Father Larry Richards Calls Men Back to Authentic Masculinity: ‘Be Like Jesus’
Catholic priest challenges modern ideas of manhood, urging men to embrace sacrifice, holiness, and servant leadership over comfort and cultural approval.
Father Larry Richards opened a new season of Heroic Hotline with the bluntness that has made him a longtime voice in Catholic men’s ministry.
Richards, spiritual advisor for Heroic Men, said modern men still respond to challenge, discipline and direct correction when it comes from love.
“I thought Jesus was love,” Richards said. “And he is. And sometimes love is a kick in the butt.”
Richards said men often misunderstand discipline as harshness, when the Christian life demands formation, correction and sacrifice. He pointed to Hebrews 12, saying God chastises those he loves because he wants them to become holy.
“Sometimes to be holy, it’s a gentle thing,” he said. “It’s a thing that, OK, if this is what God wants of me and he’s going to challenge me, then I got to do it.”
Heroism begins with laying down life
For Richards, the word “heroic” has little to do with displays of strength or conquest. He said a heroic man gives himself away.
“A heroic man is one who gives up their life for others,” Richards said. “A hero is usually very humble, knows he could die, knows that life is about giving away your life for other people.”
That sacrifice, he said, begins at home.
Most men, Richards said, would imagine themselves ready to take a bullet for their wife or children. Fewer are ready to die to themselves in daily moments of service.
“The two of you are sitting in the living room and you’re watching TV,” he said. “You take that remote control and you hand it to her and say, ‘We’ll watch anything you want to watch.’ You died for your wife. That was heroic.”
Richards said a man cannot claim heroic leadership while refusing prayer, Mass, service or love for his own family.
“The main job of any man is to be the leader,” he said. “And the leader is one who serves.”
Jesus as the model of authentic masculinity
Asked how he would define authentic masculinity, Richards answered with one name: Jesus.
“God comes and shows us what it is to be a man,” Richards said. “If we’re going to be authentic men, the more we are like Jesus, the more authentic we are. The less we are like Jesus, the less authentic we are.”
He said Jesus revealed masculine strength through the cross, humility, service and concern for the poor. Christ washed feet, challenged the Pharisees, defended the condemned and refused worldly power.
“Jesus Christ came to tell us what a man is and to show us what a man means,” Richards said.
Richards contrasted King David and Christ, saying David represents a more natural form of manhood, with courage, strength and sin mixed together. Jesus raises manhood into supernatural love.
“Am I more like David or am I more like Jesus?” Richards said. “I better be more like Jesus.”
Sons before soldiers
Richards said Christian manhood begins when a man hears the Father speak his identity over him.
He pointed to Jesus’ baptism, when the Father says, “You are my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.”
“If it began that way with Jesus, it must begin that way with us,” Richards said. “We in our prayer and our walk with the Lord must hear God the Father look at us and say, ‘You are my son whom I love.’”
Men often define themselves by sin, failure or shame, he said. God defines them by sonship.
“God the Father knows our sin, but he calls us by our name,” Richards said. “The devil knows our name and he calls us by our sin.”
That identity, he said, undercuts pride, which Richards called the core sin of men.
Support priests, encourage vocations
Richards also called Catholic men to support priests rather than judge them from a distance.
“Jesus sent them out two by two,” he said. “He didn’t send any lone rangers out.”
Priests need friendship, encouragement and honest support, Richards said. Men can begin with simple gestures, such as inviting a priest out for a beer.
“Once a priest knows he’s loved by his people, he will listen to his people more,” Richards said.
He said a priest who loves his people and his priesthood becomes a living invitation to younger men. Vocations grow through stability, relationship and visible joy.
“A priest isn’t an employee,” Richards said. “A priest is a father. You don’t get a new father every six or 12 years.”
Richards said he has urged boys and young men across 37 years of priesthood to consider the priesthood.
“Be a priest, be a priest, be a priest,” he said. “There’s got to be from the priests themselves the encouragement that this is a great life.”
The call to holiness
Richards said every Christian faces one ultimate call: become a saint.
“Be a saint,” he said. “God bless. Or go to hell. That’s the only option we have. We become saints or we go to hell.”
Holiness, Richards said, is far from religious performance. It means uniting the human will with the will of God.
“Holiness is when God’s will and our will become one,” he said. “I have one purpose in life: to go to heaven, to be a saint.”
He urged men to begin each morning with Scripture before the demands of the day take hold.
“You go to God and say, ‘What do you want me to start this day with?’” Richards said. “Now you’ve started by listening to God, not the world, not the flesh, not the devil.”
For Richards, that daily surrender is where authentic masculinity begins: a man who lets the Father name him, lets Christ form him, and gives his life away in love.