• 9 articles

Discernment Is Not About You

This article was previously published in Sword & Spade Magazine. Benjamin Mann, as one deeply involved in vocations within the Eastern  Catholic traditions, corrects a common problem in discernment.   It is quite traditional and correct to speak of “discerning a vocation” — particularly to consecrated life or the priesthoo...

11 15 2022

Lessons from Monks for Men

Photo courtesy of NewMelleray.org By: Harry Scherer Recently, I experienced the joy of joining eleven other young men from around the country for the Monastic Wisdom Seminar at New Melleray Abbey, a Trappist monastery in northeast Iowa. I got an impression on the first night that the week would be unlike any other when one particularly humble an...

07 16 2019

Finding a True Vocation: What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

At my brother’s graduation at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina back in May, Bishop Luis Rafael Zarama gave an interesting homily in the Commencement Mass regarding vocation. Vocation in modern times has been associated with the call to religious life. But, as Bishop Zarama pointed out, it is not restricted to just the priesthood. It is in ...

08 20 2018

Why Real Dad’s Are More Impressive Than Jason Bourne

I had a professor in college who came in to class after watching the first Jason Bourne movie. “My life is so boring when compared to Jason Bourne…” He was a dad of five small children, he lived in an uneventful quiet neighborhood, and he taught us Literature and Math. To him that was a boring life, or at least an uneventful one. At the time,...

01 26 2018

Why I Don’t Write About Women & the Home

My interest in writing about what is clumsily called “men’s issues” happened accidentally.  I started working for Fraternus almost a decade ago and we started publishing newsletters for volunteers.  Fraternus trains men to mentor boys, but it became obvious early on that the harder issue was not “reaching boys”, but in having mentors wo...

08 11 2017

The Call To Folly: Discerning God’s Plans For Your Life

A central fact of the Christian message is this: we Christians serve a foolish God, who calls His followers to a life of folly.  “Whoever wishes to come after me”, He says, “must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mt 16:24).  To where must we follow him?  To Golgotha, the Place of the Skull.  Sounds foolish, does it not? ...

05 25 2017

God Needs You

You hear people ask all the time: why doesn’t God just fix all the world’s problems. Why doesn’t He just manifest Himself and save everyone? The answer may be . . . us. We are the reason why God doesn’t do these things. Strictly speaking God does not need us at all. However, God has chosen to save the world through the mediation of othe...

05 23 2017

What Does Love In A Healthy Relationship Look Like?

Most men are called to be married, and want a healthy marital relationship.  So, what constitutes a healthy relationship.  To answer this question, many pop psychology books talk about good communication and respect for one another.  Others may talk about a healthy sex life.  I want to take a different approach and talk about love.  In fact, I...

05 15 2017

Four Tips For Discerning Your Vocation

One of the blessings of teaching religion to high schoolers is that I get to witness to how God has transformed my life. This comes up in various ways through a myriad of lessons in all the grades I teach. Over the years, one particular topic, one special piece of advice, has resurfaced in various contexts: discerning one’s vocation. Everyone mus...

01 25 2017

No results