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Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message” October 22, the feast day of Saint John Paul II!   Jack reflects of the life of Saint John Paul II who never reduced Christianity to “be nicer” or “try harder.” He preached the practical reality that an encounter with Jesus Christ restores the heart, clarifies the mind, and gives us the courage to live in a world where darkness has spread.  His story addresses the questions most people carry quietly: Who am I? What is the meaning and purpose of my life? Why does love matter so much, and why do so many people feel lonely, anxious, and stuck?  John Paul II’s answer starts with the interior life transformed by grace. Without prayer, silence, and a real openness to God, we live on the surface, and freedom collapses into license. With grace, reason can seek truth again, conscience can be formed, and we can actually become people capable of self-giving love. Karol Wojtyła endured family loss, Nazi occupation, forced labor, and communist oppression, and he learned firsthand how ideologies attack the human person. That’s why he insisted the real battle is anthropological: are we accidents shaped by power and appetite, or persons made in the image of God?  We close with the most challenging witness of all: his final years. As Parkinson’s weakened him, his message didn’t shrink, it sharpened. Dignity is not measured by strength, productivity, beauty, or independence. Human Dignity comes fro who we are, sons and daughters of God.  If this conversation helps you, subscribe, share it with a friend! Join us! Claymore Milites Christi Support the show

Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message” A quiet morning at home turned into a pre-dawn raid with guns drawn and a house full of kids. That’s the moment Mark Houck describes when we talk about what happened after he stepped in as a dad at a pro-life prayer vigil outside Planned Parenthood in Philadelphia. He had been praying there for years, but when his son was harassed and he intervened, the fallout grew into a federal case that made international news. We walk through the sequence that followed: why Mark says the intimidation was the point, what it’s like to face the weight of the DOJ, and how a jury ultimately acquitted him.  Join Us, November 11! Dinner and Fellowship with Mark Houck Then we zoom out to the heart of Claymore’s message: authentic Catholic masculinity, spiritual battle, and why the “final battle” lands on marriage and the family. Mark shares why he poured years into men’s ministry, why p*rn*graphy is not just a private struggle but a culture-shaping force, and why smartphones and unfiltered internet access can act like a time bomb for kids. We get practical about vigilance, formation, and fathers leading their household as a domestic church, even when you feel unqualified (we all do:) If this conversation hits home, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs some hope, and leave a review so more men can find it. What’s one concrete step you think fathers should take right now to protect and lead their families? Contact Jack Claymore Milites Christi Support the show

Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message” The easiest way to get lost in election season is to get involved in the vitriol or allow your emotions to manipulated and lose sight of the core issues.  Jack goes the other direction and puts a simple Christian framework on the table: picture a triangle; if the human heart, marriage and the family, form one corner of the base and with Christ and the Church as the cornerstone at the other end...then extending out from this base, political life including the laws of the land, will reflect and also support those values.  When that base cracks, the top of the triangle (culture, polity, etc) will collapse in on itself. This is where we find ourselves today...so we should not be shocked to see issues related to marriage, family, life, and religious liberty show up on the ballot. Among these include abortion, assisted suicide and euthanasia, and attempts to redefine marriage away from the lifelong union of one man and one woman ordered toward children...so we set out to explain why some policies are “intrinsically evil acts,” why a Catholic conscience cannot bless them, and how to think clearly when the “best option” is simply the choice that limits evil. Just as important, we insist that truth without love and mercy is destructive: faithful citizenship means opposing unjust laws while loving, serving, and accompanying the vulnerable. Watch! Nick Shirley Looks to Inspire the Youth to Fight for Their Ideals - 10/09/26 Visit us at Claymore milites Christi. com Subscribe, share this with a friend who dreads political conversations, and leave a review to help more people find the show. What principle do you wish every Christian voter would agree on before stepping into the voting booth? Support the show

Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message” Something feels different about the stakes right now, and it’s not just gas prices or party politics. The fight underneath the headlines is spiritual, and it runs straight through the family. When faith goes lukewarm, culture doesn’t stay neutral. It gets filled by whatever is loudest, most coercive, and most willing to redefine reality.  We walk through what national decline looks like when it accelerates: collapsing borders, rising disorder, bureaucratic growth, speech labeled as “hate,” parents treated as threats, and moral relativism turning “my truth” into law.  Along the way we react to commentary from Mike Steiger and Jeff Childers, using their examples to show how strange coalitions can form around shared “sacred cows” even when they disagree on almost everything else, united by hostility to Christianity and the Western moral framework it helped build. Claymore Milites Christi! The Claymore Battle Plan! Promethean Action!  Jeff Childers, Covid and Coffee! Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation and join the work. Support the show

Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message” Recorded on the feast day of Saint Therese of Lisieux. Her “Little Way” of humility, confidence, and love, a path to find life, when the world feels loud, divided, and spiritually confused. Jack reads Luke 10 and takes Jesus seriously when he sends disciples out like “lambs among wolves.” To bring love and truth, and peace, into the places we live, refusing to get sidetracked, and even learning when to step back and let your peace return to you.  Jack reflects on the mid-terms and names the spiritual battle head-on, including the “mystery of evil” when people can practice faith while supporting policies that harm the innocent and undermine religious freedom. Rather than getting lost in personalities or slogans, we keep it concrete with clear questions about protecting children, honoring biological reality, and choosing life. If you are seeking "the Truth of things" and want practical answers, visit Claymore Milites Christi!  Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show. Support the show

Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message” Something feels different lately, like the pressure is rising and the stakes are getting clearer. We name that feeling for what it is: a spiritual battle that doesn’t start “out there,” but in the human heart, where truth competes with addiction, comfort, fear, and compromise. We pull threads from Scripture, Catholic spirituality, and spiritual warfare to explain a simple but demanding vision of the human person: body and soul plus grace. When we say yes to Christ and actually ACT, grace becomes alive and changes us. That is why we keep coming back to ACTION: love is a verb, self-gift is the path to freedom, and the interior fight has to come before any public fight. From there we zoom out to the culture, using the prophetic witness of Saint John Paul II and Archbishop Fulton Sheen to diagnose what happens when a society forgets God. John Paul II’s experience under Nazism and Communism shapes his insistence on human dignity, moral truth, and authentic freedom. Sheen’s warnings about the spirit of the world, distraction, and a “cut flower civilization” land hard, and they lead to practical steps like the Claymore 10-minute morning ritual, prayer, sacrifice, the sacraments, and disciplined daily choices. The Battle is real and it starts in the heart of each and every one of us! Join us at Claymore Milites Christi.com If this conversation challenges you, don’t just nod along. Share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review so more people can find the path from fear to truth and from talk to action. Support the show

Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message” Something is forming the next generation right now, and it’s probably not neutral. We sit with a blunt premise: when a culture forgets God, human dignity gets severed from its source, and the dominoes start falling in homes, churches, and civic life. That’s not abstract theory to us, it shows up in anxious young people, fragile marriages, and a society that can’t agree on what a person is.  Jack walks through the Claymore Battle Plan as a practical Catholic formation path for men, fathers, and families who want a way back to solid ground. The starting line is intentionally simple: “knees before the phone,” a 10-minute morning ritual, and a short daily reading that builds a stronger interior life over time. We also share why community matters, because nobody is meant to fight this battle alone. Then he zooms out to Catholic social teaching and the “spirit of new things,” drawing from Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum and Pope John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus. Industrial upheaval then looks different from artificial intelligence now, but the core questions don’t change: What is the human person? What is freedom for? What must the state recognize rather than create? We unpack the “three necessary societies” (family, civil society, Church), subsidiarity, and why the real battleground is the human heart in an age of smartphones, pornography, social media, and AI. Start today! Review the Claymore Battle Plan! If you’ve felt overwhelmed by the speed of change, this is your map and your first step. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s trying to rebuild, and leave a review with your answer: what’s one habit you’ll change this week to put formation back in the driver’s seat? Support the show

Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message” “Child trafficking” can sound like something that happens somewhere else, to someone else’s kid, at the hands of strangers. But the harder truth is that some trafficking in the United States starts inside the home. The Trump Administration Stands for more than politics as normal. The Battle is Real and its between good and evil.  Read Tom's Article and More at Illinois Family Institute Visit Claymore Milites Christi...Subscribe for more, share this with someone who works with kids, and leave a review to help more listeners find the show. What warning sign do you think your community is most likely to overlook? Support the show

Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message” Satan is real, the dragons are real, but the most dangerous ones rarely show up with smoke and fire. They show up as early wounds, distorted desires, and quiet lies that tell a man to stay hidden. We talk about what’s happening to the heart of a man in a porn-saturated culture, why so many boys encounter explicit content before they ever learn the innocence of real love, and how that early exposure can train the imagination toward consumption instead of commitment. We also face the hard truth that many people carry trauma from abuse and betrayal that came through relationships of trust, and those scars don’t vanish at adulthood. We wrestle with the formation crisis behind the crisis: when fathers are absent or emotionally checked out, someone still forms the boy. It might be peers, social media, or an algorithm, but the vacuum never stays empty. From there, we draw an essential distinction between what happened to you and what you choose now. Freedom is possible, and the Christian promise isn’t a time machine, it’s a Redeemer. The battlefield is the human heart, and spiritual warfare is ultimately about restoration: restoring dignity, restoring the ability to see people as persons, and restoring the capacity to love. We also get practical. Temptation isn’t a sin, and we share a simple, repeatable way to “pray with temptation,” turning moments of lust into moments of intercession and grace.  Learn more, sign up for our newsletter and enter the battle! Claymore Milites Christi Read Toms article!  If this helps you, subscribe, share it with a brother who needs it, and leave a review so more men can find the fight for freedom. Support the show

Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message” When Christians ask where the answer to the evils of the age must begin, the first reply cannot be “they.” It must be “with me.” I have attended a lot of funerals this year—not as many weddings, and still fewer baptisms. It’s a sign of the times. Death it seems is still mandatory, the others optional...or so we think.  So, my dear friends, I want to begin with the words Saint John Paul II prepared for the hour of his death. In his testament, he wrote: Totus Tuus ego sum—I am all yours. It was the language of belonging entirely to Jesus through Mary. He placed his last hour, his Church, his homeland, and the whole human family into her hands. He quoted the Lord’s warning: “Watch, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” Then he added the words that still pierce: “I thank everyone. I ask forgiveness of everyone. I also ask for prayers, so that God’s mercy may prove greater than my own weakness and unworthiness.”[1] This is the voice of a shepherd who knew the times are hard, as is our need for grace, and was never afraid to say so. Yet across the years, I still hear his great summons: “Be not afraid!” The world is hurting...Subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review. What’s one concrete step you can take today to stop standing idle and enter the vineyard? Visit Claymore Milites Christi and Download the Battle Plan Outline!  Support the show

Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message” Bishop Fulton Sheen’s 1974 diagnosis of a “crisis in Christendom” say this coming: family breakdown, media shaped by anti-Christian assumptions, and a society that slowly adjusts to decline like a frog in warming water.  We start with Nick Shirley’s reporting on alleged adult daycare fraud and the uncomfortable question it raises: when taxpayer money disappears into “programs,” who benefits, and who gets protected when the spotlight turns on? We talk through why certain leaders go silent, why whistleblowers get attacked, and how following the money can reveal the incentives that drive political corruption. From there, we zoom out into the moral and spiritual roots beneath the headlines. We share two simple tests we use to judge whether a public leader is oriented toward the common good: do they defend innocent human life, especially the unborn, and do they defend marriage and the family as the core structure that forms stable citizens? When those pillars collapse, everything else follows: dishonesty becomes normal, vulnerable people get manipulated, and ideologies step in to replace conscience. If you feel the urgency, join us on a practical path: The Claymore Battle Plan Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with the one moment that challenged you most. Support the show

Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message” If you feel like the ground shifted under parenting in the last decade, you’re not imagining it. We walk straight into the pressure points families are facing: explicit content showing up earlier, “comprehensive sexuality education” that goes far beyond biology, and a culture that treats truth as negotiable while asking kids to define identity before they can even read. Along the way, we share the real story behind “Stolen Innocence” and why this work isn’t driven by outrage, but by the cost we’ve seen when innocence gets stolen and silence takes its place. We also get practical about what these conversations look like with actual teens. One retreat moment starts with a pronoun demand and ends with a simple reset: “Can I call you a beloved child of God?” From there we unpack what kids are learning about love, sex, and self worth, and why so many are starving for a clear definition of love that isn’t just a feeling or a transaction. We talk about school libraries, debated book content, parent rights, and why “leave it to the experts” often means pushing parents to the margins. We close with a constructive path forward: Love Ed, a facilitated parent-led program built to help families talk early, talk often, and build trust that lasts. If this matters to you, subscribe, share this with a parent seeking answers, and leave a review so more families can find it.  Support the show

Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message” Anxiety is everywhere, but what if it isn’t just a personal problem, it’s a warning light? We sit with the hard reality Gen Z is naming out loud: depression, dark thoughts, and a constant sense that something is off. Then we make a bold case that your heart might be telling the truth about the world around you, and that the fastest way to lose yourself is to numb that signal with nonstop distraction. We use the “frog in the boiling pot” to explain how whole generations have normalizes insanity little by little. And how to make a jail break!  This isn’t a rant, it’s a reset. We share a simple, realistic plan: “knees before the phone,” and the Claymore 10-minute morning prayer ritual, then reading five minutes out of the Handbook at night. In a short time you'd be surprised at how far you've come.  Get started today! Visit us Claymore milites Christi Subscribe, share this with someone who feels stuck, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway or question. Support the show

Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message” Most of us don’t need more religious trivia. We need a clear path that shows how a man actually changes. That’s why we brought back Cooper Bohn with Mark Schmidt co-hosting with me, and went deep on one of the most practical frameworks in the Catholic tradition: the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways. We start with the real world where guys live: dating, marriage prep, and the fight to love well. Cooper shares how Theology of the Body and Natural Family Planning (NFP) stopped being abstract Church talk and became a concrete invitation to honor his wife, tell the truth in his vows, and root out sin. We also name the problem that too many people tiptoe around: porn culture reshapes the heart, and if it isn’t healed it can follow a man straight into his marriage and poison intimacy. From there, we zoom out to the spiritual life “training plan.” We talk about why you have to begin with the end in mind, what union with God actually means, and why the road can feel harder over time even as you grow stronger. Cooper lays out the purgative way with blunt clarity: stop mortal sin first, go to confession, and start fighting like your soul matters. Then we move into the illuminative way: consistent mental prayer, deeper vigilance, and God drawing you into quiet so your soul becomes ready for communion. Check These Out!  The Claymore Battle Plan Handbook by Jack Rigert The Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis De Sales If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review so more men can find the path. Support the show

Love to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message” A whole generation is being handed a worldview that feels “normal” only because they grew up in it, and it’s everywhere. We’re watching the results of human pulverization in real time: confusion about truth, freedom, love and a growing romance with Socialism. Yet, Socialism and Communism have never succeeded anywhere, and they always crush the human person. Visit Tom's Work at Illinois Family Institute! Gen Z is waking up, join the movement! Claymore Milites Christi If this conversation challenges you, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review so others can find the show. Support the show