Writing
Three long-form projects and a few ongoing serials, all consecrated to the same purpose - to help Catholics live their faith with clarity, courage, and joy in the ordinary moments of ordinary lives.
In Progress
Lux Perpetua
A Catholic serial fiction platform launched Easter 2026, telling the story of Ordo: A Chronicle of Lux Perpetua - an epic novel unfolding chapter by chapter. Free Living Thread + paid Lost Crown tracks.
Two Lamps
Weekly Catholic short stories, each pairing two saints from different centuries whose lives illuminate one another. Published Fridays. Free plus paid Lamplight tier.
Forthcoming
A Tale of Two Fathers
Currently in advance-copy circulation to priests, bishops, and pastors for review. Publication date TBA.
A Catholic business fable in the Lencioni tradition. Father Dan Mercer has given twenty-five years to St. Athanasius and made a private peace with the slow emptying of its pews. Mark Bauer watches his teenage son drift toward a Latin Mass parish across the river and can no longer defend the faith he thought he still held. Neither of them is looking for a revolution. Both are about to be undone by a thirteen-year-old's simple question at a dinner table.
The book is not a liturgy war. It is a story about what happens when a parish stops expecting God to show up, and what it costs a pastor - and a father - to start expecting again. It engages the questions of reverence, silence, and the sacred that are quietly rearranging the map of American Catholic life, and does so pastorally, in the tradition of Lencioni: an argument carried first in narrative, then laid on the table plainly in a second half.
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It's Worth It
Forthcoming. Publication date TBA.
A father's story of marriage, fatherhood, and the daily work of a Catholic family. Written for the young Catholic considering the vocation of husband and father, and for anyone in the middle of it who needs to remember why. Draws on twenty years of the ordinary chaos - the spit-up, the bedtime battles, the sons who nearly nailed each other to a cross - and the theology of daily sacrifice that makes it all matter.
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Emmaus 15
Forthcoming. Publication date TBA.
The 15-week evangelization journey developed for Domus Formation's Emmaus Disciples community, adapted into book form. A structured path for anyone walking with a fellow Catholic - or a fellow seeker - through the essentials of the faith and the encounter with the risen Christ on the road.
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Essays and reflections
Regular essays, homilies, and reflections are published on the DeaconMichael.net homepage feed. Wednesday @ Lunch is my weekly letter, delivered Wednesdays around lunchtime.