Podcast
Claymore: Become Who You Are
Hosted by Jack · EN
What’s the meaning and purpose of my life? What is my true identity? Why were we created male and female? How do I find happiness, joy and peace? How do I find love that lasts, forever? These are the timeless questions of the human heart. Join Jack Rigert and his guests for lively insights, reading the signs of our times through the lens of Catholic Teaching and the insights of Saint John Paul ll to guide us.
Saint Catherine of Siena said "Become who you are and you would set the world on fire".
70episodes
Episodes
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#722 The Claymore Battle Plan, Discussing ACT Three: Commissioned for Battle! The Importance of Spiritual Formation
Apr 2400:27:02Tap to summarizeLove to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message”Evil rarely announces itself. More often it blends in, turns the temperature up one degree at a time, and convinces good people that numbness to sin is normal. Jack is with Claymore leader Dan McSweeney to talk plainly about the spiritual battle playing out in modern life and why so many young men feel drained, isolated, and stuck, even when everything looks “fine” on the surface. If you’re watching marriages crumble, seeing addiction, especially to p*rnogra$hy (not a typo) become common, or feeling your own heart go passive, this conversation puts words to what’s happening and why it matters.We also tackle a hard objection head-on: is the Church just a pile of rules? We walk through why the Ten Commandments are designed to set you free, not box you in. Freedom isn’t “anything goes.” Freedom is the ability to love without fear, build trust, protect your family, and live with integrity when the culture pushes the opposite. Jack shares how the Catechism begins with desire and authentic love, reframing Catholic faith as a love story rather than a scolding, and why that changes the way a man fights the battle between love and lust.Then we get practical. Claymore’s simple spiritual formation plan is built for real life: ten minutes of morning prayer before the phone, and a short nightly reading rhythm that can reshape your heart in 52 days. We talk about brotherhood, accountability, and why you should never try to do this alone, especially when spiritual resistance shows up after you start changing.Subscribe for more conversations on Catholic men’s formation and the spiritual battle, share this with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review to help more men find the Claymore Battle Plan. What part of the plan will you start this week?Sign up for the Claymore Newsletter, get notifications on Zoom calls and live events! https://claymoremiliteschristi.com/Email Jack with questions and comments to answer and discuss on future episides! jack@ClaymoreMilitesChristi.comSupport the show
Transcribe →#721 Implementing the Claymore 3-Step Battle Plan: Answering Your Questions!
Apr 2100:31:05Tap to summarizeLove to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message”Your first 10 minutes each morning are already shaping you. The only question is whether they belong to your phone or to God. Jack sits down with Jeff to answer your questions. We hear from parents, mentors, and young men who feel the urgency of the moment and want a simple way to get their hearts back, find a wife or learn how to better love the one they have, and finally, how to restore the culture and take back their country. We break down how the Claymore 3-Step Battle Plan Outline and the Claymore Battle Plan Handbook work together, why the plan moves from the individual human heart to marriage and family, and then outward into culture and civic life. If you’ve been looking for Catholic discipleship that’s practical, repeatable, and built for real life, we explain the “Claymore 10-Minute Morning Ritual” (knees before the phone) and the 10-5 rhythm that helps you build momentum without getting overwhelmed.We also go straight at the hard stuff: anxiety, loneliness, and addiction in a porn saturated culture. We talk about why “temptation is not a sin,” how to turn temptation into an invitation to pray, and why nobody wins this battle alone. Mentorship, walking with brothers, and the grace of the Sacraments are key themes throughout, along with one guiding rule for sharing faith at home: never impose, but always propose what is true, good, and beautiful.If you want the overview, practical starting steps, and a way to pass this on to your family, social circle or your parish, listen through, then subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the path.Email Jack with questions and comments to answer and discuss on future episides! jack@ClaymoreMilitesChristi.comSupport the show
Transcribe →#720 Commissioned For Battle! The Importance of Spiritual Formation...ACT Three
Apr 2100:28:05Tap to summarizeLove to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message”Evil doesn’t usually kick down the door. It slips in while we’re busy, distracted, and telling ourselves we’ll think about the big questions later. We talk about why so many men don’t choose evil outright, but still end up cooperating with it through drift, silence, and “just doing my job.”We use the idea of the banality of evil to name what’s happening, drawing on Hannah Arendt’s reporting on Adolf Eichmann and the unnerving truth that massive harm can be carried out by ordinary, morally numb people. From there we widen the lens to the mystery of evil as spiritual warfare, not just politics or psychology, and we ask what it means to live in a culture that normalizes sin, denies objective truth, and fractures the family through addictions, abortion, and confusion about identity and love.Then we get practical: knees before screens, The Claymore 10-minute morning ritual that includes praying through temptation, followed by a simple 5-minute evening plan through the Claymore Battle Plan Handbook designed to form men fast over 52 days. Find everything here! ClaymoremilitesChristi.com Where you can view the brief Claymore Battle Plan Outline or download it for free. Also order the Claymore Battle Plan Handbook from the website or on Amazon! While there sign up and meet other men already in the Battle. If you’re ready to stop drifting and start choosing the good with intention, listen, share this with a brother, and then leave a review and subscribe so more men can find a clear path to spiritual strength.Support the show
Transcribe →#719 Discussing ACT Two: Awakened By Beauty, The Opening Scene
Apr 1500:22:05Tap to summarizeLove to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message”Beauty can save a man’s life, or at least wake his heart up enough to fight for it. We sit down with Claymore Milites Christi Leaders, Dan McSweeney and David Avignone, to open the discussion on Act Two of the Claymore Battle Plan Handbook, “Awakened By Beauty,” and we start where modern culture rarely starts: Genesis and the simple claim that you are created good, made in the image of God, male and female. When that truth gets buried under confusion, and shame, desire doesn’t disappear, it gets redirected into using, consuming, and comparing. Visit Claymore milites Christi today! Read the Claymore Battle Plan Outline! Order the Claymore Battle Plan Handbook! Share it within your circle! The world changes when we pass on what is true, good and beautiful! If you want more freedom, stronger relationships, and a clear Catholic framework for sexuality, marriage, and holiness, listen now. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review so more men can find the path back to what is true, good, and beautiful.Support the show
Transcribe →#718 ACT Two: Awakened by Beauty: The Opening Scene
Apr 1400:16:24Tap to summarizeLove to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message”Most men don’t fall apart all at once, they slowly wilt. When we live disconnected from God’s life, we chase quick fixes, stay anxious, and wonder why nothing feels solid. We use a blunt image to name it: we live like cut flowers, still “looking fine,” but cut off from the source that keeps the heart alive.We also lay out a simple way forward through the Claymore Battle Plan, a Catholic men’s formation path built on daily spiritual discipline and real brotherhood. The starting point is the Claymore 10-minute morning ritual we call “knees before the phone,” plus a weekly short reading from the handbook and a conversation with a friend. The goal isn’t more religious information. It’s learning “how to fish” so you can find truth, build a foundation, and pass it on.Then we step into Act Two, “Awaken By Beauty,” from the Claymore Battle Plan, A Handbook For Young Men In Spiritual Warfare, beginning where Scripture begins: Genesis, creation, light, and God’s declaration that everything He made is “very good,” including you. Drawing on John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, we talk about how the body makes the invisible visible, how beauty is meant to awaken wonder, and how “original innocence” shows us a way of seeing people as gifts rather than objects. We name the counterfeit beauty that deforms desire, pornography, hookup culture, and digital distraction, and we connect it to the wider crisis of moral relativism, anxiety, addiction, and the breakdown of marriage and family.We close with three practical moves: reclaim awe through prayer, guard your heart by rejecting pornography and objectification, and reorder your life around the sincere gift of self. If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more men can find it.Support the Mission: The World Changes when we pass on what is true, good, and beautiful--to the next generation and those who God places on our path. Support the show
Transcribe →#717 The Supreme Court (8-1) Stands for Children Against the Talk Therapy Ban Movement
Apr 1000:32:07Tap to summarizeLove to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message”A single unverified story can change a generation if nobody is allowed to ask questions. We sit down with investigator Tom Hampson to unpack a Supreme Court decision that cracks open the “conversion therapy ban” narrative and forces states to meet strict scrutiny before they can police what therapists are allowed to say.We walk through what Chiles v. Salazar means in plain terms: government can’t simply declare certain conversations in psychotherapy illegal. From there, we separate talk therapy from discredited aversion therapy and show how the two got blurred in public messaging until ordinary, voluntary counseling was treated like harm. If a teenager feels confusion about identity or sexuality and wants help exploring their story, their trauma history, or their desires, should the law demand automatic affirmation?We discuss the Sam Brinton testimony controversy as a case study in what happens when institutions stop verifying claims and start enforcing narratives. Along the way, we connect the policy fight to a bigger battle over marriage, family, free speech, and the human person.If you care about youth mental health, evidence-based law, and the freedom to seek truth without intimidation, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review, then tell us: what’s one claim you think society should re-check from the ground up?Get Jack's New Book: The Claymore Battle Plan, Handbook For Young Men in Spiritual Warfare. Claymore milites Christi! or at Amazon. Read Toms Article at the Illinois Family InstituteSupport the show
Transcribe →#716 Discussing ACT One! Seeking Truth and Authentic Love in a Toxic Culture
Apr 800:34:15Tap to summarizeLove to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message”Act One Discussion with Steve Thomas: I Wonder What Sort of Tale We’ve Fallen Into?“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived… for the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” — Henry David ThoreauDilecti Amici. Dear friends and brothers in Christ.Let’s speak plainly.You are living in a world that is loud, chaotic, and confusing. Social media, influencers, advertisers, schools, and even government all compete for your attention. Each tells you what to think, what to buy, what to fear, and who you are supposed to be. The noise is constant, and it leaves many young men disoriented and exhausted.If you want a concrete path forward, we share the Claymore Militis Christi “battle plan,” including “knees before the phone,” one act per week, and the power of walking with another man. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review with the biggest question you’re still wrestling with.Order Your Claymore Battle Plan Handbook Here or on Amazon Today! Visit Steve Thomas and Catholic Joe. Support the show
Transcribe →#715 ACT One: I Wonder What Sort of Tale We’ve Fallen Into?
Apr 700:15:34Tap to summarizeLove to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message”“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived… for the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”[1] — Henry David ThoreauDilecti Amici. Dear friends and brothers in Christ.Let’s speak plainly.You are living in a world that is loud, chaotic, and confusing. Social media, influencers, advertisers, schools, and even government all compete for your attention. Each tells you what to think, what to buy, what to fear, and who you are supposed to be. The noise is constant, and it leaves many young men disoriented and exhausted.Pope Benedict XVI described our age as a “dictatorship of moral relativism,” a culture in which truth is reduced to preference and feelings replace reality. It should come as no surprise that so many are struggling. The statistics do not lie. Fifty-seven percent of teen girls report feeling persistently sad or hopeless. Forty percent of teens struggle to function normally because of depression. Thirty percent of teen girls have seriously considered suicide, a figure that has increased by sixty percent in just the past decade. Among LGBTQIA+ teens, fifty-two percent report ongoing mental health struggles, and twenty-two percent have attempted to take their own lives.[2] And let us be honest. Almost every young man today has been exposed to hardcore pornography, often at a young age, robbing innocence and distorting the moral compass. Suicide and overdoses continue to claim far too many lives. As Henry David Thoreau observed long ago, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”Yet this is not the whole story.You are not alone, and you are not doomed. I have seen young men begin to wake up, sensing that something is deeply wrong and refusing to accept shallow answers. You are hungry for meaning, for truth, and for a life that matters. Too often, what you are offered instead are empty slogans or expert opinions detached from the reality of good and evil.That is why I picked up a pen.Do you need another book? Perhaps not. But you do need guidance. You need a battle plan that helps you confront the questions burning in your heart: Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? Why were we created male and female? What does authentic love look like? Where can lasting happiness be found?This is where Claymore Milites Christi enters the story. Visit the Website! [1] Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays.[2] Centers for Disease Control, Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2021. Support the show
Transcribe →#714 The High-Stakes Battle For The Next Generation: Who Forms Them Wins The War
Mar 2700:25:48Tap to summarizeLove to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message”If you feel like something has shifted in your child’s school and you can’t quite name it, you’re not alone. We’re watching a real fight over who forms a child’s imagination, shapes their desires, and defines their identity: parents or institutions. Journalist and crime-fighter Tom Hampson returns to lay out why the conflict over school libraries, classroom materials, and sex education isn’t just policy, it’s a battle over foundational values and the protection of childhood innocence.We dig into Illinois as a case study and unpack how national sex education standards can influence what districts teach, even when families assume local control. We also talk about the real-world impact of explicit materials, including how early exposure can twist a child’s view of sexuality and accelerate a pipeline toward pornography through books, devices, and recommended online content.Visit Tom!! https://thomasrhampson.substack.com/Then we turn to the legal ground that’s moving under everyone’s feet. Tom explains why Mahmoud v Taylor matters for parental rights, transparency, and religious opt-out protections, plus what parents can do when schools resist disclosure. We end with a practical path forward: learn what’s being taught, check what’s in the library, show up at school board meetings, and build local support so you’re not fighting alone. If this conversation helps, subscribe, share it with a parent you know, and leave a review so more families can find it.Join us! https://jp2renew.org/Support the show
Transcribe →#713 The Claymore Battle Plan Introduction! Getting To The Heart of Things
Mar 2400:26:20Tap to summarizeLove to hear from you; “Send us a Text Message”The world is loud, confusing, and relentless and it is shaping men into spectators. We refuse that. We start with a sharper claim: the battle isn’t mainly political, personal, or psychological. It’s spiritual. Drawing from Ephesians 6, we talk about what it means to fight “not against flesh and blood,” and why misidentifying the enemy wrecks marriages, families, and your interior life.This is the Introductory Episode from the Claymore Battle Plan Handbook! Join us in this year-long journey! St Catherine of Siena said that if you “Become Who You Are" that you would set the world on fire!St Athanasius an early Church Father and Doctor of the Church said that the Son of God became man so that we might become like God!I’d take a wild guess but most of us are just a bit “disconnected” from the Divine life that these saints are pointing us too. Yet St JPll said that there is an “echo” of this story, this divine life that we are created for inscribed in each human heart and if we put on the proper lens we can get in touch with this ECHO within us in such a way we have that aha moment! Claymore Milites Christi websiteSubscribe to us on XVisit our YouTube Channel and Subscribe! Email us at info@jp2renew.org with questions and comments for the next Episode! We use first names only and don't share your personal information:) If this stirs something in you, don’t let it fade. Subscribe, share this with one man you trust, and leave a review so more men can find the fight worth fighting.Support the show
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