The Book That Changed My Life

fear, evil, light, darkness

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In 2013 I embarked upon a journey. There have been many twists and turns in that journey and it has led me here to Catholic Stand. Before my time here you likely have gotten to know me as The Catholic Book Blogger. That’s where my reversion story begins. I am a convert who joined the Church in 1996. I was led to the faith by (now) my lovely wife Laura. 1996 was also the year we were married and if you are doing the math you are correct, this year is our 20th anniversary.

As with any covert I was very enthralled with Catholicism early on. I cannot put my finger on when, but somewhere along the line things got stale for me. I attended Mass out of obligation and to set an example for our children (we have five now) that Mass attendance was important . I was in my own personal dark night of the soul. All of that changed in 2012 when a dear friend of mine loaned me his copy of a book that would change my life forever.

Be A Man!: Becoming the Man God Created You to Be by Father Larry Richards is the title of that book and it is a great read. If you give this book the time and attention it deserves there is no way you will walk away from it without becoming a changed person.  The areas in which Father Larry leads the reader to examine are quite frankly, not comfortable places to be. You will find things wrong in your life I guarantee it, but Father Larry gives us the tools to fix them.

The book leads men down a path of self-examination with the end result, hopefully, being some changes made in one’s life. Not only did the book change my life but a personal encounter with Father Larry played a role as well. In 2013 at a Men’s Retreat at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmittsburg, MD I had a chance to interview Father Larry. If you have had a chance to hear Father Larry speak you know he doesn’t pull any punches. That translates right over into his writing.

I asked Father Larry how difficult it was to switch between writing and speaking.

If you ever read the books it is very much like my speaking mode. That is why everybody who ever heard me speak they always say “Father I can hear you in every word of the book.” Well sure! Again the way I do it is I write it first, and then I preach it. It is always different the way I preach it then the way I write it. I add all kinds of things, take things out and then I will go on retreat. I will take the two things and have it transcribed. I take what I preach and I take what I write and put it together. That is why it sounds like I am speaking.

Like the Be a Man book. I preached it to 200 men every week. I would say “Gentlemen is there anything I could have added? You want to hear something else? How about giving me some questions at the end of each chapter so I can add?”

It is very much like when I preached this last one on Just Live It. I said to people, if there is something that you want me to deal with, send that to me in an email and next week I will incorporate it. All of my books are very, you know, working with other people at the same time because I want to be able to reach the most amount of people with every book I write so it’s not just for a few. I want to reach as many as possible.

Father Larry’s focus is to help change men’s lives but he could have been a simple parish priest. He chose not to instead spending numerous weekends on the road.

When I came to Christ I was 17 years old. I came to Christ by watching Billy Graham. So, I always thought that the Lord was calling me to be Billy Graham of the Catholic Church, and my whole drive has always been to evangelize. Like when I started the foundation [The Reason for Our Hope Foundation]. The purpose of the foundation is to bring the whole world to Jesus Christ. If I was to just stay in my parish I would go out of my mind because Jesus did not call us to be shepherds. That came later. He called us first to be fishermen and fishermen never stay at the same place. They have to go out into the deep as John Paul talked about. I have always liked being both.

Years ago my Bishop said would you like to be released and just go full time on the road? I said absolutely not because my people keep me grounded and I can still shepherd them. My church started with 200 families and we grew because even as a parish we evangelized. Now we say our most important thing every week is not the people who are here but the people who are not here. We have to be good shepherds. The good shepherd leaves the 99 and goes after the 1 and so that is all I always wanted to do and that is what I always done. We sit there and make sure that they are there to take care of each other and protected and I go out and bring more people in and we bring them in that way.

For me if I was just on the road I would go out of my mind. Most speakers if that is all they do, almost always are led to scandal. Every Catholic speaker there is out there, unless they have been married, most priests, if that is all they do is go out it is very easy [to be led into] scandal because people say nice things about you. They treat you like you are really good and so you start to believe that and it builds up your ego. When I go [back] to the parish they could care less. “Father you were not here last week and I needed you for something” so it keeps you grounded.

They could care less; “I do not care you wrote another book. I do not care! You were not here”; but that is what you need. Like people who are married they go out and do things and their husbands or wives sit there and say hey I want you here with the kids. So it is a way of keeping you grounded.

We discussed the challenges facing men today and what our biggest challenge is.

I think the biggest challenge to men is they listened to society [telling them] what men are instead of looking at Jesus. That is why I wrote the book Be a Man. Like in [my] dealing with high school boys throughout the years and dealing with men and different things. With most men who are their heroes? Theirs are sports figures; oh for goodness sakes; movie stars, or rock stars. That is what men look too, to what it is to be a man and most of these people, or any of those things, not all but most of them, are adolescent. They are still kids and they only live for themselves.

When I was dealing with boys I thought, these guys need an image of what it is to be a man. So for me it is like, I want you to look at Jesus and look at his life. Do not be what society tries to take Jesus and melt him down to something he is not. They take Jesus and make him into like Barney or whatever. He tipped toed through tulips, but Jesus was a hard man. People did not like Jesus. I would say to men you want to be a man I want you to go through the characteristics, look at the gospels and go through the characteristics of Jesus Christ. He was confronting, he was not gentle, he was all these strong things. Jesus would not be accepted in most parishes today because he rubbed people the wrong way. My thing is we bought into the lie to many men. We have got to purify that. So what is it to be a man of God? It is all together different to be a man of the world and a man of God.

Our society today attempts to minimize the role of men. We need to recapture the role of men in families. The first step in making that happen is on individual level. That requires us to wake up to our faith. It’s the first step I had to take and it came in the form of a friend and a book. God is patiently waiting for you……will you heed his call?
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3 thoughts on “The Book That Changed My Life”

  1. I think part of the problem with men is women, who, through no fault of their own, have been fed a lot of junk about women’s rights. I am 100% for equal rights for women in the secular world, but the fact is, God gave men and women different roles–some of which include women being subordinate to men–and many women have a hard time accepting that. I don’t say that I understand that either, but I do know it is God’s plan, and far be it from me to fight Him on that. When we get to Heaven, we will understand. For now, I am peaceful, abandoning myself to His Will.

  2. I STRONGLY disagree with the image of “man” presented here. “They take Jesus and make him into like Barney or whatever. He tipped toed through tulips, but Jesus was a hard man. People did not like Jesus. I would say to men you want to be a man I want you to go through the characteristics, look at the gospels and go through the characteristics of Jesus Christ. He was confronting, he was not gentle, “ My mom left the Catholic Church with my older brother who was being badly abused by other Catholic boys. I can say I had no Catholic/Christian education at home or formal religious education. It has been 12 years since I came into the Catholic faith. It is true Jesus often repeats the words “do not be afraid”. But this isn’t because he doesn’t care about people. At the bottom of fear is doubt, and we are living in a highly political world that breeds doubt like no other era; from the left and especially from the right. They are more focused on you doubting yourself and humbling yourself to powerful political leaders, the most successful teams, and famous people. When I sin, it is always because I am feeling isolated, which happens far too often and doesn’t need to occur. The rise in suicide is directly a result of the rise of personal doubt. You’re not good enough, not important enough, have no value. Where are the community and deep friendships? Sadly, being involved with different Catholic organizations, I find most of my friendships to be shallower than those outside the church. Until there isn’t a more positive image of what a man in the church, a greater sense of community, the church is going to free fall. What you want is a Putin like leader in conjunction with an Orthodox State Church.

  3. Lucky you to have had the chance to personally talk with Fr Larry. I had heard him and really loved his talks on our local EWTN radio station, so I went and heard him speak recently not too far from here. After reading your piece, wish I had bought his book for men for my 20yo son. Nice to hear a bit of Fr Larry’s background–I just hope he doesn’t burn himself out, as his schedule is so busy and he is always on the road it seems.

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