men are tired of both. And I know the culture is too. So today I want to talk to you honestly about the crisis men are facing right now, what sacramental masculinity actually means, and why busyness and distraction are numbing us spiritually in some practical ways that we can become stronger husbands, fathers, disciples, and men of God without becoming fake, performative, or trying to act like we have it all together. And if this conversation resonates with you, do me a favor, share it with another man who may need to hear it. A husband, a father, maybe a brother or son or friend. Like this video and subscribe to the Catholic couple. Leave us a comment. We'd love to hear from you and we want to engage with you as much as we possibly can. Because I think that men are carrying things silently right now. And we know the famous quote from Henry David Thoreau, who wrote, Most men live lives of quiet desperation. And I think that describes a lot of men today. Not loud desperation, quiet desperation, the kind that's hidden underneath our work, constantly scrolling, constantly being busy, all the different entertainments and Netflix and sports and gambling on sports, and just the exhaustion. Trying to hold everything together just becomes almost impossible. You know what it feels like. You get up, you go to work, you provide, you come home tired, you try to decompress, you try to survive the week, and then you got to repeat it all over again. And somewhere along the way, life slowly becomes maintenance instead of mission. You stop paying attention to the interior life. And you definitely stop praying intentionally. You stop leading spiritually, you stop becoming present, not because you don't care, but because you just start to drift. And honestly, I know that temptation in my own life too. There was a moment recently where my wife Katie called me out in a way that stopped me in my tracks. We were standing in the kitchen and she said something like, Hey, you haven't been really joyful lately. And she was right. And ever since my back injury and being in constant pain, I had slowly started letting my suffering steal my joy. And I was becoming super irritable and mostly negative and very frustrated. And what really hit me was that she wasn't saying it to try to tear me down. She was saying it because she loves me and she was trying to call me back to who God created me to be, to be the person that I usually am. And honestly, that's what a good marriage does, right? A good spouse doesn't just tolerate your bad behavior forever. They lovingly call you to a higher standard. They help you see your blind spots. They remind you of your identity when you start drifting away from it. Now, obviously, if you're immature spiritually, moments like that can instantly turn into defensiveness and fighting. And trust me, my flesh wanted to get defensive. But I know the grace of God, and I knew she was right, and she was doing it with my best interests at heart. She even admitted that she had struggled with the same things herself. So it wasn't condescending, it was honest and loving. And it was definitely meant to try to help me. And I think that that's what sacramental marriage is supposed to do. We are to help each other get to heaven. We are called to help call each other back to the joy, to live in intentionally, back to living lives that look holy. Because the truth is, I was getting consumed by the busyness, consumed by trying to build a podcast and this YouTube channel and all the social media stuff I do, and answering messages and creating content and all the things that come with digital ministry. And now doing that for two pages, we're purposely Catholic as well. And somewhere along the way, I wasn't being fully present to the people right in front of me. And you know what? I'm still working on that as well. That balance is tough. And I struggle with being on my phone way too much. I still struggle with how to be all things to all people. And I'm still trying to find that balance between ministry, family, social media, work, and fatherhood. But what Katie reminded me was was this that my first ministry is not the internet. It's my wife, it's my children, it's my home. And as good of things that I'm doing here online, that doesn't come first. That comes before those other things. And I think many men are exhausted because we try to build these successful lives without intentionally thinking and building our holy lives with our families. You know, we fill our schedules, trying to give our families everything they could possibly have. We now we got sports, you got club sports, travel sports, music lessons, all these activities. We got to plan those vacations and the weekend trips, constant busyness and constant staying active. And many of those things in and of themselves are not bad. But sometimes we just wake up and realize we've built busy families without building in spiritual, healthy family. And then we spend hours and hours at practices or driving to practices or all day tournaments. And then we struggle to spend 10 minutes in prayer. And again, I say this carefully because I feel this tension too. And as fathers, we generally want good things for our kids, but eventually we have to ask: are we actually helping our children become saints? Let's just face it, most of our kids aren't going to get college scholarships and they're definitely not going to be in the pros. We need to understand that our mission is not merely to raise successful kids. Our mission is to help get our spouses and our children to heaven. That's the goal. Fulton Sheen once said, unless souls are saved, nothing is saved. And that changes your priorities. And I think one of the biggest lies in modern life is that busyness automatically equals fruitfulness. But many men today are busy while starving spiritually. And I think part of the reason why men feel so lost right now is because we lost the intentional formation into mature masculinity. Most men today were never actually shown what it means to be a man after God's own heart. I mean, many men grew up without any strong fathers or any that are emotionally present. And for me, my dad was a great dad, but at times he wasn't showing me what it was meant to be a saint. We need to have those fathers who know how to balance both strength and tenderness, like Jesus, the lion and the lamb. And culture really hasn't helped in that matter, anyways, because I don't think most men become passive because they wanted to become weak. I think many men retreated because we were repeatedly told that masculinity itself was the problem, that strength was dangerous, and that leadership was oppressive, that masculinity was automatically toxic. So instead of stepping confidently into being a responsible man, many men stepped backwards entirely in some cases. They stopped initiating, stopped leading, stopped taking risks, stopped pursuing what God was calling them into mission, what they were called to do. Not because that they didn't want to, but because they became afraid that masculinity itself was somehow wrong or that they were domineering. Now, obviously, this distorted masculinity is real. There is pride, there is abuse and domination, and we see anger without control. And I get that. That's real. But the answer to distorted masculinity is not the rejection of masculinity altogether. It is having a redeemed masculinity, a Christ-centered masculinity, a sacrificial masculinity. And honestly, most men today have never been initiated into mature manhood in the first place. You know, we don't really have these rites of passage anymore. Nobody hands you a guide at 18 and says, hey, here's how to become a husband, or here's how to be a father, or here's how to suffer well, or here's how to be disciplined and control your appetites, or this is how men pray, and this is how men lead their families spiritually. That doesn't exist. Most men are trying to figure it out in real time while carrying those real wounds from broken homes. A lot of men growing up in houses without fathers who have been exposed to pornography and addiction and ego and all those things that come with it. So many men know what masculinity is not without ever being shown what healthy masculinity actually looks like. And what does it mean to be strong without being harsh, tender without becoming passive, or protective without becoming controlling, disciplined without becoming prideful? Well, that's not easy. And honestly, most men naturally lean stronger towards one or the other. And some men, they know how to provide financially, but struggle emotionally. Some are nurturing but avoid the leadership role. And some are protective but struggle with being gentle. I know I struggle with that. But that's why formation matters. And that's why brotherhood matters. That's why the sacraments matter, right? That's why I keep coming back to this idea of sacramental masculinity. Sacramental masculinity is strength in the service of others, empowered by the Holy Spirit through the church and her sacraments. Not strength for the sake of ego or image, not strength to dominate, but strength in the service of others. And this has become such a passion for us, especially through Purposely Catholic. Khalil and I have started leading retreats and day and night retreats for men called sacramental masculinity. We try to talk and inspire men on how to bring this into their families through the parish, through the church, and how to lead spiritually to become better husbands and fathers, to build up brotherhood, and to help men stop drifting spiritually. Because men don't just need motivation, they need formation. And if you're interested in bringing one of these retreats to your parish or diocese, you can learn more about it at sacramentalmasculinity.com. Because I truly believe that men are starving for grounded, Christ-centered masculinity right now. No kind of fake toughness, not performative alpha male nonsense, not passivity either, purpose, mission. We're talking about what St. John Paul II called life with Christ as being a wonderful adventure, right? I love that quote because Christianity is not about becoming less alive. God is not trying to rob you of all your joy and all your fun. He's trying to free you from the counterfeit versions of it. Before I encountered Jesus, my life revolved around chasing pleasure and excitement. I was bartending, partying, going to casinos every day, gambling, fighting anybody who ever offended my ego, trying to look tough, trying to prove myself to everybody all the time, chasing the attention and experiences, chasing pleasure. And from the outside, honestly, it probably looked like I was having the time of my life. However, inside, I was struggling badly because eventually, pleasure without purpose always leaves you empty. And eventually my whole life came crashing down. But then, by the grace of God, I encountered Jesus at my first mass, at midnight mass. And I don't even fully know how to explain it, other than for the first time in my life, I felt loved because of not anything I've done or accomplished or earned, but because I was a son of God. God had loved me for who I was and not what I have done or what I didn't do. I encountered the love of the Father in a way that I had never experienced before. I felt the peace, a real peace, the kind that no amount of partying or vacations or attention or pleasure had ever even given me in my best days. And I was overwhelmed with what I know now to be the Holy Spirit, not because my life instantly became perfect after that. Believe me, it didn't, and I still struggle like everybody else, but my direction changed, right? My desires started to change. My identity definitely changed. And I think that's the heart of sacramental masculinity. Not perfection, aiming for it, but not perfection. Having that direction, a daily surrender when things go bad starting all over again, because we need that daily conversion. Romans 7 says, I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do, do not want is what I keep on doing, right? That tension is real. And we're all going to fall short, me included. We're all going to drift sometimes. We all get off of mission, but we're all going to struggle with sin and have those distractions and suffer, you know, being selfish and having lust and pride and impatience and trying to chase comfort and ego. But the difference is that where do we run when we fall? Do we hide or do we run to Jesus? That's why confession matters so much. Real men go to confession. Not because they hate themselves. It's the opposite. It's because they're humble enough to admit that they need God's grace, that we can't save ourselves. And honestly, one of the strongest moments I've had as a father happened after one of my weakest moments. My son Braden, he's been struggling the last few months, mostly because I think of screens, his attitude, his behavior started changing. And we require our kids to earn screen time through reading and doing chores. But one day he was preoccupied trying to get on a screen, like he always is, right? Because they will choose that over anything if we let them. But he wasn't listening to what we were telling him to do. And honestly, I lost my cool. I got frustrated, raised my voice a little too much, and I overreacted. And then, of course, he started crying. And the second I saw that little boy crying, he's nine years old, it hit me immediately. Here I am, a grown man using my authority and my strength in a way that made my son cry. And I felt convicted. So after things cooled down, I went upstairs to his room, sat down next to him, and I apologized. I asked him, hey, I'm sorry, would you forgive me? I told him that I was wrong for the way I reacted and how I talked to him. And I reminded him that I love him no matter what he does, and that his behavior frustrates me sometimes, but my love for him will never change. It will always be the same. And honestly, I think moments like that are deeply important for our children to see because apologizing does not make a man weak, it makes him humble. It teaches our children what mercy actually looks like. It teaches them that strength and tenderness can coexist. Just like I said, Jesus is the lion and the lamb, both at the same time. But it also helps them teach that Christianity is not pretending to have it all together all the time. It's not about being perfect. God came for sinners, not people who are pretending to be perfect or the righteous, what they call it in Scripture. And I think one of the clearest signs of masculine maturity is the ability to own your own failures without collapsing into shame. A sacramental man apologizes, he repents, he forgives quickly, he receives mercy and he extends mercy. St. Francis de Sale said, nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength. That's sacramental masculinity. Stable strength, grounded presence, and merciful leadership. And honestly, this kind of life requires discipline. It doesn't come overnight. The word disciple and discipline come from the same root word. A disciple is someone who continually is trying to be formed. That spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, all the categories. And men, if we want to become saints, we have to be men who are willing to sacrifice, men who are willing to fast, willing to train their minds and their bodies, and willing to say no to comfort. Because if you're only doing what you feel like doing, you will rarely become who God created you to be. Most of us do not feel naturally feel like praying consistently, right? Prayer sometimes can feel like it's unproductive or nothing's actually happened. And silence, let's be honest, can feel uncomfortable. And adoration can feel like, hey, nothing's really happened. It's this is like hidden. But modern culture trains us to value what is visible and what is productive over any kind of interior transformation. But Pope Benedict XVI said, the world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness. And I think many men are slowly dying spiritually because comfort has become their mission. Not rest, comfort. There's a big difference between the two. Sunday is supposed to be a day for worship and leisure, and the Eucharist is the source and summit of our lives. Yet we only get 168 hours in a week, and often we give God the leftovers. We rush into Mass, usually distracted and most definitely exhausted. But what if we started preparing for Mass intentionally? What if we were reading the readings beforehand, spending time in prayer, praying the rosary maybe on the drive there, or talking about what God may have been speaking through to the readings in the car ride home? What if we slowed down enough to actually worship? The Mass is not merely some kind of obligation. The Mass is the offering to the Father through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. And we are invited into this offering.

unknown 19:07

St.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Thomas Aquinas says, what is received is received according to the mode of the receiver. Receptivity matters. You can receive the Eucharist casually and distracted, or intentionally and hungry. How we receive matters. That's why preparation matters. That's why silence is very important and that matters too. And that's why spending time in adoration matters as well. Sometimes the holiest thing a man can do is sit quietly before Jesus in adoration, even when it feels like nothing is happening at all. Because God is working in the silence. Psalm 46 says, Be still and know that I am God. And honestly, many men are terrified of silence because silence exposes what distraction is trying to hide. But when I'm praying consistently, when I'm intentional with when I go to mass and how I spend time in scripture, when I start limiting those distractions, and when I'm actually present to my wife and my children, and when I'm going to confession or when I'm spending time in adoration, I become more alive. Not perfect, but alive. I become more grounded, more patient, more joyful, and definitely more present. And when I stop doing those things, I drift. I become reactive, distractive. I can become spiritually numb, which is why this life of discipleship has to become daily, not occasionally or when you feel like it. It requires daily surrender, daily prayer, daily repenting, and daily being intentional about what we do. Because nobody drifts accidentally towards holiness. What we say on purposely Catholic is that no one gets to heaven on accident. And honestly, I think that that's the whole conversation needs to come down to. Not pretending that we have it all together, and believe me, I don't, and not acting like we have mastered holiness, and we're not building some kind of fake image of what masculinity, where we never struggle or we never fail, or only showing our strong face at all times, that you know we never lose patience or we never drift or never actually have to ask for help ourselves. That's not real life. That's just fake. That's just what people try to show you on social media. Real life is learning how to keep turning back to Christ again and again, especially after we fall. Because real life is realizing when we stop praying intentionally and when we stop slowing down and spending time with him and stop receiving the sacraments well, and when we isolate ourselves or we let the busyness of life completely take over everything, we drift. And if I'm honest, I drift. And maybe you felt that too. But maybe one day we look up and We realize that, you know, you're physically present, but emotionally, we're checked out. This constant busyness is just making it almost impossible to be at peace. You know, you're trying to provide everything for your family and struggling to actually be present to them at the same time. And that's why this life has to become intentional. Or like I am purposely Catholic, we need to be purposely Catholic, not perfect, but intentional. We have to have a plan. We have to choose prayer and make time for it, even when it doesn't feel productive and even when we don't have a lot of time, right? St. Francis of the Sale also says that we need a half hour of prayer, but when you are busy, you need a full hour. And that sounds counterproductive, but why? It's because when we have time with God, he prioritizes what's important, that time so we can be lasered focused on doing his will, about choosing confession, you know, going to receive that grace that comes with that, choosing to be silent when the noise never really feels easy. Or choosing to worship over being constantly busy or submitting to you know sports on the weekends instead of spending time with God and your family. But we need to start choosing brotherhood instead of this isolation. And honestly, when I do all these things well in my own life, I become more alive. Not because all of a sudden all my problems disappear. And it's definitely not because all of a sudden I'm some kind of perfect Catholic husband and father. I am not. But because I'm more grounded in who I actually am. Who's a son of God? I'm a husband. I'm a father. I am a disciple. But I'm somebody who relies on the grace of God. And any good that comes through me is the Holy Spirit working. Because that identity, when we embrace it, changes everything. Because at the end of the day, the goal is not simply to build impressive lives for our social media pages or to build the biggest 401k or to have the nicest house and car on the block. It is to become saints, to help lead our spouse and our children to heaven. To become men who love deeply, repent quickly, and can forgive all the time freely and to keep getting back up after we fall, run to Jesus after we fall. And thankfully, we don't have to do that alone. We do it through grace. We do it through the sacraments, we do it through spending time in prayer and scripture, we do it through a brotherhood, through the mercy that God keeps meeting us right in the middle of all of our weakness. So if you're struggling right now, if you feel distracted, if you are spiritually passive, exhausted, frustrated, or you feel like you drifted farther than you actually wanted to, you don't have to stay there. My advice, start small. Start reading the readings before mass this Sunday. What I do is I read those readings for the whole entire week to familiarize myself with all the readings so that when Sunday comes, I'm not just hearing those readings during Mass, that I'm actually letting God speak to me and what He is trying to say. What about praying with your wife? Or if you're not married, praying with somebody intentionally, one of your best friends. Even if that feels awkward, or maybe go spend 30 minutes in adoration, commit to going once a week to spending time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Or if you haven't been to confession in a long time, go to confession. And if you feel embarrassed by your sins to confess those to your local pastor, well, then go to another parish and go somewhere where you can be transparent about your sins, because the sins that you do not ask God to forgive will not be forgiven. And if you want to be healed and you want to live this life in a purposely way, then you need to go to confession. Jesus didn't come for the righteous, he came for sinners. But you have to invite them in. You have to give them those sins to forgive. So put down that phone, right? Sometimes that helps us to free up more time to be present and be the father and husbands that we need to be. And maybe reach out to another man and help help them or see if they need help with anything. Men are really quick to bottle it up and keep it inside. Rarely do we reach out to each other to see how things are going or how they are. And I really appreciate the many men who've reached out to me after my back surgery to see how I'm doing, if they could help. But surrounding myself with a group of men that actually care about me and my health, it's such a beautiful thing to know that I'm not walking this alone. You know, these small intentional steps matter because the journey of a thousand miles obviously starts with the first step. So if you're not already doing these things, let's start putting those into action. And if this conversation resonated with you, make sure you share with another man who may need to hear that today. And if you could, we would love it if you would like, share, and subscribe to the Catholic Couple because it genuinely helps us continue having these conversations and reaching more men and families and trying to live this faith intentionally. You can also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, uh at the Catholic Couple. And for more of these conversations, specifically around men, discipleship, and sacramental masculinity, check out Purposely Catholic. We're also on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, and check out sacramentalmasculinity.com to book Khalil and I to come to your parish or your diocese. Because this event, you're not going to want to miss it, is one that we feel strongly about. We are leading these events either in a full day, an evening, or a weekend experience, helping men practically grow in prayer, brotherhood, leadership, discipleship, and sacramental living. And like I said, you can learn more about that at sacramentalmasculinity.com. Thanks for being here, guys. Keep showing up, keep surrendering, keep getting back up. And when you fall, keep inviting Jesus into the middle of your life. God bless you and have a beautiful day.