A new book by Father of Mercy Wade Menezes, who appears regularly on EWTN, offers men invaluable encouragement, beginning with the title, Stand Firm, Be Strong: A Men’s Catholic Daily Devotional of Scripture and Saints.

Written as a 200-day daily devotional for men, the book is meant to cover a six-month period. According to Father Menezes, there are daily devotionals written for women, prayer books, spiritual warfare manuals, and books on how to be a good husband and a better father, but a daily devotional for men is greatly lacking. That provided, in part, his inspiration for his new EWTN Publishing book.

In early November, Father Menezes spoke with the Register about how this daily devotional will address each man’s spiritual and temporal life.

Why did you decide to write a book on this particular topic?

No. 1, I believe our universal Catholic library lacks in the daily devotional format specifically for males. No. 2, given the crisis of men and manhood — for example, the increased divorce rate and fatherless homes — I wanted something that will help jump-start a man's spiritual life or make it even stronger.

What makes this 200-day daily devotional different in its setup and presentation?

For each day, at the top of each page, is a theme: either a one-word theme or a phrase. Following that are three things in this order: a Scripture quote, a saint quote, and my own meditation summarizing everything with that theme.

What are some of the themes you deal with?

Accountability, commitment, darkness and light, truth, virtue and vice, purity of intention, and embracing the cross are just a few examples. Other themes include confidence, temptation, vigilance, trusting in the Lord, true friendship, the Eucharist, confession, grace, salvation, and how to obtain more from the Holy Sacrifice and Sacred Banquet of the Mass.

With my 200 topics, I address the whole man, a body-soul composite. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that we don’t have bodies, we are bodies. And we don’t have souls, we are souls. That’s how intimate and intricate the body and soul compositeness is in the human person. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas goes one step further. He says, whereas angels are non-embodied spirits, the human person is an embodied spirit. So given that truth, both body and soul need to be attended to.

For the more soul-related topics, the spiritual part, I have topics like the Eucharist, confession, grace, salvation, and the reality of the devil. For topics that focus more on the temporal life, I offer meditations on work, finances, jobs, holy friendships, accountability, commitment, purity of intention, faithfulness to daily duty, and fraternity and camaraderie. Then there are crossover topics that address both body and soul together that make up the whole man. Things like custody of the eyes, temptation, vigilance, confidence, and trusting in the Lord.

So I address the spiritual for the soul, the temporal for the body, and also elements that embrace both body and soul.

Why the daily quotes from both Scripture and saints?

Because I wanted to show the continuity throughout the 2000-year history of the Church, how the wisdom of the saints coalesces with sacred Scripture and how sacred Scripture coalesces with the wisdom of the saints. I include saints who are early Church Fathers like St. Augustine all the way up to 20th-century saints like St. John Paul II.

I chose some female saints, too, because behind every great man, there’s a great woman. I quote Teresa of Avila, the great Carmelite mystic and reformer; St. Edith Stein, the philosopher and Auschwitz martyr; St. Faustina, the Divine Mercy seer; and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, the Sacred Heart seer. Why? Because these women were stalwart defenders of the faith and madly in love with Jesus Christ and his bride, the Church. They serve as spiritual sisters and spiritual mothers to the men who read this book.

You said the book “will help jump-start a man's spiritual life.” What if he is already trying to live (or is living?) a good spiritual life?

If he already has a fairly strong spiritual life — with things like his faithfulness to Sunday Mass and confession four times a year — I want this book to make his spiritual life even stronger. For example, I want him to begin to go to confession once a month, 12 times a year. If we go to confession monthly, for example, in honor of the Nine First Fridays’ devotion to the Sacred Heart, or the Five First Saturdays in honor of the Immaculate Heart, guess what? We automatically go to confession at least once during each liturgical season of the entire year, and that’s a great thing. And instead of going only to Sunday-obligation Mass, maybe he can begin to go to a midweek Mass also.

You also show the importance of “balance” and how that contributes to growing in virtue and virtuous living. Why is that?

We always want to pursue the median virtue between two extremes. A great example of this is the seven capital sins — pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth. What we forget is that each of the seven capital sins has an opposite extreme that can be just as damaging in the person’s life if the person suffers from it. So we want to stay away from either extreme.

For example, with pride, we want to stay away from the opposite extreme of self-loathing. Both are bad. With lust, one of the seven capital sins, we want to stay away from its opposite extreme, prudishness. With gluttony, one of the seven capital sins, we want to stay away from its opposite extreme of deficiency. And with sloth, we want to stay away as well from the opposite extreme of workaholism.

Instead, we need to pursue the median virtue. For example, the median virtue between pride and self-loathing is humility. The median virtue between lust and prudishness is chastity. We're all called to chastity. Even husbands and wives are called to chastity; there are some things within marriage, for example, that are not permitted. With gluttony and deficiency, two opposite extremes of one another, the median virtue is temperance. And between sloth and workaholism, the median virtue we want to practice is diligence.

I want the men to strive for balance. They have to find the via media. They have to find and live the virtue that’s found between two extremes. The best way to understand this is to look at the seven capital sins and their opposite extremes and the median virtues found between these.

Your book is very versatile for the way it can be used.

Yes, it’s meant not only for the individual male reader, but it also lends itself as well to group study, and this on two accounts. No. 1, there’s a topical index in the back, in alphabetical order of all 200 days’ themes and topics. No. 2, at the end of each day’s meditation, I have a cross-reference to other days that share, either directly or indirectly, crossover themes with that topic of the day. These crossover references are great for the guys who are in prayer groups to study further.

I also incorporated an appendix of prayers because, in addition to the daily reading of the meditation, I want the men to regularly pray some of these daily prayers so that they can get used to the importance of vocal prayer as the foundation to other higher forms of prayer, like the prayer of quiet or the prayer of contemplation.

Notice that the subtitle is not a “Catholic Men’s Daily Devotional” but it’s a “Men’s Catholic Daily Devotional.” Why? Because I want our non-Catholic brothers to pick this book up and learn more about Catholic male spirituality and how if feeds both body and soul, whether one be a member of a Protestant faith or non-Christian faith.

How does your daily meditation highlight a major practical formula for the book?

I sum up all 200 of my meditations this way: Prudent advice, plus achievable resolutions, equals attaining goals. This is what I want each daily meditation to deliver on.

Any other goal?

I want each man reading the meditation in the morning to take this book with him and refer to that same day’s meditation a couple more times throughout the day. For example, I want the CEO to throw the book in his briefcase when he goes to work to his high rise in downtown Manhattan. I want the electrician to throw it on the seat of his work truck; I want the 18-wheeler driver to toss it on the passenger seat of his tractor-trailer rig. I want the priest to have it in his sacristy so that before Mass he can read it and maybe draw some homiletic fodder for the Mass he’s about to celebrate and homily he’s about to preach. I want the high-school teacher to place this book on his desk. Again, I want each man to refer to the morning’s meditation that he reads at the beginning of his day a couple more times that same day and let it really sink in. Stand Firm, Be Strong. Amen.

READ

Stand Firm, Be Strong

A Men’s Catholic Daily Devotional of Scripture and Saints

By Father Wade Menezes CPM

EWTN Press, 2024

336 pages; $18.95

To order: EWTNRC.com or call (800) 854-6316