My destination was St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Fullerton, Maryland, where hundreds of men were gathering for the Standing Strong conference, hosted by the Catholic Men’s Fellowship of Maryland. I had been looking forward to it for weeks, but as I made the drive in, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.
What I found was something rare. Something powerful. Something I needed more than I realized.
There was something quietly moving about the way the volunteers with genuine smiles greeted us. It felt as if they understood we hadn’t just shown up for an event, but to be changed.
Inside the fellowship hall, as the smell of donuts and coffee filled the air, and the sound of conversation filled the space. Men embraced. Old friends reconnected, and new friends were made There was a current of excitement that wasn’t showy or loud that felt, instead, grounded, like men who knew they were about to enter into something deeper.
The Sound of Men Singing
Over 750 seats in the church were filled. As the band started playing worship music, something remarkable happened. The sound of men’s voices, raw and unpolished, honest and strong, rose up like a wave. There is something ancient and seemingly sacred in the sound of men singing to God. It echoes through Scripture and history, through monks in stone chapels and soldiers in the trenches. That morning, it echoed through a suburban Maryland church with brick walls, and it was beautiful.
The theme of the day was as clear as it was challenging: Stand strong. Not with clenched fists, but with open hearts. Not by fighting with the weapons of the world, but by laying down your life in love.
The Lineman and the Long Road Back
Matt Birk, former center for the Baltimore Ravens, took the stage with the quiet charisma of someone who has stood on the world’s biggest platforms and has nothing left to prove. Rather than begin with a polished introduction, he simply smiled and said, “I’m a mess. That’s why I’m here.”
It was disarming, and it was his truth. What followed was not a speech but a story. A story of being raised Catholic in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Sunday Mass was never optional. A story of Harvard, then the NFL, and of ascending every ladder the world had to offer, only to discover that none of it could satisfy the soul.
“At the height of my success,” Birk said, “I was dying on the inside.”
His return to faith wasn’t sudden. It started with a simple invitation to go to church. The woman who offered that invitation eventually became his wife, and that quiet yes began a slow but steady reawakening. When he first stepped into church again, he didn’t feel peace or comfort. He felt shame. He realized he had wandered far from the life he was made to live.
And yet, God met him there.
Birk’s honesty was powerful. His words gave the men in the room permission to look honestly at their own spiritual lives. He wasn’t condemning. He was naming something most of us knew intimately.
One moment in his story stood out. As a freshman at Harvard, Birk mistook a beautiful building on campus for a Catholic church. It wasn’t. “That tells you how little I really knew about my faith,” he said. But his story is not about being lost. It is about being found.
God, he said, used teammates, books, and fatherhood to guide him home. He discovered that Jesus is not a distant figure or a moral teacher, but a living person who calls each of us by name.
“We’re not made for comfort,” he repeated. “We’re made for greatness.”
The Battle We’re In
If Birk offered a story of personal conversion, Mark Hartfiel, a veteran of Catholic men’s ministry and co-founder of That Man Is You, raised the stakes. His message reminded us that the spiritual life is not simply about belief, but about battle.
Hartfiel, did not ease us into the topic. Rather, he began with a story about a Navy SEAL on assignment in Colombia. At one point during the mission, the SEAL was confronted by armed men who demanded everything he carried. He handed over his wallet, his phone, and his watch. But when they asked for his wedding ring, he hesitated. In that instant, he remembered that his number one mission in life was to get his wife and future children to heaven. The clarity of that mission gave him courage. He held firm. The attackers ran.
That, Hartfiel said, is the kind of focus that every Catholic man needs.
“We are in a battle,” he told us. “Not metaphorically. Spiritually. Every day. And if we do not know how to fight, or are unwilling to fight, we risk losing everything.”
Drawing on Scripture, Hartfiel painted the image of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane As soldiers approached, carrying torches. Instead of hiding or resisting, Jesus walked toward them, initiating the encounter. “Whom do you seek?” he asked. And when they replied, “Jesus of Nazareth,” He answered, “I am He.” The soldiers fell back.
This was no accident. It was divine power. But Christ did not wield it the way the world does. He surrendered Himself. He chose the Cross.
Too often, Hartfiel explained, we fight with worldly weapons. We retaliate with anger. We defend ourselves with pride. But Jesus calls us to a different kind of strength. The strength to suffer, to forgive, and to love with self-sacrificial clarity.
He challenged each of us to pick up the Rosary, to pray intentionally for our families, and to reclaim the spiritual authority we too often abandon. “If you’re not praying for your children by name, who is?” he asked. And again, the room was quiet.
A Brotherhood Renewed
As the morning session wrapped and we stood once more to sing, I looked around at the men beside me. These were not perfect men. They were not trying to be. What they were seeking was something better. Something higher. There was no bravado in that sanctuary. Only a shared understanding that we were created for more, and that together, we might find our way.
This is only a glimpse of what the day held. The real story was written in hundreds of quiet moments, conversations over coffee, prayers whispered in the pews, hands lifted in worship, shoulders squared with new resolve. It was a day of healing, of conviction, of renewal.
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Like so many archdiocesan programs of evangelization, the Standing Strong conference for men is made possible in part through funds raised by the Annual Appeal for Catholic Ministries. That might sound like a line tucked into a budget report, but its impact is far from ordinary. Your gift to the Appeal helps make these encounters possible. It helps gather men together for worship, confession, fellowship, and truth. It helps rebuild families, parishes, and communities.
