Ep79 How Fathers Can Find Peace w/ Devin Schadt

“For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’”
~ Romans 8:15

Why are so many fathers struggling?
Is it possible for fathers to live peaceful lives today?
How can a man change the world through his identity as a father?

In episode 79 of This Whole Life, Pat Millea sits down with Devin Schadt, founder and executive director of the Fathers of St. Joseph, to dive deep into the challenges and opportunities of Catholic fatherhood. Devin shares his personal journey, including a life-changing experience after his daughter’s health crisis that propelled him to embrace his vocation as a husband and father. The conversation covers topics such as the crisis of fatherhood, overcoming shame, the loneliness men often face, and the power of transformative relationships. Pat and Devin discuss the profound influence fathers have on families, the unique spirituality of St. Joseph, and practical steps men can take to become trustworthy fathers by first becoming trusting sons of God the Father. Fathers - and the people who love them - will walk away with inspiration, practical advice, and a renewed vision for integrating faith, mental health, and the incredible gift of fatherhood.

Devin Schadt is the executive director of the Fathers of St. Joseph, an apostolate that labors for the restoration, redemption, and revitalization of fatherhood. He is the author of over 20 books on fatherhood through the wisdom of St. Joseph, including The Rule: Counsels and Directives for Husbands and Fathers and Custos: Total Consecration Through Saint Joseph. He is a co-host of The Catholic Gentleman podcast. Devin has been married for 30 years and has five daughters, and lives in Iowa.

Episode 79 Show Notes

The Fathers of St. Joseph

Chapters:

0:00: Introduction and Highs & Hards
12:09: Today's fatherhood crisis & opportunity
21:10: The centrality of relationships for fathers
25:55: Why the mission of fatherhood?
35:11: St. Joseph, model of sanity & sanctity
44:21: Overcoming the cycle of shame
52:18: Challenge By Choice

Reflection Questions:

1. What is one specific thing that stuck with you from this conversation?
2. How have your experiences with your own father, or your relationship with God the Father, influenced your approach to parenthood or relationships?
3. What are the threats that face fathers today? What are the opportunities for them to impact the world for good?
4. What are some practical steps that fathers and communities can take

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Highs & Hards
• 12:09 Today's fatherhood crisis & opportunity
• 21:10 The centrality of relationships for fathers
• 25:55 Why the mission of fatherhood?
• 35:11 St. Joseph, model of sanity & sanctity
• 44:21 Overcoming the cycle of shame
• 52:18 Challenge By Choice

Transcript

Devin Schadt [00:00:00]:
Trusting sons, sons who trust God the Father become trustworthy fathers.

Pat Millea [00:00:12]:
Welcome to This Whole Life, a podcast for all of us seeking sanity and sanctity and a place to find joy and meaning through the integration of faith and mental health. I'm Pat Millea, a Catholic speaker, musician and leader, and I'm happy to bring you this podcast along with my bride, Kenna, a licensed marriage and family therapist. This is the stuff she and I talk about all the time. Doing dishes in the car on a date. We're excited to bring you this podcast for educational purposes. It's not therapy or a substitute for mental health care. So come on in, have a seat at our dining room table and join the conversation with us. We are so glad you're here.

Pat Millea [00:01:02]:
Well, friends, it is a beautiful day with This Whole Life and we've got a great conversation coming up. I cannot wait for the episode that we have in store for you. I'm flying solo today. It's just Pat Millea and our guest, who I'll introduce here in a moment. Kenna, as you may have heard from one of our past episodes, is prepping our house to be sold and God willing, move into a house that suits our family better. So St. Joseph is going to be apropos to our conversation for many reasons today, but one of them is all the work that Kenna is currently doing and that we are doing for the move coming up here. But the other reason that we're gonna talk a lot about St.

Pat Millea [00:01:38]:
Joseph is our good guest here, Devin Schadt, who's here with us today. Devin, how are you doing, brother?

Devin Schadt [00:01:44]:
Hey, great. It's great to be here with you.

Pat Millea [00:01:46]:
Yeah, absolutely, man. It's great to see your face. Great to connect over the state lines into Iowa. We'll talk more about that in a moment. Friends, Devin Schadt is the founder and the executive director of the Fathers of St. Joseph since 2012. He's written over 20 books on the subject of fatherhood and especially through the intercession of St. Joseph.

Pat Millea [00:02:07]:
He's the co host, excuse me, of the Catholic Gentleman. And he really has built a life and a ministry and many apostolates and authorship around the restoration of fatherhood through the intercession and the modelship of St. Joseph and his spirituality. Devin's been married for 30 years and has five beautiful daughters on this earth and he lives in the great state of Iowa, which you and I can agree, Devin, is God's Country. Welcome to This Whole Life, Devin.

Devin Schadt [00:02:36]:
All right, thanks. What an introduction.

Pat Millea [00:02:39]:
Oh, my pleasure, man, my pleasure. Yeah, it's been fun to kind of connect with you a little bit over the years. We've got some artwork in our house from one of your daughters, one of your great artists. My dad, who lives and works a lot with you and the Fathers of St. Joseph, has always given us good updates on the Schadt family. And it's just great to have you on the show. So thanks for taking the time. Would love for you as our good guest, to start us off with a high and a hard lately in your life, if you're okay with that.

Devin Schadt [00:03:07]:
Yeah. Okay. So. Hi. This is always really difficult for me because, like, I rarely just reflect on highs and low lows. But, but yeah, I think a high would be just recently, Sophia Press is going to or they are publishing and distributing my latest book, the Rule Councils and Directives for Fathers and Husbands. And so that's super exciting. And it's been something in the making for quite a while.

Devin Schadt [00:03:34]:
Like just bringing the spirituality of the Fathers of St. Joseph, St. Joseph into this kind of bite sized, kind of, if you will, kind of a rule, you know, like a, like a St. Benedict kind of rule. That was, that's a high. That's happening right now. And then a low. Oh, man, I've had several, like, very humiliating, like, lows, like lately.

Devin Schadt [00:03:58]:
So for example, and it's stupid stuff, like, so I bought a F150. I call it the effin 150, but I bought this F150 years ago. And it's just a junker. And when I bought it, the whole inside was trash. Like, I mean, literally, like, there's blood on, on the side panels, there's oil. I mean, this guy like somebody like massacred chickens or something in there, you know. And so I'm like, oh, yeah, I can fix it up, you know, a little paint and, you know, whatever. And yeah, so I did that.

Devin Schadt [00:04:29]:
I, I, I put some in, did some interior work on it and I went to clean it up the other day and all that paint and everything was just coming off and just rubbing off. And I'm like, I am such an idiot. I did this wrong. And that's where I go, it's that self. And this is not even a big deal, but I have a lot of these where I hit this point where I experienced my own personal limitation in poverty. And I was like, why did I ever do that in the first place? And so that's just one of Those lows where you're like, you're faced with. At least I was faced with, once again, my own limitation, my own weakness. And then I have to turn to God, man, and say, I know I'm supposed to love me here, but it's really hard, you know? And that's so stupid.

Devin Schadt [00:05:13]:
I know it sounds so stupid, you know, but

Pat Millea [00:05:16]:
It does not sound stupid. That happens to me at least twice a week of just like, just moving boxes or something like that, you know, like loading the pod earlier this week and having, you know, I think that I can do Philippians 4:13. I think I try to extend it further than what Jesus meant, right? So I'm carrying three boxes at once to try to limit the trips I have to take up and down the stairs. And then you'll be shocked to know the top box falls right off and, like, three things break. And it just, like you said, immediately goes to, like, just destroying myself. You bleeping idiot. What part of your brain thought that you could. You can't do anything right. It just like, oh, my gosh.

Pat Millea [00:05:55]:
I mean, later on, maybe we can get into kind of the shame structures that men build around themselves, but.

Devin Schadt [00:06:01]:
Because I think it's essential to manhood and being a great father. But, yeah, we. I would love to get there.

Pat Millea [00:06:06]:
Yeah. Yeah. Totally, Totally. Oh, man. Thanks for that. I, I will, I will look forward to seeing that truck someday. And I, I, I can't say that I'm looking forward to taking a ride, but I will look forward to like, peeking in the cab.

Devin Schadt [00:06:19]:
Yeah, it's got 262,000 miles on it. The thing is a beater.

Pat Millea [00:06:25]:
That's beautiful. Oh, my gosh. There's a source of pride about having a nice old car like that. That's, that's great. Still on the road, I think I am going to. It would be easy for me to just complain about packing a house for my hard, but I'm not going to do that because I am trying to eliminate grumbling and complaining, which I know is a part of the Custos consecration that you wrote. And we can talk about that later, too.

Devin Schadt [00:06:51]:
That's crazy.

Pat Millea [00:06:52]:
But my hard, I think, and it's a bittersweet hard, a gentleman that you and I both know, Devin, John died a few weeks ago. He was the father of one of my best friends growing up, somebody that I was best friends with from 5th grade all the way up through high school. He and his family live up here in Minnesota without any planning from us, so we still get to stay connected and watch football games and stuff like that fairly often. And his dad died pretty surprisingly a few weeks ago, and me and another friend drove down from Minnesota for the funeral. I know you were at the visitation the night before, and it was just. A funeral is always hard and there's always grief and loss in someone that you love and appreciate. But it was the kind of good hard that comes from, like, doing the right thing for someone who really loved the Lord and really loved his family and just being able to grieve but also celebrate the life that he led, you know, And I think especially, you know, this, the spin off conversation that we don't necessarily have to get into, but in a.

Pat Millea [00:08:01]:
In a culture that has, I, from what I've seen, increasingly get away from more traditional funeral services and has moved into like, celebration of life territory. Maybe because we don't like feeling hard things and it's difficult to grieve, but I just think there's so much beauty and meaning and I would even guess ultimately closure that comes from something like a funeral of like commending someone to the Lord. It just, it was, it was a really beautiful chance to just to be with John's family and friends, to pray for his soul, to pray with all those who loved him and just. It was really. It was really special. So. So that was hard, but a really valuable one. My high is another group of friends, a group of buddies from college that.

Pat Millea [00:08:47]:
This is how cool I am, Devin. I was in marching band with these guys in college. I know, I know. Yeah, it's. I know. You were thinking football player. No, I was at the football games. I was just on the sideline with a trumpet.

Pat Millea [00:09:02]:
But these five, you know, four other guys and I have stayed in really close touch the past 20 years. Now, ever since college, we have, we. We have a group text where we usually talk about Notre Dame football, but we often talk about family and life and things like that. And all five of us have really gone different ways, professionally, spiritually. But the one thing that I realized in getting ready for our conversation, Devin, is, you know, for all of our spiritual, political, kind of cultural differences, all of us now are husbands and fathers. And that already has been a really good source of connection for all five of us. But last weekend was our 16th anniversary. Me and Kenna, she had the great idea to go see a Ben Rector concert in Chicago, which is one of our favorite musicians.

Pat Millea [00:09:51]:
So we went and it snowballed into this thing where two of these college buddies live in Chicago. A third one is from Chicago and visits there every summer. So he and his family were able to come back during this time period that we were there for the concert.

Pat Millea [00:10:06]:
And then our fifth friend, who is from LA, well, San Jose now, from California, he flew in to be with us. So for the first time in eight or nine years, ever since Ben got married, all five of us were in the same place with this just beautiful non agenda time. We went to a concert on Friday night, but Thursday night, all day Friday, I just got to spend time with my friends and celebrate my anniversary with Kenna. And it was like, so special to be able to reconnect and just share a lot of deep, meaningful things that you can't really fit into a group text, you know what I mean? Just like a chance for men to really connect on a level that I think all of us crave and not many of us get at least day to day. So it was a real blessing. I have an amazing bride for many reasons, but her agreeing to share our anniversary with four of my college buddies and their wives was pretty special too, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, that was great.

Devin Schadt [00:11:05]:
Something really important there. You said that, you know, though there might be cultural, political, you know, maybe even sociological differences, the one thing that all of you have in common is fatherhood and marriage. You know, husband and I found that, like when we started the fathers of St. Joseph and we would get such a diverse group of guys, pull politically and age range and just experience and you know, even psychologically, really. And yet that idea or that reality of fatherhood, that vocation and that reality of marriage, it just, it was the foundational factor for linking us all together. We could relate. And it was. I think it's because we all are fighting for the same thing.

Devin Schadt [00:11:53]:
We all really, truly want the same thing when it comes to fighting fatherhood and comes to marriage. We do. And. But yet those are two of the most difficult things to do. Relationship is the hardest thing for us men to do.

Pat Millea [00:12:05]:
Yeah. Yeah. But.

Devin Schadt [00:12:06]:
Yeah, I think that's really wild.

Pat Millea [00:12:07]:
Yeah, that's beautiful. Well, that's a perfect stepping off point, I think, into our conversation today, Devin, because there are so many ways that I think it's easy to look around our culture and see, you know, maybe crisis is too strong of a word, but I don't necessarily think it is kind of a crisis of fatherhood in our culture that, you know, statistically, fewer and fewer men are getting married. Fewer and fewer men are having children, being open to life in the sense of having children that they don't plan for the exact number or the exact time always. And even I would say, I know in my life and in a lot of the stories that I've heard, men who are fathers, who are not maybe living into the true calling of what a father is, what a father is called to be. What are ways that, you know, through the Fathers of St. Joseph, what are ways that you have seen this diverse kind of collection of men coming to one community? What are some of the ways that fathers are struggling right now that men are looking for support, whether it's through the Fathers of St. Joseph or through another kind of apostolate or organization?

Devin Schadt [00:13:23]:
Yeah, I think one of the largest ones is male loneliness. So if you like, recent statistical data says that there's one out of every five guys struggles from severe loneliness and four out of every five suicides. So body in the morgue, four of every five suicides is a guy, is a male. And when you look at, like, males under the age of, like, 35, I think it is 50% are not even pursuing a relationship at all, and 80% won't even approach a woman for fear of being rejected or being weird, you know, seen as weird. So what we have. And then also with radical feminism, and there are like. So it's. There have been good movements, and good things have come out of.

Devin Schadt [00:14:13]:
I wouldn't say radical feminism itself, but the fact that women can apply their talents to the trade industry and also use their gifts at a worldly level is very good. However, what we've done, though, is we've given it such a preferential treatment, the ladies, that now you have something like 13.7 million females on college campuses versus 10.2 million males. And so. And then when. When the job, you know, the preferences are given to the ladies with, you know, as far as jobs go. And so guys are giving up. What we're finding is that guys are giving up, and this isn't just a Catholic thing or this isn't just, you know, us Christians talking about this. There was a.

Devin Schadt [00:14:58]:
There was a podcast on Diary of a CEO, which very, very huge, huge podcast. And they had three secular guys on there talking about what are the biggest crisis, biggest issues in the world. And. And ironically, all of them, without intention, dovetailed on fatherhood. Which is interesting from a secular perspective.

Pat Millea [00:15:18]:
Yeah.

Devin Schadt [00:15:19]:
Because, I mean, if you look at the stats, like, what is it? 90% of youths in prisons come from fatherless homes, and children from fatherless homes are 32 times more likely to run away from home and 6 times more likely commit suicide. But then if you get into where dad is present, I think Columbia researchers found that children from two parent households where there is a dad but they have a strained relationship with their father, they're 68% more likely to use drugs, alcohol, be involved in premarital sex, et cetera. But dads have twice as much influence as mom in helping their teens stave off premarital sex. If a dad is involved and present in the home, there's like almost 100% graduation, high school graduation rate. There's like a 95%, if they graduate from high school, 95% rate that they'll go on to further education and then jobs. It's incredible that, I mean, like just the stats are mind blowing, but the big one, it's an older one. But if the mother is the first to convert to Christianity, there's a 17% probability that the family will follow. But if the father is the first to convert to Christianity, there's a 93% probability that the family will follow.

Devin Schadt [00:16:29]:
So what we're seeing here is this. There's this kind of, this tension or this actually this polarized kind of situation. We have men who are lonely, who don't know how to live in relationship because that art of living in relationship has not been taught to them. And they've. And because of that, they're growing more and more insecure in their toxic loneliness and they're afraid of injecting. And then on the other hand, they're so necessary that God has given them this incredible role that, that actually can change the world. More so than any individual than a president, than a, than a social media platform inventor, than an app developer. Truly the father has the most influence of anyone in this world.

Pat Millea [00:17:10]:
Yeah. Yeah, that's remarkable. As you were rattling off those stats, all I can think of is like the, the incredible power of fathers for, for good or for evil. You know, like a. You can use a knife to heal somebody as a surgeon, like my dad was, or you can use a knife to really do terrible harm to someone in the wrong hands. You know, that, that kind of. I remember seeing, as a youth minister years ago, I remember seeing similar stats that you were talking about, Devin, about how without the numbers that I can't call to mind right now, if the father is practicing his Christian or Catholic faith, the children are like two or three times more likely to remain faithful as adults than if it's just mom bringing them to church and dad is golfing or hunting or not involved or something like that. And I can't tell you how many times again, as youth minister, they were just scanning the church on a Sunday.

Pat Millea [00:18:06]:
How many heroic, faithful mothers are bringing their children to Mass, and how many dads, frankly, are just shirking that responsibility. And, you know, maybe it's out of ignorance, maybe they didn't have a model of faithful manhood growing up, but, man, on one hand, what. What a tragedy that we as a culture and we as a church are enduring in fathers who are kind of neglecting that responsibility, that sacred duty. And on the other hand, what a sleeping giant, you know, I mean, what. What an opportunity for men to really just like every. It feels like the kind of thing where, like, I remember C.S. Lewis years ago when someone asked him about how he handles the pressure of being such a witness for someone else's faith, like being the means to someone else's conversion, how he kind of processes that. And his metaphor was that it's kind of like the feeling that a boy gets when he fires a rifle for the first time, that he notices the infinite gap between the tiny movement of his finger and the lightning and thunder that follows.

Pat Millea [00:19:16]:
Right. And I feel like it's that. Like that. That tiny move for any father would have just this exponential gift for his wife, for his children, for his community, for the church, for the world at large, you know?

Devin Schadt [00:19:31]:
Yeah. I mean, God's designed it that way. I mean, if you look at one of the last or. Yeah. Old Testament prophecies, God is speaking. God himself is speaking through the prophet Malachi. He says, before that great and terrible day, I will turn the hearts of fathers toward their children and the hearts of children toward their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a curse. And so what, this is God's game plan? God's game plan is he wants to turn the hearts, the gaze of love of the human father upon his children so that the children will trust not only their human father, but they will come to trust and love the one whom he represents.

Devin Schadt [00:20:12]:
So we are iconic, as John Paul II said. I think it was in familias consortio article 25. He says the human father's mission is to reflect and to reveal God's fatherhood. It's just a huge, huge call. And. And so God has designed us. This is a part. We're a divinely appointed and anointed to fill this role.

Devin Schadt [00:20:34]:
And it's not just a role. It's a vocation. It's an identity. It's not just something we do. And we just kind of put it, you know, like it falls under the hat of fixing the house or like having this hobby and working on cars and it's just another role. No, this is our identity. And our identity leads to our destiny. Who we are determines who we become.

Devin Schadt [00:20:52]:
So if we, to the level that we embrace our identity as sons and fathers, sons of God the Father and fathers in the image of God the Father to our sons and our daughters, that's basically how our identity leads to our destiny to live with God the Father for all eternity. So I mean like, think about like this. So God is an eternal relationship and we come from that relationship and we're meant to return to that relationship. But it's only by means of human relationship that we learn that self giving love of the Trinity. And like, have you heard about that Waldinger? That Waldinger? Well, Robert Waldinger is the one who talks about. He's. But that Harvard study on ongoing, the longest study on human development.

Pat Millea [00:21:39]:
I think so. Keep going. But I think I know what you're talking about.

Devin Schadt [00:21:42]:
So powerful, it's incredible. So in 1938, Harvard decided to do research of two subset groups. Inner city Boston kids, the boys, poorest of the poor, that lived in the ghettos. And then Harvard sophomores, males, okay, total dichotomy. And so they decided to study these guys, 728 of them, to determine what makes a man happy, what drives him, how will he have better health and better cognitive skills when he gets older, what depletes those things, what ages him faster, what causes disease, et cetera. And they end up following these men. And then now, today, this is, Robert Waldinger is the fourth lead study on this or lead generation on the study of this longest ongoing study of human development. And what they discovered is it wasn't money, it wasn't wealth, it wasn't prestige or prominence, it wasn't power.

Devin Schadt [00:22:48]:
There was one thing that if you had this thing in your 50s, you would probably live to your 80s. If you had this one thing, you would have probably avoid dementia and Alzheimer's. If you had this one thing, you could probably avoid having health risks and problems later on in life. And what was this one thing? And you'd be happier, by the way. And what was the one thing? One rock solid relationship, just one. Jeez, that's it. And so what took Harvard scientists over a hundred years to figure out this is the timeless wisdom of the Catholic Church, professed since the beginning, you know, is like self giving love. You discover who you are and you give yourself away.

Devin Schadt [00:23:30]:
And you have this Life giving, love, that's beyond anything the world can give. And marriage and family is set up primarily and foundationally for us to learn how to live in relationship. Experience this, you know.

Pat Millea [00:23:41]:
Yeah, yeah. There's so much that This Whole Life, this podcast, and then the organization that Kenna and I run in the Twin Cities, the Martin center for Integration, both of those are very focused on day to day mental health for Catholics, just like daily practices of sanity and sanctity. Right. And one of the things that we've uncovered for the past three years now is we take a very specifically relational approach to everything we do that it is not. You know, there are many good approaches to things like therapy and counseling. Some of them are, you know, the kind of throwaway term would be like the brain in a box approach of just like a person laying on a couch, you talk to that person and you're not really interested in their marriage, in their work, in their church, in their friendships. Nothing like that. But man, it just.

Pat Millea [00:24:33]:
That has always struck us as such a limited vision of what human flourishing looks like. And it's that relational approach that you're talking about. I mean, if we were made in the image and likeness of a trinity of a relationship, it makes sense that that's the place we will find our fulfillment and that we will find disappointment and heartbreak and even things like depression and anxiety to the extent that we depart from relationship and end up in isolation, which, as you said, is such a tempting place for men to be right now anyway.

Devin Schadt [00:25:04]:
There you go. I mean, you nailed it. Because, yeah, at the essence, at the core of a man, he's meant to live in relationship. He's got two of the. The greatest avenues or paths to live in relationship. Being a father and being a husband. And yet, according to the stats, he's one of the loneliness. Loneliest human beings on this earth.

Pat Millea [00:25:26]:
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And I mean, we'll get to a challenge by choice later on, but maybe that's a really good for me at least that's a really good, like, minor examination of conscience, first of all, is just for every man to consider, like, how much am I investing in the meaningful relationships in my life and which relationships deserve or require more investment for me, for the other person's benefit, first of all, but also for my benefit as well. Devin, you are a very smart, talented, faithful Catholic man. You could have done a million things. Why fatherhood? What in your life or what in the church brought you into this particular mission?

Devin Schadt [00:26:10]:
Yeah, so my wife was pregnant with our third daughter, Anna Marie and basically she had Anna Marie 28 weeks premature. So we had basically three daughters in three years. And Anna Marie spent a month in neonatal intensive care unit where they were getting her lungs and her digestive system to function properly. And so after that month, she came home and we had our little Anna Marie perfect. Everything was great. But within five days, she spiked a fever. She was having some respiratory issues. So we returned back to the hospital, but we couldn't admit her to the neonatal intensive care unit because you'd infect the other babies.

Devin Schadt [00:26:52]:
So we had to admit her to the pediatric unit. And the pediatric unit at this hospital at that time was not prepared to take care of a baby as small as Anna Marie. I mean, Anna Marie was very small. Like, her leg was like the size of my index finger. She was very, very small. And the nurses were saying that, oh, my gosh, she's so small. We've never seen a baby that small before. There was no, you know, isolation units.

Devin Schadt [00:27:15]:
They weren't wearing masks. This is in the old days, kind of. Well, long story short, there was some nurse neglect. She suffered about 10 to 11 hours of apnea undetected, and then she began to seize. And by the time they were able to get the medevac team in there and get her on manual life support, and they were rolling across the tarmac, and then they flew her out to a children's hospital a couple hours away. But by the time she got there, she had suffered three clinical death experiences and permanent brain injury. And so I drove that night to be there in Anna Marie's isolation unit, where she had the respirator, the ventilator, everything was operating for her. She's basically dead, just hanging by a thread, swollen by the Lasix, and stayed there.

Devin Schadt [00:28:07]:
The next morning, my wife came after making arrangements for our other two daughters. And when she saw Anna Marie on life support, she basically broke down. She said, I just need you, basically equivalent to come home and be a husband and a father. And I'm like, thinking, but I am. I'm like, wait a minute. That's what I am. That's what I do. But what she was really saying is, I need you to be intentional.

Devin Schadt [00:28:29]:
I need you to choose us. We need to be number one. Because at that time, even though I'd given my life to Christ at the age of 24 and had kind of this really radical conversion experience, I was, you know, five years into this, and I was still had one foot in the world, really, and one foot in Christ. So I was. I call Them, the six P's of the world. Prestige, prominence, power, profit, possessions and pleasure. I was living for those still while proclaiming being a Christian. So I was working, you know, around the clock, developing sets for like PBS and Fox News.

Devin Schadt [00:29:03]:
I was part time youth minister like you. I was. Which, you know what that means full time.

Pat Millea [00:29:08]:
Yep.

Devin Schadt [00:29:10]:
You know, and, and, and I was trying to launch my own graphic design business on the side. And I got it. She was like, I just need you to just really pay attention to us. So I tried and it was like futile. And I really, internally, I had this massive resistance because, like, I thought that success and hitting it big and all that was gonna give me fulfillment and satisfaction. I thought that that's where it was, you know. And yeah, I could have this Christianity thing on the side and my marriage would just take care of itself, my kids would just take care of themselves. Like planting a tree in the backyard, you know, little water, maybe once in a while it'll be fine, you know, and that's not the case.

Devin Schadt [00:29:51]:
And so I tried to be a good dad. I cut out all those things out of my life, like the launching, the business, youth ministry, working overtime. I really tried to give it my all. And I didn't know what I was doing. And then I started to languish. And really what was happening, looking back was I was going through a pride detox. I was wanting this affirmation and this attention and this validation from the world. And I really kind of cut that out.

Devin Schadt [00:30:20]:
And now I was changing diapers and, you know, and trying to be present, and I didn't really even understand how. And I'm sulking. And a friend of mine saw this and, you know, I was languishing. And he decided that he would take me on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. And so I went to Medjugorje. And two things happened while I was there. I. Our guide, who is Nancy, who is the interpreter for Father Jozo, I was talking to her and I was like, you know, I just, I get the sense that God's got this calling on my life, but I don't know what it is and I don't know how to make it happen.

Devin Schadt [00:30:55]:
And she's like, are you married? And I'm like, yeah, I'm married. And she says, you have children? Yeah, I have three. Go home and be Saint Joseph. And you think that would have been like, oh, but it wasn't. I was like, St. Joseph, I don't even know that guy. I mean, like, I mean, I've seen him in stained glass. And, like, the dude's bald.

Devin Schadt [00:31:13]:
He, he, he. You know, he's in the darkness over a cane. You know, he's like. Loves flowers, evidently. You know, I'm like, dude, not interested at all.

Pat Millea [00:31:22]:
You know, not the model of masculinity you were going for.

Devin Schadt [00:31:25]:
Yeah, man. I wanted to, like, wield the sword like St. Paul, you know, it's like, so, you know, and this is before Father. Father Calloway hired these commissions of these, like, you know, comic book, you know, St. Joseph's that got biceps, like the 26 inchers, you know.

Pat Millea [00:31:40]:
Totally. Yeah.

Devin Schadt [00:31:42]:
You know, but. Yeah. And then another thing happened. I went to confession to this Dominican friar, and I was confessing, and in the middle, he stopped me and he said, you will become a saint by means of your vocation, not outside of it. And that really struck me because I wrestled it, because that's what I was trying to do. I was trying to find a path outside of the path that God had given. And. And as Father Rudy Juarez said to me, he said, we Hispanics, we have a saying.

Devin Schadt [00:32:12]:
Do not become a street lamp only for your house to go dark.

Pat Millea [00:32:15]:
Hmm.

Devin Schadt [00:32:16]:
And we do this all the time. We lead Bible studies without teaching our kids how to read the Bible. We have prayer groups without praying with our kids. You know, we lead these pilgrimages, go on these pilgrimage without taking our kids on pilgrimage. We're talking to everybody else about how to be a Christian, yet we're not being a Christian at home. And all that really convicted me. And so then I realized that through this, that my path to glory, my path to sanctity, is not by becoming bigger and greater according to the world. It is by becoming little and small and actually embracing my vocation as a human father, to live in the image of God the Father.

Devin Schadt [00:32:55]:
And that's when I encountered St. Joseph. I went home after that pilgrimage. I'm like, who is Joseph? I sound like Pharaoh. In the Old Testament, it was Joseph, you know, and. But I carved out space in my attic, an old 1914 house, sweat box up there. And I made that my chapel. And I began to pray, just intentionally and just spend time with the Lord.

Devin Schadt [00:33:17]:
And it was like I felt like Our Lady was saying, I want to introduce you to St. Joseph. And then. And then, like, it was weird because I'm not a theologian, scholar, academic, nothing, but I started getting these, like, Old Testament passages of the patriarchs that seem to, like, be a typological kind of connection between St. Joseph. So I started writing this stuff down. Yeah, I started A writers group. And I started sharing these reflections.

Devin Schadt [00:33:44]:
Not a writer at all. These other guys were. And one of the guys said, I know what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to write on fatherhood through St. Joseph. And I was like, huh, that sounds great.

Pat Millea [00:33:53]:
Yeah.

Devin Schadt [00:33:53]:
So I went on an Opus Dei retreat and came back with the outline of this letter to myself, which was like, constituted four books comparing Joseph, the patriarchs. Well, that book I shared with a friend. That friend who shared it with a PR person who shared it without me knowing, with Ignatius. And Ignatius Press then calls me and says, hey, we want to publish your book. And I'm like, oh no, I don't want to do that because I wanted to keep it with my friends and. And they're like, oh, don't worry about that. You can keep the copyright. And then that's when it all kind of began.

Devin Schadt [00:34:28]:
It just. Yeah. And then pretty soon I was doing radio interviews and then asked to speak at conferences, which was scary. I mean, like, so scary.

Pat Millea [00:34:36]:
Yeah.

Devin Schadt [00:34:36]:
And. But that's how it all began, you know.

Pat Millea [00:34:39]:
That's amazing. Yeah. Humble beginnings for such a beautiful ministry. But it is, it is both, you know, that kind of suffering with Anna Marie, I'm sure was incredibly painful. And it makes sense at the same time that the Lord would bring such fruit out of a time of suffering that you were able to submit to him and really bring such a greater sense of fatherhood through that experience for so many other men. You know, that's a great, that's a great gift to be able to offer to him. And I have my own very funny story of St. Joseph or a relationship with him.

Pat Millea [00:35:15]:
I got confirmed at St. Paul the Apostle in Davenport, Iowa, a church that you are very familiar with. I was in eighth grade and we all had to pick a confirmation saint and I didn't want a lot of work or hassle, So I picked St. Joseph because we had to write a one page paper which at the time, as a 14 year old might as well have been a 90 page thesis. I was like dreading it. I put it off, put it off. And Finally I picked St. Joseph for the mere fact that he says nothing so I could say whatever I wanted about him.

Pat Millea [00:35:43]:
It just like, there is no wrong answer for a blank page, you know what I mean? So I picked him for all the wrong reasons. And then lo and behold, a few years later, I become a youth minister and he is the patron of the universal church. I become an employee for the first time ever and he's the Patron of workers. I become married in 2009 and a father, and he's the patron of the family and. And of fathers. I end up working at a church called St. Joseph. Like, he has just relentlessly followed me around and helped me to appreciate his wisdom and his example and his intercession in a really significant way.

Devin Schadt [00:36:24]:
I love that.

Pat Millea [00:36:25]:
Oh, man.

Devin Schadt [00:36:26]:
Powerful. I mean, yeah. I love how you did that, where you broke all that down to say, like, yeah, in my work, he's a patron of workers. You know, he's the patron saint of husbands, but patron saint of fathers. All that. That is so good. Patron saint of the church, you know, I mean, that's so good. Because it's a great way to look at it, to realize how important this man is.

Devin Schadt [00:36:45]:
And if he's that important to God and to the Blessed Mother and to Jesus, Word incarnate, man, he should be so important to us.

Pat Millea [00:36:53]:
Yeah, yeah. And he strikes me as the perfect example. I use the word perfect loosely. Mary is perfect. Joseph is not. That's always one of my favorite jokes about the church of, like, how annoying it must have been for Joseph to be the only sinner in the house, you know? And I'm sure he was St. Joseph. I'm sure he handled it great.

Pat Millea [00:37:11]:
But it just feels difficult, like, a tough spot for him to be in. But he strikes me as a nearly ideal model of integration on two different levels of somebody who's integrated with the kingdom of heaven in the sense of sanctity, that they know that they are ordered to the will of God.

Pat Millea [00:37:30]:
But also a man who's integrated to the worldly kingdom in a way that is in the world but not of the world would be kind of the pithy way to put it. Like, a man who knew how to be sane in dealings with the world but not be unduly attached to the world. So what are the ways, I guess, that you have seen St. Joseph be a model of holiness and a model of sanity to men throughout, whether it's through fathers of St. Joseph, through consecration to St. Joseph. What are ways that St. Joseph is a model in those two fashions?

Devin Schadt [00:38:08]:
Okay, so Joseph is a. Did you say sanity and sanctity?

Pat Millea [00:38:14]:
Right, right.

Devin Schadt [00:38:15]:
Okay. Yeah, I like that. So Joseph is so sane and so, you know, sacred, you know, so sanctified. Well, okay, so that's a great place to start, actually, because, you know, a lot of times when we talk about. Okay, so St. Paul says, first of all, what is God's will for us? We pray for it all time. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. St.

Devin Schadt [00:38:38]:
Paul, what is God's will for you? Well, in one place, in Ephesians, he says, this is God's will for you, your sanctification. And that word, sanctification has for its root word hagios. And hagios, we. That's where we get sacred or holy, but it actually technically means different. So the temple in Jerusalem was hagios. It was different than every other temple. St. Joseph was Hagios because he was different than any other man.

Devin Schadt [00:39:05]:
He wasn't worldly. He didn't live for the six Ps of the world like I used to. Right. He lived for that one P, which basically was peace. What the world can't give you, no matter how much of prestige, prominence, power, pleasure, profit, all that, you'll never have peace, no matter what. We could go into that too, and that's a big problem for men. But the peace that surpasses all understanding can only come from giving your life to God in the way that St. Joseph did.

Devin Schadt [00:39:29]:
So what I found, it's amazing what St. Joseph can do for us. And St. Joseph. So, like, this is what I mean by this. So if the Dominicans, the Carmelites, the Benedictines, they all have, like, this order, this rule, this spirituality that if you apply yourself to it, like if you become a monk or religious sister, that's your path to sanctification, to becoming hagios. Different, other from. Different from the world.

Devin Schadt [00:39:59]:
Okay? Living for the Word. Well, just like they have their spirituality, their rule, their order, I believe that St. Joseph has a rule of life, a spirituality in order to. That's based on his four pillars. Embrace silence, embrace woman, embrace the child, and embrace charitable authority. These are the four pillars that St. Joseph's life was built on. And there's segments to these.

Devin Schadt [00:40:25]:
They're all. They each have components to them. But when we build our spiritual house on these four pillars, what happens is we begin to live a life of secret greatness. We become little silent, hidden in following his example. And. And yet, like my friend says, you know, the human father is like the stud in the wall. It's like it's behind the drywall. You don't see it, it holds up the framework of the house, et cetera.

Devin Schadt [00:40:50]:
So I say, you know, guys, do you realize what this means? This means, you know, you dads, you hold up the structure of the family, even the structure of the church, maybe even society really fundamentally. So you can go home and tell your wife you're a stud, you Know, Right?

Pat Millea [00:41:03]:
Absolutely. Even the worst dad joke I'm still a stud is what I'm hearing. Okay, good.

Devin Schadt [00:41:09]:
Right, right. But the point is, is that it is not in being loud and proud, but is being silent and strong, humble and hidden, like St. Joseph, where we're free from the world's deceptions because there are two kingdoms at war. There's the kingdom of the world, and there's the kingdom of the word. And if you notice with those two words, word and world, they're very similar with one little difference, L. And that L stands for lie. It's a deception because the world promises you, hey, just bow down to me. Satan says, I'll give you the kingdoms of the world.

Devin Schadt [00:41:46]:
Prestige, prominence, power, profit, possessions and pleasure. But when we. So let's say you want YouTube subscribers, 30,000, 50,000, you know, 100,000. When will it be enough? It's never enough. I remember having a conversation with my. My wife's sister's ex husband. He's a multimillionaire, very wealthy, and he's like in his 80s. He's.

Devin Schadt [00:42:11]:
He's checking out, basically. And he decided to start this business venture of developing a resort, a resort on some obscure Caribbean island. And I'm like, hey, you're in your 80s. You're. You're. You're about ready to check out. Why are you doing this now when you have all the money in the world?

Pat Millea [00:42:27]:
Yeah.

Devin Schadt [00:42:28]:
He's like, my friend has more money than me, and I want to beat him. And so what I mean is, when we get on that track of the world, no matter how much chocolate is, no matter how much Netflix, no matter how much heroin, how many views, no matter how much money, it's never going to give us enough because it cannot give us what we need the most, which is our identity, our value, which can only come from the Father through Jesus Christ. And this is the fundamental problem with men right now, and this is what St. Joseph has, that we struggle to have, is that we don't really know who we are fundamentally. And we're afraid of that. We're afraid of actually not finding our identity in the world. We love to be identified by logos for our status rather than the Logos, the Word of God.

Pat Millea [00:43:14]:
Yeah.

Devin Schadt [00:43:15]:
And so we lose touch with what it means to be a son of God the Father. And I really think, fundamentally, that this is the biggest problem we have right now. When I. Conferences and retreats, I'll ask guys, okay, guys, raise your hand if you pray specifically to the Father daily, and you'll get some guys and they say, when was the last time any of you guys? And you'll see, I have 400 guys. There's like 10 hands. And you guys, how many of you guys address God as Abba? And it's like zero, maybe one. And why is this important? Because Romans Paul says in Romans 8, how do we know we're led by the Spirit? Paul says, those who are led by the spirit cry out, Abba, Father. Yeah, that word Abba is not just mean, daddy, but it's like this idea of a tender submission.

Devin Schadt [00:44:08]:
I trust in you, Daddy. And that's what Jesus. The first word on his lips is Abba, Father, I know you can do all things, you know, and so that's a spirit of sonship, is to trust in God the Father, especially when all hell breaks loose in our lives.

Pat Millea [00:44:21]:
Which brings me back to something we talked about earlier, the idea of shame in the lives of men and fathers. And it connects perfectly, I think, to that point of crisis in every man's life. And there are many crises in a man's life, maybe one a day in a smaller sense. But you know, the times that men give into temptation and they don't allow themselves to be tested and perfected, that temptation, if they give into it, that brings up inevitable shame because that's not what we were made for. And I just know in my life, in the lives of so many men out there, that shame can become an absolute quicksand that just traps and holds and keeps someone stagnant. What have you seen in terms of kind of the shame cycle of fathers throughout your work? And more importantly, what's the way out of that shame trap from. For a man?

Devin Schadt [00:45:14]:
Okay, so, yeah, the shame cycle. Well, you know more about this as a psych. Well, you're a therapist than I do. But what I noticed, though, is how. How we deal with shame is very polarizing. So if I'm experiencing shame in my being, and particularly I think men. A friend just said this just recently. He says, I'm not ashamed as much for what I do.

Devin Schadt [00:45:37]:
I'm just ashamed of being me. And that's really at the heart of this. We have a shame of our identity, you know, And I think it's because the world goads us to prove ourselves. As with Jesus, if you are the son of God, turn these stones into bread. So the world is always saying, prove yourself, prove yourself. And if you can't, then just bow down to our maxims and our promises and our ways, and you'll get what you want. So when we do that we don't measure up to everybody around us. There's always somebody with a better truck, a better house, a better personality, a better job, a prettier wife.

Devin Schadt [00:46:13]:
And there's just kind of this lingering shame that I don't measure up. I don't have what it takes.

Pat Millea [00:46:18]:
Right.

Devin Schadt [00:46:19]:
And so what we do with that is we tend to move to two polar extremes. One is I am going to prove myself, I'm going to posture, I'm going to buy things, I'm going to try to position things, I'm going to try to build this image for myself that shows the world I'm the man. And on the other side, what we do with shame is we're like, I can't do this, I don't have what it takes. I'm checking out. And so I sedate myself on whatever it is. Doom scrolling, you know, podcasts, heroin, alcohol, porn. Porn's a huge one, right? And then we literally rewire our brains. So what is it that's going on? Fundamentally, the only way, the only way I've found out of the shame is by embracing our relationship with God the Father, which is actually for men the most diff.

Devin Schadt [00:47:21]:
One of the most difficult things to do. Because the Father appears to be distant, he appears to be other at times he appears to be the persecutor or the one who's making my life difficult. And you know, I think this isn't taught, but it's caught. We think if God the Father did that to his son, what is he going to do to me? You know, I mean like. But God the Father didn't do that to his son.

Pat Millea [00:47:48]:
Right? Right.

Devin Schadt [00:47:49]:
The Son and the Father agreed from all eternity that this was the mission. Self giving love is the mission to conquer sin. So fundamentally what I think is that there's like three parts of our identity that, and this is different than probably psychology and psychotherapy, but I believe spiritually there's three parts of our identity. There's the human part of our identity, the divine kind of part of our identity, the spirit living in us, and then the kingly part of our identity to be the master of our domain, of ourself. And so this is Christ. Christ is questioned throughout the Passion narrative based on his identity. Are you Jesus a Nazarene? So it's his human identity and to admit that it's going to cost him everything, that's what's at stake. When we truly embrace our identity, we're going to be persecuted for being who we are.

Devin Schadt [00:48:42]:
And yet at the end of the day we will have this peace and this surrender and this strength of really being who we are. So, like, in my human identity, I can be ashamed of the way I look, big ears, big nose, short whatever, you know, I mean, all that stuff, you know, I could be ashamed of that. And yet the reason why Satan wants that is because if I'm ashamed of my physical, bodily attributes, the way God has made me, then I want to cover myself up, I want to hide myself. Rather than being a revelation, a manifestation of his, of God's glory coming in and through the body, because the body expresses a spiritual person.

Pat Millea [00:49:20]:
Right, right, right.

Devin Schadt [00:49:21]:
So then you have the divine identity. Are you the son of the living God? Jesus says, I am. And it costs him everything. Again, scourged and blindfolded and beaten and struck. And we have a divine identity, the Holy Spirit living in us. But we're so afraid in public to make the sign of the cross. We're so afraid. Hey, is there something I can pray for you about? You know, I joke around, but I'm going, you know, be it like at Aldi's or a grocery store or something, beautiful little cashiers checking me out, not checking me out, but, you know, sure.

Pat Millea [00:49:48]:
Yep. The same as everyone else.

Devin Schadt [00:49:51]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Same as everyone else. Yeah. And. And, you know, I know I'm supposed to say, God bless you, and yet what comes out of my is, have a nice day, you know, it's like, so wimpy, right? You know, it's like, what the heck is that? You know? And so God wants that divine identity, the Holy Spirit. Do you not know that you are a temple of God, that the Holy Spirit lives within you? God wants that inner spirit, the Holy Spirit is living in us just to come out. But we kink the Hose, you know, we turn off the spigot. We're so afraid. And, man, I got stories about this.

Devin Schadt [00:50:28]:
But. And then the third identity is Jesus, kingly identity. Are you a king? My kingdom isn't of this world. If it was, hosts of angels would be coming to my. To my help here, you know, and the kingship is to be able to be master of our bodies, the master of our passions, the master of ourselves, so that I can give myself away. Because as St. Augustine says, if you don't possess yourself, you can't give yourself away because you give what you possess. And so these, to me, fundamentally, are like our three identities.

Devin Schadt [00:51:01]:
And the devil wants to rob us of our identities, these areas of our identity. But if we can reclaim them, if I can stop Being ashamed of my temperament, my voice, the way I think, if I'm sanguine or melancholic or whatever, just love that littleness. Love that poverty, like St. Therese. Embrace it and thank God for it, because that's when God can start to work through it, whether it's my spiritual problems, my human problems, or my kingly problems. But just to embrace that poverty and then say, God, I trust you in my poverty, that you can do something great with it. That's when we become secure and confident, and people are like, whoa, you know, you don't strike me as, like, being guapo and, you know, like, supermodel and, like, super tough. But, man, you seem to have this era of, like, stability and confidence and security.

Devin Schadt [00:51:53]:
Where's that come from? My identity is I'm the Son of God. God the Father is my father, and I'm his son, and that's all that matters. Trusting sons, sons who trust God the Father become trustworthy fathers.

Pat Millea [00:52:09]:
That they step into that identity. That's beautiful. Yeah. Well, you and I could talk about this for the next four hours, but I'm sure that you have lots of valuable things to be doing. Devin, has there been any kind of a challenge by choice that's come to mind for you of kind of a practical thing that people, particularly maybe fathers, could do in relationship to what we've been talking about?

Devin Schadt [00:52:32]:
Yeah, two things. So back, I think the kind of. The idea about relationships we were talking about earlier. Right. So personal transformation leads to relational transformation. Okay, so. So, like, there's a lot of people who focus on personal transformation, right? Whether it's their bodies, health, religion, prayer. So there's two things.

Devin Schadt [00:52:55]:
Focus on your personal transformation. Get right with God the Father every day. This is the one challenge every day. Just hit the deck, face to the ground, on your knees, Abba. Father, I trust you. I abandon everything to you. There's a great prayer by St. Charles de Foucauld.

Devin Schadt [00:53:12]:
It's on the Internet. It's the abandonment prayer. I pray it every day, is so powerful. But anyway, trust God the Father every day. Spend some time with him every day with Jesus Christ. That's the first thing. The second thing is let that personal transformation of your time with the Father come out. And then deliberately just try to find one way over the course of next week and maybe the week after and the week after, one way you can be the face or the voice or the touch of God the Father, intentionally, whether it's a daughter, date, sun time, whether it's one word of affirmation a day for a week to your children.

Devin Schadt [00:53:47]:
Whether it's just complimenting your wife in front of the kids, hey, kids, isn't your mom hot? No, don't say, isn't your mom beautiful? But it's some kind of real tangible action that's very practical. And affirmation, attention, affection. These are the three A's. So affirmation, attention, affection. One of the three A's. Choose that. Do that with your kids for a week, three weeks. Watch what happens in your relation with them.

Devin Schadt [00:54:20]:
At first you're gonna be like, you're weird. You're so, what are you doing? And then after about a month of it, they're like, man, I love my dad.

Pat Millea [00:54:27]:
Yeah.

Devin Schadt [00:54:28]:
And then they start, like, thinking, maybe I can actually talk to my dad about my problems, you know? And that's what you want to do. Trust is the basis of every relationship. You start doing this stuff, your kid will start to come to you with, dad, I got a porn problem. Dad, there's this boy who's been, you know, wanting more from me, and I don't know what to do. You know, dad, all the girls are dressing this way. I'm so tempted. I want to. But what do you.

Devin Schadt [00:54:52]:
Can you. What do you think about that? You know?

Pat Millea [00:54:55]:
Yeah.

Devin Schadt [00:54:56]:
What we want to do is we want to cultivate this trust at such a deep level that kids can come to us with anything and everything. And that's when they will love God the Father. And they will never leave the Catholic faith. They will never leave their religion. They will always love the Lord because it's all founded on trust. The God you represent is a God they love.

Pat Millea [00:55:18]:
That's perfect. That's perfect. And I love that, that kind of practical approach. You were talking about taking the love of God the Father to practical words of affirmation and affection with our wives and our children. It's one of the things that. If I can lean over here, I've got my copy of Custos right here. And one of the things I love about this particular St. Joseph consecration that you wrote, Devin, is how.

Pat Millea [00:55:41]:
Excuse me, how incredibly practical it is. So there are daily reflections and meditations, just like with any kind of standard 33 day or whatever consecration. But. But there's this whole list of daily commitments that you invite men into that just speak to, like the embodied nature of the human Father. And just the ways that our consecration through St Joseph, our relationship with God the Father, they're not merely internal experiences. These are meant to be external embodiments of what's happening this conversion on the inside. So you said that personal transformation and the relational transformation is just, it's. It's powerful, it's significant.

Pat Millea [00:56:21]:
Dude, can we pray for the men out there, Devin? Is that okay? Let's do that.

Devin Schadt [00:56:25]:
Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:56:25]:
In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Devin Schadt [00:56:28]:
Amen.

Pat Millea [00:56:31]:
God our Father. Abba, we put ourselves in your hands wherever we're coming from, whoever we are, especially for us fathers. Lord, we are on one hand not worthy of the call that you've given us to be image of your love to your people. And on the other hand, we are worthy because you have made us worthy and you have invited us and equipped us in this mission. So, Lord, we pray for all fathers, for those who are struggling most, for those who are most in line with your will, for all of us that we can live into this identity here on this earth and that we can be united perfectly with your fatherhood in your kingdom. We ask for the prayers of St. Joseph, of all the great holy fathers throughout the generations. And we ask all this, Father, in your name.

Pat Millea [00:57:25]:
Amen.

Devin Schadt [00:57:26]:
Amen.

Pat Millea [00:57:26]:
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Devin Schadt. What a blessing, man. Where can people connect with you? Track down books info on the fathers of St. Joseph. How can they touch base with you?

Devin Schadt [00:57:39]:
Yes. So fathers of St. Joseph, our website, .org, fathersofstjoseph.org, you can reach me at devon@fathersofstjoseph.org and we've got just tons of resources. We've got a weekly blog I post probably three times a week on that. I'm on the Catholic Gentleman once a week with long form video and then gosh, there's just tons of resources and, and the latest one is the rule, which so thankful for. And that one's really like bite sized chunks. It's like, man, I think a lot of guys can take that in and digest that. But anyway, that's where you can find me and hope to hear from them.

Pat Millea [00:58:21]:
Beautiful. That's great. Absolutely. And we'll put all those links in the show notes down below for you listeners as well, so you can track those easily. Thanks so much for listening. You can follow along with us as always thiswholelifepodcast.com you can follow us on Instagram or Facebook @thiswholelifepodcast, send us a message or shoot us a text in the show notes down below. Let us know how this conversation strikes you as a father or as someone who is in relationship with a father, and we would love to hear especially thoughts about future episodes. Kenna and I were just talking last week.

Pat Millea [00:58:54]:
We've got the rest of 2025 pretty much built out, but looking into 2026. Very excited to to hear what's on your mind and what kinds of conversations, what kinds of guests you want to hear from. So let us know. Devin, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your mission, for your work, and thank you for listening. We'll see you next time on this Whole Life. This Whole Life is a production of The Martin center for Integration. Visit us online at thiswholelifepodcast.com.

Devin Schadt [00:59:40]:
But I'm I'm going out on hunting trips with him or I'm taking him to Menards. I love Menards. You know, I'm

Pat Millea [00:59:46]:
God bless Menards. Yep.

Devin Schadt [00:59:49]:
Yes. Yes.