The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - How a Man Battles Cancer (with Matthew James Christoff)

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

When you hear the word cancer, everything changes. Matthew James Christoff joins Jeff to share his experience walking through cancer for the third time. In this candid and hope-filled episode, Matthew shares how his first diagnosis 25 years ago led to a life-changing encounter with God, his conversion to the Catholic faith, and a powerful mission. Matthew James Christoff is a Catholic convert who focuses on helping the Church recognize and respond to the Catholic “man-crisis” through The New Emangelization Project, EveryCatholicMan.com, the Every Catholic Man Podcast and CatholicManNight.com. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

This podcast is brought to you by Ascension. To discover even more free Catholic podcasts, videos, and resources, to help you live your faith every day, visit ascensionpress.com. Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is episode 471, How a Man Battles Cancer. Welcome to the show this week. I'm Jeff Kavans. Thank you again for joining me. And today I've got a special guest for you. We don't have a lot of guests on this show. We always find something to talk about. But you know, there comes a point where you meet someone who has gone through something that you realize others need to hear. Others need to learn. Others need an example to follow. And I'm going to be talking today about a topic that maybe you've come face to face with. or somebody in your family or a friend at work, somebody who is battling cancer. Could be you. So, you know, when people find out that they have cancer, it can really shake up their world.

The show is not about me this week, but I'll tell you, I have heard that word before. Melanoma, and about 11 years ago. And I know what I felt like when I heard that and I thought about the battle up ahead. and the Lord was so good. But I've got to tell you, there is an art to walking with cancer. There is an art to being that witness of Jesus, that disciple of Jesus, even after you've heard difficult news. Joining me today on the show is a good friend.

He's been on the show a number of years ago. He's been dedicated to men's ministry and is one of the, just a handful of guys that I know who have really moved the dial in men's ministry in North America. And by that I mean in the United States and Canada as well. He served on many boards for men's ministry. And he has one of the most rich websites about studying about men and ministry, listening to stories about men and ministry. I want to welcome you to that site. It's called Every Catholic Man.com. My guest is Matthew James Christoph. And he has written an amazing book for 2006.

And it's called Becoming a Happier Catholic Man. I would suggest you seek it out. We'll put some notes in the show notes for you if you want to get a hold of that. Matthew, welcome to the show. Jeff, how are you? Good to be here. Good. Cancer bro.

Yes. Yes. We are with cancer bros, right? Well, you know, I remember when I went through it myself and after surgery and everything, I said to the doctor, he says, I think we got everything. And I said, so I'm cured. And he says, well, we don't use that word cured. I said, well, I will.

But yeah, it is a little bit of a shock for people when they hear those words. So thank you for joining us. Yeah, so glad to be here. Yeah, it's going to be good. I want to talk about something that you've gone through in the last number of years with cancer. And I think the purpose of this show is really for you to tell your story and how you dealt with it and are dealing with it right now with the hopes that that men and women would be encouraged if they've heard this news themselves.

Yeah, yeah. Bring us back to the beginning and just talk to me about how you first heard about cancer. Yeah. Well, you know, I got to go back 25 years ago. And, you know, I was living a life of great busyness, working in the corporate world, flying all over the world, making tons of money, beautiful wife, children, everything was going great and I wasn't feeling good. And it took about six months to figure out that I had cancer. And it's important to understand that that was back in the days when I was spiritual, but not religious.

And of course, you know, I think very differently about that now. But I took it standing up, right? I like, oh, okay, you know, I'm an engineer, MBA, problem solver. We'll figure this out and we'll get through it and everything will go great. And, you know, I went from getting a diagnosis at 3.30 in the afternoon to surgery at 8 a.m. the next morning. And, you know, I joked about it. And we had a very optimistic view of what was going to happen. But as things progress and cancer, depending on the type you have, can be pretty grueling. the treatment. I mean, the chemotherapy was very demanding and very debilitating. And, you know, as things

were progressing, the news was getting worse and worse. And, you know, it looks like your lungs are never going to function again. And you're at 40 percent. And the recovery doesn't look promising because you're not tolerating the drugs. I must admit at that point, I cried. I hadn't cried up to then. This was after about four weeks. And, you know, I went into my bathroom and we had a very nice house and had heated floors. And I laid down on the floor and I was praying. And I had this life-changing encounter with God. And, you know, you can speak of these kinds of things to people. And another person, if they've had the experience, they go, oh, I get that. And if you haven't had the experience, nothing that I could ever say could convince you the reality of it. But the reality was that

God made him presence very clear to me. And he didn't tell me what the outcome was going to be, but that the outcome was going to be okay for me. You weren't Catholic at this point. I was not Catholic. No, I had married a Lutheran Synod bride. You know, we were together from the time we were 14 and now we're at 47 years. Any event, I had resisted.

We'd raised the kids kind of in the Christian church, but I was like, you know, not, I didn't believe it. and I believed in God, but I just didn't believe in all the religious stuff. Anyhow, it was a long kind of process. I survived. I was left with kind of a chronic damage due to the chemotherapy. And as I was trying to sort out what this all meant,

God called me to the Catholic Church. The last thing I ever had on my mind. And when I, what had happened? It was, you know, you're a Catholic and you didn't know it. And I'm going, this can't be right, God. You can't really be calling me to be Catholic because, you know, I don't believe any of that stuff. No Catholic background, really.

No Catholic background. It's a bit of exposure because we had our kids at one of the very prominent Catholic schools here. And, you know, along the way, I'd met some Catholic guys that impress me, right? And I'm going, you know, these guys could do anything in the world and they are doing great things to the world. And they also go to church every day, daily mass.

And I was like, what the heck is this? any event, I survived and came into the church and was called to try to help address the Catholic man crisis in the church. You've been doing that for years now. Yeah. How many years have you been involved in that? It's like 16 years now. Yeah.

So I'm in the church. This is my 20th anniversary. And then, you know, I spent four years kind of becoming Catholic and trying to understand it more and being mentored by a number of Catholic men. And that led me to this realization that we have a real. crisis. So this process went on and, you know, I thought cancer was behind me, right? Well, six years ago, I wasn't feeling good again. And I'm like, gosh, what's going on here? Anyhow, long story short, it turns out that I was within hours of death due to a massive

thrombosis. Thrombosis is basically when your veins and your arteries clog up, right? So I was near tissue death. And it was very different experience this time, right? Because I had such great faith in God and hope in God. And, you know, I was prepared. It didn't look good. It didn't look good at all. But, you know, it's a bit of a shock. And, you know, I went through it.

And, you know, miraculously, I was given more time. And these last five or six years have been very, very fruitful. And a great blessing. Well, fast forward to three weeks ago. 2026. 2026. And, you know, I'm going in for some routine stuff. And they go, you have cancer.

And I was just like, oh. This is only like three weeks ago. This is three weeks ago. So that was on a Thursday. I went out and told my wife. And by the way, along the way, she has been received into the church. And she's on her seventh year. I remember it.

You were there when she was. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that. I saw the smile on your face. I'm still smiling. The joy in your eyes. There's not, my brothers and sisters, you're out there.

If you are living in a marriage where your other spouse isn't yet in the church, it can be challenging. But, I mean, I would just tell you, have faith and pray. And God works in mysterious ways. So this blessing of us being in the faith together has been amazing. And, you know, three weeks ago, we're like, oh, it's happening again, you know. And so then I'm immediately in surgery. And so I've thought a lot about this, you know, how do you deal with cancer and I'm happy to talk more about it. Sure.

Well, I think there's a number of ways that people do approach difficult news, whether it's cancer, loss of a job, loss of a loved one, whatever it might be. And one is kind of that stoic view, you know, just sort of bear with it, you know, and this will pass and things will get better. And it doesn't always work that way just to do nothing. another alternative is that you can deny it. You can act like it's not there and that it's not reality. Or you can face this head on with all that God has given you to face the difficulties in your life. And the reason I wanted you to share with all of my friends is because that's what you're doing. You are facing this as a man, as a man of God.

And that's what I want to talk about is that right, right. When you hear that news, tell me what you did after that. The immediate first thing was I just said, huh, okay? I went out of the place and I talked to my bride and I go, you know, I got cancer again. And she looked at me and she said, huh. How must be some kind of spiritual word. It's just like pondering, right? Because there's a shock to it.

You know, that, in the way I describe it, it's not like horror. or the reaction that you can have when something really bad happens, it's more like, oh, this is interesting. I need to understand this better because God is going to do something with it, right? You know, there's all kinds of psychological models out there about how people deal with grave crisis, right? And it starts with denial. I mean, the psychological models say, you know, it's denial, it's anger,

it's bargaining, you're trying to work your way out of it somehow. Now, then there's depression and finally acceptance. And as a Catholic, and if you're living a faithful life, you bypass all that. It doesn't mean that some of that's not going to show up, but you immediately go to the next step, which is God, right? You know, there's that initial shock. And even after, like we're three weeks into this and I start treatment next week, there's still a little bit of that shock going, how can this be happening again? I mean, and I'm starting to get used to it,

but there's still this shock. You know, a lot of people have older siblings, right? And older siblings can be pretty funny sometimes. So I go to my sister who's older than me, and I said, you know, I didn't have this on my dance card. She doesn't miss a beat and she goes, well, evidently you did. Yeah, so it is on the dance card. And, you know, that dealing with reality, I think is important.

But, you know, I think the first step is really like, an issue of justice. Like, this isn't fair. Right? And coming to grips with God has divine justice and this is perfect justice. And by the way, he's got something for you in this, right? That next step is really reconnecting with God. Right. So you have that shock. Then it's reorienting yourself to God. And I think what really helps me is I've got a very deep, and this is part of my faith life, which is I am constantly remembering. and looking at the dominion of God, which is God's ability and control over all things

because he's the creator, he's got divine knowledge, he's got divine power. It's his creation and we're part of it. And then God's Providence, right? Which is God's got a plan. And it's a beautiful plan. And it's a great plan.

If you don't have cancer yet or your personal appointment with pain hasn't showed up yet, let me just tell you, it's coming. It's going to come in a way you don't. We don't have those crosses. Yeah, it's going to come in a way you don't expect. Start to meditate on dominion of God and the provenance of God because when the cancer does it or whenever that crisis occurs in your life,

you can quickly go back to that habit that you have, that experience, that knowing that you have, and it grounds you. So instead of going, oh, gosh, spending too much time and why did this happen to me? And boy, this really stinks. It's like, wow, what is God doing here? I think, Matthew, when people hear about, they have cancer like you, like I did years ago and others,

is that everything in their life changes at that point. Before they hear the word cancer, it's like the world is my oyster. I can do anything I want, you know, and there's so many opportunities. But when you hear that word, it's like a lens on a camera goes narrow. And there's a lot of things that are not important anymore. When you heard that word three weeks ago, what suddenly wasn't important and what was important in your life. It's interesting because in the state of my life, that part hasn't really changed that much because

I've been through it twice now and my life is more oriented around God. And so this happened earlier probably the first time you heard. Oh yeah. Well, yeah, it's like, you know, there's a whole thing. Like what happens to my vocation? Like how am I going to help my family survive? I mean, there's a lot of stuff that you go through. You know, the last time with the thrombosis, it was more of, first of all, I don't know if I'm going to be here.

So I got as much as possible get things settled, right, you know, to prepare. Not out of fear, but just out of prudence. And then once the initial, like, it doesn't look like this is going to be terminal, then it was like a quickening of, I have things I think I'm being called. do and I need to get on with them as best I can. So there's been a lot of fruit because of that in the last several years. For now, you know, as I'm looking at this, and the prognosis is positive. You know, the treatment plan is going to be grueling, but the prognosis is positive. I'm working every day. You know, I have projects that, you know, I'm trying to serve God and bring to others, but I'm also being balanced. You know, one of the things you learn when you go through this is that

if you try to go through life with the same level of activity and span of attention or a zone of interest, I mean, this might be what you're getting at with this kind of focusing. There's some things that I'm just not going to think about the next year, probably. I'm not thinking a lot about politics or, you know, challenges in the world that exist. I'm going to be really focused on, you know, staying close to God and loving my family. family and doing my best from a health standpoint to cooperate with the healing that's occurring with the medicine that I'm going to be working with. So, yeah, you do narrow.

But, I mean, overall, this doesn't feel like a grave shift, right? Because I've been through it. I understand what happens. Yeah. Well, what we can do is I need to take a break. And when I come back, I like to talk to you about some of the specifics as to how you deal with this. I'm talking about the Word of God. I'm talking about the sacraments of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Your marriage habits of the day that, you know, you've heard that phrase before,

all hands on deck. Right. I want to know what those hands are on deck in your life to deal with this because some of my friends are hearing it for the very first time and they are very, very afraid. You know, and I remember Archbishop Fulton Sheen saying one time that the number one, fear in life is death. And it's the greatest mystery. What if I die? And I'd like to know how you deal with those thoughts. I know what Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, which he was, is very clever. And he talked about how do you deal with the fear of dying? You practice for it. You practice for it. You die daily. And I think that's part of your formula. So I'm looking forward to hearing that. So we're going to be back in just a moment. I'm talking with Matthew James Christoph about how

to deal with cancer. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. I am Father Columba, Jordan and Franciscan friar of the renewal living here in Ireland. This lent, I'm partnering with Ascension to bring you Crooks, a set of daily challenges and videos in the Ascension app. Starting Ash Wednesday, we'll take on four challenges each day that remind us of the cross of Christ. One, reading scripture, two, praying the examined prayer, three, doing one workout or exercise and four, and dietary fast of your choice. Nothing extreme. It's about stepping into small daily challenges that rub up against our weakness so we can learn

to meet God in those moments and rely on Him alone. So here's the invitation. Join me every day this Lent in the Ascension app. Get ready for a Lent that stretches you, challenges you, and draws you closer to God. Download and subscribe to the Ascension. app to get started today. God bless you. I'll see you soon. Welcome back talking with a good friend today. And we're talking about how do you deal with cancer? Because you know there are so many people today in America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, UK, Philippines, everywhere where this

show is heard, they're hearing that C word for the first time. And it shakes people's world. So how does our faith play into this? Before the break we heard from Matthew a little bit about just the story, you know, and kind of hearing it and adjusting to it. But let's get into the specifics now, Matthew, about all hands on deck. What are the hands on deck? What would you say to someone who is hearing this for the first time, not hypothetical, but you're drawing from your life and your experience? Sure. Well, the first is prayer. And, uh, drawing close to your loved ones in prayer. And there is a bit of an art, now that I've done this three times, to explaining to family that there's something in the terms of life and death that is occurring.

And the best way to do is to pray really deeply about it. And then to take a very individualistic approach because people are different. Like children are different, right, in how they hear things. So, you know, calling, explaining, describing. And then, you know, we talked a little bit about this earlier before we were on the air. But, you know, if you think about it, some people try to take these kinds of crises and keep them personal. We don't want anybody to know that we're vulnerable or we don't want to upset anybody or we don't want people to think, oh, he's the guy with cancer, right? Jesus doesn't die in private.

Jesus has a public death and why, right? Well, because this kind of illness can be a great opportunity for evangelization. When somebody hears that somebody's ill, they naturally have an outpouring of compassion and it's a channel for other people to love, right? So keeping it too close to yourself doesn't give them that opportunity. But the other thing it does, it helps others. remember, oh, ashes to ashes and dust to dust, you know, I could get this. That requires a person to start to think about their life a little bit differently. So expressing this is important.

I think the other thing after you've thought about your family, it's to reach out to the people that you know. Hopefully you've built a band of Catholic brothers. If you're a Catholic list. I got a text from you right away. You did. And a lot of other people did too. People that I know. and I care about and that love me. Why, right? Well, there's this intercessary prayer that occurs, right? And so people are praying for me. And, you know, you were actually, I think you were in Israel and you told me you were going

to pray for me along with others at the River, River Jordan. What a great consolation. So, you know, you're calling on these prayers. You're giving people an opportunity to demonstrate their faith. So I'm a strong believer in explaining it to people and in helping other people. understand it. Sometimes it's easy when you get busy to not keep your daily disciplines of prayer up, right? Before you get into the daily discipline, let me just make a comment on what you just said. It just came up in my mind. I think you're so right in that we share with those we love and those

that we can count on to pray with us, to be a part of this struggle, you know, that we're going through. And it reminds me of what Paul said to the Colossians in Colossians 124 when he said, I rejoice in my suffering for your sake. And I fill up in my body, that which is lacking in the body of Christ. You know, what's lacking in the sufferings of Christ? And St. Augustine was asked, well, what could possibly be lacking in the sufferings of Christ? And his answer was the suffering of the mystical body, not the mystical individual, the mystical body of Christ, is that we don't do most of what we do alone.

we do it in a family, we do it in a body. And I can tell you, I used to be a Protestant pastor for 12 years, and I can tell you what the response was of family members who found out that a dear loved one was keeping something private all this time because they didn't want other people to be bothered by it. And after it came out, their response was, I wish you would have told me about it. I wanted to help you. The thought of you going this alone is more painful than it would have been for us to joint hands with you and hold you and hug you and pray for you. Oh, we have a joint good friend,

Jeff, who he's been through a lot of things. And he likes to say, I just am open to allowing other people to be Christ to me. Oh, beautiful. It's beautiful. And I mean, if you want to think about it selfishly, and that's not how I think about it, but intercessory prayer is not benign. It's fruitful, right? So if a lot of people are praying for you, this draws graces to you. You. you know, you may not be the one that survives the cancer, but along the way, that grace is going to help you. Then you become, Matthew, as the one who is struggling with the cancer and people are praying for you.

You become, in a way, an intermediary in that you're telling your friends and the world, I'm not the object of this. Christ is, that he be glorified in all that we do. And so people can work with you in ultimately, God is good. glorified in everything that we do. Right. This is about evangelization, like everything. The last thing Jesus tells us is go and make disciples. And, you know, I think everything you do, especially things that are high impact, like, are you going to die or not? That's pretty high impact. I mean, don't get much higher on that, on earth at least. That's the perfect opportunity

to help draw others. And people, you know, if you've lived a life of faith and you're trying to live the zealous Catholic life, God will give you the graces to be an excellent example, right? And I remember when I first went through cancer, I wanted to show my kids how to suffer. Like I was very ignorant. I wasn't formed, but I was formed enough to know, you know, I want to show them how you heroically face death. And that was more of a, you know, invidicus, right? I am the master of my fate, you know, kind of thing.

Now it's obviously more mature and more true in that. it's about suffering and drawing close to Christ in the cross and living as a Catholic man and showing how a Catholic man lives his faith. Yeah, we've heard that phrase before, Offer It Up, you know, and if you've never heard that before, it goes way back. I remember my mother talking about it, which it typically meant, get out of the kitchen and cooking, you know. Go offer it up.

But that's what you have done over these years as you offer it up. How do you, practically speaking, how do you do that? Yeah. Well, we have something in the church called indulgences, right? And most people don't know much about them. But in essence, if we're offering something up, a sacrifice, a mortification for the good of another, we can actually affect them, right? God, you will use those graces built up through Christ.

And, you know, typically, you know, often we think about people in purgatory, you know, to suffer and to offer these indulgences up. And the church can grant those, right? She's got this reservoir of Christ's merit that she's given oversight of. And we don't know exactly how it all works. But what we do know is that suffering doesn't have to be meaningless. It can actually have huge power and impact on others. So how do you do it?

It can be really micro. Like, I have a deep pain today. I do have a deep pain today, right? I'm offering that up for those poor souls that don't know Jesus yet. So this is an act of faith. It's an act of faith and it's an active. And your will. Turning and it gives suffering meaning, right?

So Adam and Eve, you know, you hear about Adam and Eve, right? They sin, they get cast out of the garden. They're given this suffering, right? You know, sweat of the brow, work the dust, you know, trouble and childbirth. and you look through the whole range of salvation history, and suffering doesn't have a lot of meaning until you get to the cross. And the cross teaches us that suffering is redemptive. The worst thing that anybody could ever imagine is killing God.

And yet even that most terrible thing and what our Lord went through, not only all the physical suffering, but the idea that I'm going to die on the cross and lots of people are not going to follow me. right, that agony that he must have felt, which is infinite, right? He's dying for all the sins of the world that ever be. Even that has great power for redemption and resurrection. And our little cancers that we have and our little challenges that we have, we can enter into that cross with God, right?

You know, not to make light of cancer or any illness, we'd never do that. when you look at the life that we have on earth, 50 years, 60, 70, 80, maybe 100 years on earth, it's very little time compared to eternity. And what you do in this little slice of what God gave us as time, we can do incredible things with it. And it's not all just to build a big house and do what you want in your own kingdom and so forth. This life really is the stage whereby eternal. is affected, not only in your life, but other people's lives. And so when you found out three

weeks ago, cancer is back. What I'm hearing you say is that it's time to work. It isn't time to sit back and pity yourself. It's not time to feel sorry for yourself, although these things can creep in, I know firsthand, but it is a time for both hands on the plow. There's work to be done here. And the focus of that work of offering up your suffering in union with Christ for other people is incredibly valuable. And you may not have this opportunity again. You can't let any opportunity go by and especially a big opportunity, right? God, you know, sometimes is in the background in your life, right? You're going through everything.

You're working. You're raising children. You're doing all this. And God kind of can seem in the background. Every once in a while, he breaks through and goes, all right, are you, awake now. And cancer is one of those things that when you hear it, you do wake up. So in terms of work, I mean, I think it accelerates some of the things I'm thinking about from a personal standpoint. You know, as every person, I have multiple flaws, right, and multiple tendencies to

sin. And I'm picking out some of those and thinking really deeply about, especially as it's amazing, God has given me this great lent. I have all my mortification built in because I'm going through treatment for six weeks, just totally lines up with Lent and Easter. I can't believe it. How great is that? But, you know, taking this period to really look at some of the things that I want to be better at, right? To be more virtuous. And I think that's another real part of this.

I think the other thing, too, is no matter how well you are doing in terms of your faith, it is a battle. I mean, there is the agony in the garden. Jesus goes through that. And there will be ups and downs as you go through, you know, the dealing with any of these kinds of things, any kind of major illness, the death of a loved one, the loss of employment, you know, the breakdown of relationships. You go through these cycles and you got to recognize that there are going to be troughs. Right.

And when you have those troughs, we know Jesus, right? And he says, I'm here. I'll help you carry that. What about mass? Going to mass. though one of the advantages we have as Catholics is that we have access to the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus in the mass.

It's a healing mass. Many people are healed in the mass. There's a difference between the body and blood of Jesus and just going to a service somewhere. What is it in the mass that you find particularly helpful in a situation where you heard you have cancer? Well, I received Jesus. You know?

I mean, it's not. a figurative thing. It's not a symbolic thing. It's Jesus. And where? It's in my body. Well, where's the cancer? Well, it's in my body. So that's really powerful. I would tell you some of the other things that I, you know, you look at the basics of the faith and those are the things you throw yourself into. So like daily prayer. Practicing the presence of God. The sacraments, right? Getting to confession. Getting the sacrament of anointing. Right? The Eucharist. Eucharistic adoration. All these things are really powerful. And I feel, I mean, sorrow for those that don't have these things, right? I mean, not only because I know they're real and I know that God actually works through these sacraments to help us, but the fact that others just don't have access, you know, they haven't accepted it. Everybody could have access if they wanted. It couldn't be easier to be Catholic. I tell you the other thing, too, We have the indwelling spirit, right?

We have the Holy Spirit that's dwelling inside of us. And we don't get to heaven without the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Now, most people, in my experience, you know, we just don't talk about that enough about what these gifts are and how they reinforce. But there's seven gifts to the Holy Spirit. And I pray for each one of them. So the gift of fortitude, right? You need fortitude when you're going through something. You sure do.

Tenacity. And it's helpful. And the other thing that's, I think, you know, if you're looking for evidence of God in your life during this crisis, because you can feel like you're alone, right? You can fall into that. That is true. Yeah.

And I can tell you, like, you know, despite the fact I'm sound very happy right now, I am happy and it's been a great joy already. I mean, there are a lot of points in church. There's periods where it's just like I'm down. I'm just, I'm physically. down, not afraid. I don't know how to explain it, but it's just kind of like a somberness that overcomes turning to God in those times and recognizing that the spirit can move within you is really helpful. And the other thing that's amazing is if you're paying attention, and this is

one of the things I would tell every single person, look for evidence of God's consolation in what's happening and you're going to find it everywhere. Somebody's going to call you when you didn't think they were going to call you. Someone's going to recognize you or they're going to say something kind where you wouldn't have thought they would. Or you're going to get some insight that you go, oh, my goodness, now I understand. And it's almost like there's this old story of the kid. He's going out to the farm for the first time and he sees this giant pile of manure and he jumps in. He just starts digging in the manure and like, what are you doing? The farmer, He says, well, with all this manure here, there's got to be a pony somewhere.

You know, there's a lot of ponies in the manure when it, when you're dealing with something like this. Yeah, you mentioned about all the great things that you have available to you as a Catholic. Adoration, going to adoration, if you can, go to adoration, mass, the rosary, prayer, the communion of saints, you're not alone. We have a wonderful Pope, Pope, Pope Leo, leading the church. and he's a father to us. You know, the scriptures say that we've been given everything we need to live a godly life. We have everything. And when you said that, it brought me back to years ago when I was training for the

grandma's marathon up in Duluth. And I went up there and they did something that I had never heard of. They were carboloading. They were having spaghetti the night before and getting carbohydrates into their system so that they could run the race the best they could. And what I'm sort of sensing here is that you're saying, load them up. You got so much available to you. Load it up and get on board and take advantage of everything that God has given you.

And avoid, you know, a pity party. Avoid isolating yourself. Welcome help. Thank people for praying for you. But certainly your beautiful bride has been in the church for seven years. Marriage, in your marriage, that has been a consolation for you. And a great help. Oh, absolutely. And she's seen me in action with helping parents die. And it's kind of all hands on deck, right? So whoever's suffering, you do that. And the kids are amazing.

Three of the four were able to make it up. The weekend, you know, like from Thursday night to Saturday, had one of my sons flew in from Hong Kong, right? I mean, it's just crazy. So you got to go, wow, this is great. You're a rich man. I am a rich man. Thanks me to God. The other one couldn't mate because they're in the armed forces, so it was not possible. But I think the other thing, so, you know, that smorgasbord, like, give me everything, give me one of everything, and I'm going to keep coming back. It's all you can eat. You can't run out. Clearing the decks of the things that aren't urgent or are important. Or they are an obstacle, like going to confession and dealing with it. Yes, stuff that could be an obstacle. Yeah, well, you know, certainly go to

confession, but things that you can get off your plate. Right. You have a get out of jail free card when you have cancer because you go, well, I can't make it. I have cancer. You know, and I've had to do that, right? I have a number of things that were coming up where I had to just bow out and say, hey, I got to focus. And people understand this. You need to give yourself the opportunity to have time for all these prayer, sacraments, dwell time, just relax.

I think the other thing is the humor. I'm a big believer in humor and I've always did this from the first time I was ill I find things that make me laugh and I laugh and we joke you know not in a morbid way we joke about stuff so you know keeping a sense of humor

is really important because I think that that joy that we feel in humor is a foretaste of heaven and embracing that and experiencing it it's very I mean in what the what the medical community would tell you and the psychological community would tell you that actually laughter is actually healing. Yes, it is. It affects your body chemistry in a way that improves the

immune system. I think, you know, the other last thing, and I don't know how much more time we have, but thinking hard about your immune system, right, and doing the things that enhance your immune system and don't attract from it, right? So getting plenty of rest, staying very well hydrated, giving your body every chance that you can to have it cooperate with the healing that you're going through and the treatments that you're going through. Or marvellously made. Yes. And don't discount miracles either. I mean, ask for a miracle.

I think I've been the recipient of at least one. And, you know, God's got something in mind. And maybe it's some kind of miraculous healing. I hope it is. Well, I can't let you go quite yet because I do want to mention a work that you put together this last year for 2020. which is incredible. And you have put together a book, every Catholic man,

becoming a happier Catholic man in 20206, which you can get on board even now. And tell me about this. This is your Sunday and Feastay Gospel's Bible series. Yep. So, you know, most, and the background of the book, in essence,

it was designed for Catholic men to give them something to be drawn more deeply into the National Eucharistic Revival and giving them something they could do on a weekly basis as a starting point for understanding the Gospels. So the book is built around the Sunday Gospels and Feast Days and they're basically got two or three parts to it. The first is really inside baseball. What's really going on in the gospel reading for this Sunday?

And it's based on a synthesis of a lot of commentaries, but it's done in a way. that the average a guy can understand. Then it looks at, okay, in every word and every detail within the Gospels, there's something to lead you to be odd by Jesus. And so this book offers ways of thinking about the divinity, humanity, humanity, and mission of Jesus, which can help you become more odd by him. Why is that important? The more odd you are by Jesus, the more impressed you're going to be by him, the more

you're going to recognize that he's the Savior and that you need to be saved. And the better you're going to be able to explain to somebody your faith. Like, why do I follow Jesus? Well, you should be able to give as a Catholic man or a Catholic woman a three-minute talk on it. Like, this is why I follow Jesus. Not the generalized, oh, well, he's the Savior. It's like, no, but for me, you know, when he heals a man with dropsy, he makes 60 pounds of water disappear. Now that blows my mind.

Isn't that amazing? Yeah. You and I talked about this. So like a year ago, we were talking about the minutia, the details of healing and what had to happen. Yeah, what has to be true? A blind man sees. That is amazing, right? So this book tries to give some of that.

And then it gives two maxims, which are basically great thoughts. And they are drawn directly from the Gospels and two ideas that you can take away, incorporate in your life so you can become happier. It's linked into the catechism. You know, the catechism talks about every aspect of the gospel. You know, so you look to 865 paragraphs. You can link it back to the catechism. Sorry, the catechism links into the gospel. So you're linked into the catechism, kind of just in time catechesis,

to help you grow in happiness. And then there's prayers. I mean, you know, one of the things that I think we need to do better as men is we need to understand virtue better. and this book links you into virtue on a regular basis, the theological and cardinal virtues and all the sub-virtues, and also the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit. And you actively pray for them. This is a rich.

It is very rich. Every Sunday, men can engage the gospel, come to know Christ. And I would imagine that if a person has cancer, they're going to draw something from this book. And I imagine you are drawing from your own book right now. got some big endorsements here, Bishop Olmstead, you got Dr. Tim Gray, Father Larry Richards, Deacon Harold Burke Severs. You've got Devin Schott, Bob Schutz, Dr. Bob Schutz, good friend, Jesse Romero, and Sean Lynn and Canada. Boy, he's tearing it up. He is, isn't he? He's an amazing

guy. And so many more. And I would recommend this. If you're looking for something every week as a man to go deeper and you're struggling with something like sickness or you lost your job or whatever it might be. This may be what really grounds you. So how can people get a hold of this? Amazon.com. Just look at every Catholic man and you'll find it. And you got also a Lent Easter devotional for 2006.

Not too late to get in on that either. No. And this one I'm particularly excited about. Interestingly, when I wrote it, obviously I didn't know I'd be needing it as bad as I need it during this next let going through the cancer experience. But this is a daily devotion. It follows the same path, but really it tries to help men understand this idea of throwing off the old man and becoming the new man.

And it's based on the gospel readings and you, you know, you're able to go through it each day. And one of the things that's unique about this is that it's got a built-in devotional and journal. So, you know, you'll be asked questions every day based on the gospel readings and go, okay, how do I think about this in my life? Sure. So it's like a continual examine. And it's... There's so many good tools for Lent this year, including on Crux on Ascension.

And there's a wonderful tools. My advice is get some. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, thanks be to God. He's raising up people all over that are doing things. And, you know, I'm blessed that he's allowed me to do this. I pray, you know, some men will find it helpful. And your website is EveryCatholicman.com.

And that is the richest, and I'm not exaggerating here, it is the richest source of Catholic teaching for men and testimonies of men that are dealing with every aspect of life. It is a treasure and a well to draw from. You have put together an incredible website for men, every Catholicman.com. I mean, I heard you even did some updates on it. Yeah, yeah, it's completely relaunched this last year. And, you know, as things would have it, I'm sure glad I got it done last year instead of trying to do it this year. Because this year's going to be a little challenging.

But, you know, thanks be to God. And I would just say to everybody out there, no matter who you are or where you are in your life, God has created you on purpose and with a purpose. And you are uniquely tooled up to do something to build the kingdom. kingdom. I never would have expected that my life would turn out this way, nor that I would be doing this kind of work. But in retrospect, given how God trained me, I'm doing, I think, what he wants me to do. And that's true for every single person. Don't think that, you know, you're just the average Catholic. God has created you to build the kingdom. There's something he wants you to do. And the way to find

it is to pray. And particularly when you're in crisis, right? When God has delivered up that thing that's a challenge to you, you will find that purpose and meaning. And by the way, part of getting through, it's finding purpose and finding meaning. That's what gets you through these kinds of life events, which you don't ask for. But in retrospect, you realize, oh, my gosh, what a blessing. Yeah. Yeah. I look back in my life. And the times where I went through the biggest challenge like health were the biggest leaps forward for me. And I know it sounds funny when people hear it, but I would not trade those for anything. I got so much out of it. Matthew, James, Christop, thank you for spending time with us today and sharing your heart. And I'm sure there's

going to be some encouragement for people as they listen. And again, men, if you want a daily for Lent or all of 2006, the weekly gospel, or go to Amazon. Amazon. Yep. Thank you so much. Let's just close in prayer. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord Jesus, we thank you today for all of the men and women who are listening. And I pray, Lord, that you would work with everyone listening and show them how they can take aspects of what Matthew James Christoph has been talking about. And that, Lord, they will find that solace. They will find that peace.

they will find that purpose in you. I thank you that you said you would never leave us nor forsake us. You will never leave us as orphans, but you come to us as our shepherd, as our husband, as our healer. And we submit ourselves to you completely. Yes, Lord, we are open to miracles. And we are also open to our suffering being redemptive and meaningful, even for other people. And so, Lord, I pray with all of my brothers and sisters right now,

all of us who are struggling with some kind of suffering, we offer it up in union with your cross, and we even ask that the graces from our suffering would be applied to loved ones in our lives. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. My friend, I'll put some of the notes here for you in the show notes and all of the connections

to some of the things that we've been talking about. you have a great week.