My Advice to Catholic Young Men

As the World, the Flesh, and the Devil attempt to destroy society, it is the young men who must step up! Mr Sammons has some solid advice.

From Crisis

By Eric Sammons

Young men: it’s time to step up. Don’t make excuses, don’t be a victim, and don’t let our feminized and destructive culture shape your life.

Last week, the popular rapper Zuby, who has amassed a significant following on social media as a self-described “epitome of toxic positivity,” posted an article titled “My Honest Advice For Gen Z Men.” He includes 12 life tips for young men from his perspective as a “successful Millennial.” The article is actually quite good and I recommend young men read it. But as Catholics, we can go deeper. So here’s my advice specifically for young Catholic men, based on my own experiences as a GenX man as well as observation of what works in men I admire. Of course, these are general tips that should be (must be) adapted to each person’s particular situation and state of life. 

1) Make Catholicism the Center of Your Life

This one should be obvious, but it bears placing at the top of the list. In literally everything you do, your Catholic Faith must take precedence. This applies to decisions large and small. In deciding what college or field of work to pursue, in choosing a wife, in deciding where to live—Catholicism must come first. It should also be the basis for your weekly and daily routine, as we’ll see in some of the upcoming bits of advice.

Over the years I’ve seen too many Catholic men who sincerely believe, but they slide into a pattern of life in which Catholicism is not prioritized. When they reach their forties, they then realize that their life choices have made it more difficult to pass on the faith to their children, or even to practice it themselves. Perhaps they took a job that undermined their practice of the faith, and now they feel as if they can’t escape the grind to be more serious about Catholicism. Or they chose a wife that didn’t prioritize being Catholic and now the children are being led astray. Or they sent their children to a Catholic school which normalized a “beige” Catholicism.

Above all, put Catholicism first.

2) Rise Early and Be Disciplined

There’s something magical about the early hours of the day, when it’s still dark and most people are still sleeping. Monks have always known this: they rise extremely early, and the longest prayers of the Divine Office are the first ones of the day. Get in a habit of rising early (before 6 a.m.) and don’t hit that snooze alarm. Rising right when your alarm clock goes off is an excellent first penance of the day (see Tip #4). 

After rising early, continue with a disciplined routine throughout the day. Don’t check your phone when you wake up; instead, spend the first hour of your day in prayer (see Tip #3). Only after that time of prayer should you allow yourself to look at a screen. Create a regular daily routine (as much as your state of life allows): eat at the same times, and most importantly, sleep at the same times. Discipline in the time of retiring for the night is the necessary corollary of early rising.

If you don’t have a disciplined routine, it will be almost impossible to follow much of the rest of this advice.

3) Pray Regularly

A saint is a man of prayer, and if you want to be a saint (hint: you should), you must pray. This means, first and foremost, that you start each day with an hour of prayer, as I’ve already mentioned. What if you only pray 5-10 minutes a day right now? Then increase the amount of time you spend praying by 5 minutes each week until you reach one hour a day. This is the time allotment that’s been recommended by spiritual advisors and saints for centuries. 

What do you do during this hour? There are a lot of options, but I would recommend including the Divine Office (Liturgy of the Hours), Scriptural reading, mental prayer, and the Rosary. Experiment with what works for you until you have made it a good and fruitful habit.

And, that first hour of the day should not be the only time you pray. Insert short times of prayer throughout the day; perhaps say the Angelus every day at noon, and the Divine Mercy Chaplet at 3 p.m. Your state of life will help determine the exact practices you follow. Be sure also to end your day in prayer, making an examination of conscience before your head hits the pillow.

4) Do Penance Regularly

Nothing is more neglected in modern Catholicism than penance. In fact, we tend to look with horror on stories of ancient saints using the discipline or engaging in vigorous fasts. The problem is not with them, but with us. Our Faith revolves around a man who was brutally tortured and killed for our salvation and who asked us to take up our own crosses to follow Him; surely, penance should be central to our practice of discipleship.

Young men in particular are called to penance, since in general young men are the most physically healthy people in society and so can handle severe penances. They are also the most willing to do physically demanding tasks for a greater good. So while all Catholics should do penance, young men should be leaders on this front.
What type of penances should one undertake? Again, a person’s state of life must be taken into account. And as St. Josemaría Escrivá advised, “Choose mortifications that don’t mortify others.” In other words, if your penance makes you uncharitable to others or generally unpleasant to be around, you need to rethink what you are doing.

But don’t be a wimp or make excuses: penances are supposed to be hard. A few examples of penances: fasting for at least 24 hours at a time, cold showers, a pebble in your shoe, and giving up coffee and/or sugar. Fasting is the most common form of penance for good reason: it’s easy to incorporate into almost any state of life since it primarily involves not doing something rather than doing something (and of course it imitates Our Lord in the desert).

Finally, we’re not stoics simply enduring hardships; our penances should be united in prayer to Christ for our salvation and the salvation of others.

5) Take Care of Your Body

Although the Catholic Faith is incarnational, it took me far too long to realize the deep connection between body and soul. For years I didn’t understand that one’s physical health can directly impact one’s spiritual health. I’m not talking about illness or injury, which can be an opportunity for spiritual growth, but the malaise and fog that accompanies a modern lifestyle of sitting in front of a screen all day and engaging in almost no physical activity. That way of living leads to both physical and spiritual death.

Young men need to be as physically active as possible. I don’t mean you should be a gym rat who stares in the mirror all day flexing. But it’s not healthy to be sitting at a desk all day, every day (I realize this is much harder in some jobs than others, but consider that when choosing a career). At the very minimum walk at least 20 minutes a day and do some basic strength training at least three times a week. Even better, run and/or ruck a few times a week, which has the added benefit of getting you outside, which is good for both your mind and your body. 

Taking care of your body also means you are disciplined about what goes into your bodies. We’re surrounded by things that weaken the body: energy drinks, cigarettes, zin, junk food, et. al. Not only do they enfeeble the body, many of them also pacify the mind, making it more submissive to the spirit of the age.

You don’t need a gym membership to take care of your body, just the discipline to be consistent with exercise and what you eat (see Tip #2). 

6) Attend the TLM If You Can

This is likely to be my most controversial bit of advice, but I think it’s so important I can’t leave it out. Anyone who attends a traditional Latin Mass regularly can speak of a particular phenomenon: it usually is filled with many more young men than attend regular Novus Ordo parish Masses. This is no coincidence. The reality is that the TLM is far more attractive to young men because it’s frankly just more masculine. It allows a man to worship God without the effeminate energy that too often dominates the typical celebration of the Novus Ordo. By being more demanding, the TLM speaks to the soul of young men in a way not found anywhere else in today’s culture (or today’s Church). It more clearly calls him to become a soldier for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 

I realize not every young man has regular access to a TLM nearby. If you don’t, at least make an effort to attend a TLM a few times a year, or even consider moving closer to a regular TLM. It’s worth it. 

7) Avoid Porn at All Costs

It should go without saying that a Catholic man (or any man) should not view porn. But we’re awash in porn so much today that it needs to be emphasized. And when I say to avoid porn “at all costs” I literally mean it. Viewing porn not only destroys your ability to interact with women in a healthy manner, it kills your soul. Succumbing to porn is a sure path to hell, and nothing is more important than avoiding that fate.

I realize that many, if not most, of the young men reading this have already viewed porn, and perhaps do so regularly, maybe even addictively. Porn is pushed on us from every direction, and so it takes heroic virtue (or a monastic life) to avoid it. God is calling us to that heroic virtue. Even if you have already fallen to the porn demon, don’t give up. 

Take concrete steps to remove porn from your life. First, go to Confession regularly—weekly even. The graces you receive there are necessary to kick the habit. Second, set up your daily disciplined routine (Tip #2) in a way that reduces your potential access to porn. Third, regular exercise (Tip #5) will also help, as sloth is a sure path to porn. Finally, take radical steps if necessary to break the habit: drop all social media, get a dumb phone, change jobs, whatever it takes. 

Young men, porn is an anchor on your soul that prevents you from being what God wants you to be. 

8) Be a Gentlemen Around Women

Today many male influencers (“bro culture”), who are rightly reacting against destructive feminism, have absolutely horrible views about women (I’m looking at you, Andrew Tate). They treat women as objects, and use and abuse them for their own selfish desires. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s likely their views of women were greatly shaped by viewing copious amounts of pornography (see Tip #7). 

Men are called to be gentlemen around women. This is a rejection of both feminism and bro culture. A gentleman treats all women with respect at all times. He holds the door open for them and lets them enter first, he keeps a modest attitude with women not his wife, he does not cuss in front of women, and he obviously does not engage in any inappropriate online communications with any woman. 

This attitude also applies to dating, which I realize is fraught with difficulties for young men today. I’m not going to give specific dating advice, but I will mention this: court women with purpose. Don’t bother asking a girl out unless you are serious about seeing if it leads to the natural result of dating, which is marriage (and don’t be afraid to get married young, and when you do get married, have more children than you can afford). I’m not saying bring up marriage on the first date, but take dating seriously instead of as a recreational activity. The women you pursue will thank you for not wasting their time.

In short, a gentleman should put every woman on a pedestal, treating her differently than he treats other men.

9) Control Your Social Media Usage

We’ve all heard the warnings against social media, and we all know the dangers, so I’m not going to rehash them here. Too much social media usage is bad for the body, mind, and soul, so young men need to control how much social media they consume.

Here’s a few practical tips. First, have strict rules of engagement for social media. For example, what works for me is not having social media on my phone, so I can only use it when I’m in my office on my computer. This prevents social media from controlling my life 24/7. 

Second, don’t use an anonymous account. I know that’s a controversial take these days, but I’ve seen too many examples of anon accounts who say the most outlandish things online because they feel they are free from consequences. Many men justify having an anonymous account in order to protect their jobs, but don’t recognize the specific temptations that are inherent in anonymity. It can give you license to say things you shouldn’t say, and that you wouldn’t say if anyone knew your name was behind it. Remember that God sees every single thing you post online, no matter what name you attach to it. If you feel like you can’t post under your own name, perhaps that means you shouldn’t be posting online at all. 

Finally, don’t get too caught up in social media debates, which are almost never as important as they seem at the time and usually lead to uncharitable remarks. I have a personal rule that I only reply two times at most to someone in a thread, because I’ve found that the longer a back-and-forth goes, the more likely it is that I’ll be uncharitable.

10) Obtain a Real Skill

By “real” I mean one unrelated to a computer. I’m not against computer skills—I was a computer programmer for 15 years—but it’s good for young men to have at least one real life skill, such as car repair or plumbing or planting a garden. 

Having a real, physical skill allows one to escape the tyranny of the internet and to “touch grass.” It allows one’s mind to operate on a different level and to gain a perspective that can’t be obtained in front of a screen. Fortunately, it’s possible to learn almost any skill online, so ironically, a young man can use a computer to help master a skill that gets him away from the computer from time to time. 

Also, having such skills might come in handy in the future and could potentially save you a lot of money. As someone who has spent far too much having shops repair my cars over the years, I can tell you that I wish car maintenance was a skill I’d learned when I was younger.

11) Be Financially Responsible

Frankly, our economic and monetary system is stacked against young people, favoring boomers and even GenX people like me, and forcing GenZ into growing mounds of debt, which becomes a form of slavery. The decades of easy money printing has led to the value of houses and other assets rising, which helps those who purchased those assets decades ago, while making it difficult for younger people to enter the market. But young men should not play the victim, and there are ways to escape this broken system or at least minimize its damage.

First, always spend less than you make. Certain forms of debt are almost inescapable—a mortgage or a school loan, for example—but avoid credit card debt at all times. This can only be done if your monthly living expenses are less than your (after tax) income. 

Second, invest in hard assets. By this I primarily mean real estate and precious metals (and another asset I’ll mention in a moment). Inflation decreases our purchasing power, but it also raises the value of hard assets, thus offsetting the decrease. Rich people know this, and if you want to be financially stable you need to follow their lead.

Finally, learn about bitcoin. It is the hardest asset of them all, and it’s the best way to break free from our debt slavery economy. Don’t get pulled into the gambling casino that is “crypto,” i.e. cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin, but focus on the one with the strongest monetary properties: bitcoin.

12) Help the Poor

We all know the airplane advice to put on your own oxygen mask before trying to put one on your child, the reason being you can’t help others if you’re unconscious. Likewise, the advice I’ve given thus far has been mostly self-focused, simply because if you are a mess spiritually, physically, and mentally, you can’t help anyone else. But as Catholics we are required to help others, particularly the poor. This is non-negotiable, and young men should lead the charge.

This won’t look the same for everyone. Perhaps it means praying in front of an abortion clinic, or helping an organization that offers job skills to the poor, or volunteering at a soup kitchen. When you start having kids and are in your busiest stage of life, perhaps it just means donating to good organizations that help the poor. But no matter what, helping the poor should be part of every Catholic young man’s life.

Young men: it’s time to step up. Don’t make excuses, don’t be a victim, and don’t let our feminized and destructive culture shape your life. Be a Catholic man of integrity, taking care of your body, mind, and soul. In short, be the man—and the saint—God calls you to be.

Pictured: Young man at Prayer by Hans Memling (ca 1430 – 11 August 1494)