The Great Tragedy of Modern Catholic life

The great tragedy of modern Catholic life is that most of the faithful have never been shown what holiness really is, or how to grow in it.

People are starving for formation that actually changes them. They either don’t know what they don’t know, or they live with nagging doubts about whether they’re doing enough or even doing the right things. The Church today is rich in information but poor in formation.

We have endless Catholic content yet very few structured environments where the soul is actually trained. It is one thing to read about how to swim. It’s another thing to get in the water. For swimming, or any sport, one relies on a coach to show you how it’s done. Real spiritual formation requires practice, feedback, and guidance.

And it turns out that it is because we have inherited a faith that is not integrated: we know some doctrines, prayers, moral rules, and devotions, but we have lost the unifying vision that should animate the Christian life: the pursuit of perfection, most especially the perfection that is found in the theological virtue of charity.

The richness of the Catholic spiritual tradition – its wisdom about grace, the virtues, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, merit, the stages of growth, and all things related to the interior life – has not been handed down well. Even devout Catholics rarely encounter the full depth of it.

Very few Catholics ever receive both the ordered principles and the personal help needed to live them; this is even more true for the laity. Priests and religious are formed within houses of formation; they are trained, step by step, in doctrine, prayer, virtue, and the spiritual life. Lay people, by contrast, are left to assemble their own formation from scattered talks, YouTube videos, or popular devotions – without an integrated system or a trusted, learned guide.

The Church Needs a House of Formation for the Laity

If there is a real science to how souls grow in holiness then lay men and women deserve the same level of clarity and direction that the Church gives her seminarians and religious. What’s missing is a house of formation for the laity: a place where they can both learn the general principles of the spiritual life and receive personal help in applying those principles to their own vocation, temperament, and circumstances.

When ordinary Catholics rediscover the map of Christian perfection they come to understand the path clearly: what holiness truly is, how to grow in charity, and how God ordinarily leads souls. Confusion gives way to light. They learn to apply sound principles and proven methods rather than relying on emotion, novelty, or trial and error. They gain the peace and confidence that come from walking securely within the Church’s wisdom. Even when progress feels slow or hidden, they know they are following the same path that sanctified the saints.

The goal is not just to add one more demand to an overloaded schedule, but to give serious time to God a little at a time. Over weeks and months that steady effort becomes a true habit of the interior life. And so a kind of remote house of formation is just what many laity need. Without a structure for deep formation (systematic teaching on the spiritual life, coaching, and community), even sincere Catholics – or their children – can easily lose the way. With it, they can become what the Church actually calls them to be: saints.

How Formation Happens

Real spiritual formation doesn’t happen through teaching alone or coaching alone. Teaching gives you the map – but you still need a coach to help you discern where you are on it, and what the next step looks like in your actual life. Without both, people are left with good intentions and scattered knowledge but without a clear path of advancement.

And in a fragmented modern world, most lay people simply struggle to grow with consistency or confidence, even when they sincerely want to, without both understanding the path and receiving personal guidance in how to walk it. That is the kind of formation most Catholics rarely have access to.

The Aquinas Institute for Christian Perfection

The Aquinas Institute for Christian Perfection exists to recover the Church’s full doctrine of the interior life and to provide, for the laity, what priests and religious have always had – a real house of formation. I simply aim to recover and hand on the Church’s own spiritual wisdom – especially from the great Dominican and Carmelite traditions – and present it in a way that helps ordinary Catholics apply it concretely to their lives. This work stands within the Church’s perennial teaching – what St. Thomas and the saints described as the perfection of charity, and what Vatican II later articulated as the “universal call to holiness.”

The model itself is simple: combine serious teaching (the principles of the interior life) with personal coaching and community (help in applying those principles). The Church has used this approach for centuries in religious orders, novitiates, and seminaries. What’s new is adapting it for lay men and women who want to live their vocation in the world. It is a house of formation for the laity: clear lessons, real coaching, and a community of others walking the same path.

Through weekly live sessions, regular Q&A sessions, one-on-one coaching, an intimate community and quarterly retreats, the Institute helps men and women understand the principles of Christian perfection and live them concretely in their daily lives.

This is not a mass-market program; it’s for those who want to take the call to holiness seriously and are willing to order their lives around it. In the professional world, people invest enormous amounts of time and money for coaching to develop elite performance – but too few Catholics invest in the spiritual life with the same seriousness. The Aquinas Institute for Christian Perfection helps you invest at that same level – for the life of your soul. Members will form the nucleus of a small but serious community – men and women determined to grow together in the perfection of charity.

Why You Can Trust What I Teach

My work is rooted in formal theological training and years of teaching within the Church’s own tradition. I hold a Doctorate in Sacred Theology (S.T.D.) – the highest level of formal theological degree the Catholic Church grants – and I’ve spent more than a decade teaching theology and Latin with a focus on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic tradition.

My formation began in seminary and continued through advanced Thomistic study. This is not hobby-level theology. It is precise, careful, ecclesial, and ordered toward the truth — and toward real growth in charity.

Over the years, I have seen again and again that even devout Catholics often lack a clear picture of what holiness is, or how to grow in it. Goodwill is not the problem. What’s often missing is a real framework – and the kind of guidance that helps one actually apply the Church’s principles to the concrete circumstances of life.

This Institute is simply the concrete form that emerged once I realized that teaching alone wasn’t enough – people needed structure and real coaching, not just the general principles. I am handing on what the Church has already taught – but doing so in a form that lay Catholics can actually receive, understand, and live.

Invitation

This Advent, I am beginning the first cohort of this work – a small group of 20 members.

It is the beginning of a house of formation for the laity – ordinary Catholics who are serious about the call to holiness and who want to grow in charity with clarity, structure, and guidance.

If you have longed for something more than inspirational content – if you want a real path, and the help to walk it – then I invite you to consider joining us.

We do not become saints by accident.

No one assumes they could build an airplane after watching some videos – yet many assume they can “figure out” the spiritual life that way.

The spiritual life has to be learned – just as one learns any serious discipline. There is a real science to knowing, loving, and serving God; one needs both sound principles and help in applying them. It is difficult, but not impossible with God’s grace.

This is the beginning of recovering that lay Catholics.

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