Most Catholic dads are working hard in their home. The problem? They’re not working on it. There’s a difference between a household that runs because you’re there holding it together — and one that’s been designed to form your wife and children for heaven even when you’re not in the room.

In this episode, Dave and Adam get into John Cuddeback’s framework for the domestic church, pull from their book Living Beyond Sunday, and share the 3 telltale signs your home is running on willpower instead of design. Plus: what to do about it, how morning chaos is actually a design problem, and why the living room might be the most important room in your house.

• Why Holy Week is the lens through which this entire conversation happens
• The Deacon’s homily: “You are a thought of God made flesh” — and what that means at your most broken moments
• Adam’s son Luke wins concert tickets — then realizes it’s Good Friday. What happened next.
• Adam announces M6 Marketing and The Grounded Builder Substack
• The body-soul composite of the home: daily life vs. moral and spiritual formation
• Working IN your family vs. working ON your family (the entrepreneur analogy every dad needs)
• 3 signs your home runs on willpower, not design:
• The same corrections keep happening to the same kids — it’s not a motivation problem, it’s a design problem
• Morning chaos — nothing was built right the night before to make it smooth
• Your presence is the only thing holding it together — when you’re gone, the wheels fall off
• 3 diagnostic questions to ask when something keeps breaking in your home
• The Great Silence: Dave’s family morning prayer rule (and why it’s formed him more than his kids)
• Why bells beat yelling — and the sacramental case for ringing a blessed bell in your home
• Giving kids real work with real consequences: why sweeping the floor doesn’t cut it
• The dinner table as non-negotiable — and why screens are the enemy of family formation
• The one room in your house not ordered toward a biological need — and why it matters most
• Why designing the household is a man’s domain and responsibility — ordered entirely in love

• 00:00 — The manliness warning. Yes, they played it twice.
• 01:30 — Blessed Holy Week + Deacon’s homily: “You are a thought of God”
• 07:00 — Luke wins concert tickets. It’s Good Friday. What he said.
• 09:30 — Mary’s procedure + prayer request
• 11:00 — Adam announces M6 Marketing + The Grounded Builder Substack
• 15:30 — White Lightning: the 1989 Chevy, the gas station, and the woman whose dad owned it
• 22:00 — The topic: designing your home as the domestic church
• 25:00 — Cuddeback’s 4 things a home must do + the body-soul composite of household life
• 30:00 — Working IN the family vs. ON the family (business owner analogy)
• 34:00 — The 3 signs your home runs on willpower, not design
• 40:00 — The 3 diagnostic questions when something keeps breaking
• 45:00 — Rules for the day, the Great Silence, and preparing kids to hear God’s voice
• 53:00 — The case for blessed bells (and why yelling kills the spirit of what you’re doing)
• 58:00 — Giving kids real work with real consequences
• 1:02:00 — The dinner table: the most attacked and most essential daily ritual
• 1:07:00 — The living room: the only room not ordered toward a biological need
• 1:12:00 — Why this is a man’s job — and what authority granted in love looks like

• The American Catholic Land Movement — edited by Jason Craig and Jared Stout (TAN Books)
• Living Beyond Sunday: Making Your Home a Holy Place — by Dave Niles and Adam Minihan
• John Cuddeback, Ph.D. — philosopher, professor, and homesteader. Find him at LifeCraft.org
• The Grounded Builder — Adam’s Substack on virtue, business, fatherhood, and homesteading. Published every Thursday.
• Select International Tours — selectinternationaltours.com — The Catholic pilgrimage company Dave and Adam trust.
• Divine Mercy Chaplet — pray it daily at 3:00 PM, the Hour of Mercy
• The Great Silence — a monastic morning practice you can adapt for your home. Start with Psalm 51.

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In this episode of The Catholic Man Show, Adam and David crack open a rare Teeling whiskey from Ireland and dive into a topic most men never examine: avarice.

Often reduced to “greed,” avarice is far more subtle—and far more dangerous. Drawing from St. John Cassian, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the spiritual tradition of the Church, the guys explore how a disordered attachment to material things can quietly shape our lives, distort our priorities, and even blind us spiritually.

They discuss how modern “grind culture” can normalize avarice, why money itself is uniquely deceptive among the vices, and how this sin can creep in unnoticed—even among faithful men striving for holiness.

The conversation also tackles:

1. Why avarice is different from other sins
2. The “seven daughters” of greed according to Aquinas
3. How avarice leads to restlessness, anxiety, and spiritual blindness
4. The connection between avarice and a lack of trust in God
5. The surprising concept of spiritual avarice
6. Practical strategies to root it out, including manual labor, generosity, and community

If you’ve never considered avarice in your examination of conscience, this episode will challenge you to take a deeper look—and give you a path forward.

What is time for?

In this episode, Adam and David reflect on the gift of time through the lens of Catholic theology, fatherhood, prayer, suffering, work, and even Nick Saban’s famous process-driven mindset.

The conversation begins with updates on baby Mary and a moving reflection on the fragile beauty of life, suffering, healing, and hope. From there, the discussion turns toward a deeper meditation on time itself: how easily we waste it, how often we rush through it, and how every moment is a gift given by God.

Drawing from St. Augustine, St. Teresa of Avila, the Psalms, leisure, memory, mortality, and the demands of vocation, Adam and David explore what it means to live well in the present moment. They also connect this to Nick Saban’s practical framework of focusing on the now, controlling the controllables, and trusting the process over the outcome.

This episode is a call for Catholic men to stop drifting through life, stop living in regret or anxiety, and start receiving time as the arena in which God prepares us for eternity.

1. An update on baby Mary and the power of prayer
2. Why suffering, life, and death sharpen our awareness of time
3. St. Augustine on the mystery of past, present, and future
4. Why Catholic men must stop wasting the present moment
5. Fatherhood, busyness, and the fear of missing what matters most
6. Leisure as the wise use of time
7. St. Teresa of Avila on growth in prayer
8. How to stop rushing through life
9. Nick Saban’s “focus on the now” mindset through a Catholic lens
10. Control the controllables and trust the process
11. Time, judgment, memory, and eternity

You cannot control the future. You cannot relive the past. But you can receive the present moment as a gift from God and use it for holiness.