Heroic 30: Renew Men Challenge

The Lenten season calls for both conversion and renewal in living our Christian faith. Yet this same spirit has been gaining momentum in the Diocese of Calgary through our path of Renewal, guided by the vision: You are Called, You Matter, and You Belong. Parishes are developing inspiring initiatives, and lay ministries are stepping forward in powerful ways to promote the three priorities: Forming Missionary Disciples, Being a Church of Encounter and Witness, and Strengthening the Family.
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Recently, I challenged the members of God Squad men's ministry, now branded as Heroic Men Canada, to create a spiritual renewal program specifically for the men in our Diocese during the season of Lent. I asked them to invite men of all ages, vocations, and walks of life, to journey side by side with Saint Joseph throughout the 31 days of March, the month that is dedicated to the Patron of the Universal Church and Canada.

Sean Lynn, the founder of the God Squad in the Diocese of Calgary has organized, for over 30 years, transformative annual men's conferences with inspiring speakers. They have also fostered spiritual programs and prayer support groups that have challenged men to embrace the call of God to be authentic and generous in living their vocation as men and fathers, being models of virtue, protectors of families, and humble witnesses of sacrifice through their work and acts of service.

This Heroic 30: Renew Men Challenge (H30) invites those who participate to imitate Saint Joseph, our ultimate model of heroic virtue. I encourage the men of our Diocese to sign up at heroicmen.org/h30. Each day in March, you will receive a five-minute video reflection focusing on how to embrace and make heroic virtue a greater part of your life, virtues like fortitude, justice, temperance, patience, forgiveness, humility, and many more.

What sets this challenge apart from others?
​Each day, you will hear from a different, well known Catholic leader: bishops, priests, deacons, and Catholic men who are evangelists and leaders at the local, national, and international level. These short, insightful videos blend Scripture, personal stories, practical guidance, and calls to action that will inspire you to embrace a spirit of Renewal. They are easily accessible, directed to men and designed to transform your life into being a living image and witness of Saint Joseph. For example, Day 1 of the Renew Men Challenge highlights Deacon Harold, from Seattle USA, on the theme: Embracing Fatherly Protection, and on Day 15, it highlights US Bishop Joe Coffey reflecting on Prudence in Temptation. 

This Heroic 30 Men Challenge is now live across Canada and the United States. It is being promoted widely by many bishops in North America. In the spirit of our Renewal, I challenge the men in our Diocese of Calgary to be leaders in having the highest level of participation! Healthy competition can bring out the best in all of us. Diocese versus diocese here in Alberta, Canada versus the USA. It's a kind of spiritual Olympics for men. 

​If you take up this Challenge, you will strengthen your families and parishes. The domestic church, as taught in Lumen Gentium, is the foundation of our parishes and makes the witness of our faith visible. When children witness parents on their knees in humble prayer, vocations and lives of faith flourish across generations. Men's spiritual renewal is personal, but it is much more. This is a call to reinvigorate the primacy of the domestic church, to strengthen families everywhere. Through this Challenge, you will give witness to the love of God and neighbour, through your commitment to conversion in the renewal of your spiritual life and to give a generative example of this to your families, your friends, and to the world.
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Register today at heroicmen.org/h30 - Ask a brother to support you in being accountable. Receive daily emails with videos, reflections, and prayer aids. In your parishes, promote the Challenge in the bulletin, the Knights of Columbus, and other men’s ministry groups. Let's make March a triumph of the Holy Spirit in receiving the graces of this Lenten season by humbly embracing the spirit of Renewal and conforming our lives to that of the witness of Saint Joseph.  

Written by Most Rev. William T. McGrattan, Bishop of Calgary

Feb 23, 2026
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Written by Deacon Stephen Robinson, St. Peter's Parish, Calgary.

Men at the Heart of Renewal

Thirty years ago, God Squad members recognized that men were often missing from the equation of healthy families. Addressing this issue would be necessary to turn things around. I was pretty lukewarm on that, not because it wasn't a worthwhile ministry, but only because working with men didn't seem to bear fruit easily. We tend to keep things on a superficial level, focusing more on things than on people. Even the language of 'having a personal relationship with Christ,' while an essential element in the journey of faith, did not strike at the heart of what typically motivates men.

But things got more critical when the culture's message to men, and about men, turned really ugly. 'Masculinity is toxic' we heard. Not just some excesses of power, but all of it. This cultural attitude has been a wakeup call for me to make a more intentional return to what Christ has to say about who we are as men and women. At the very end of the Bible, from His throne in heaven, Christ declares: "Behold, I make all things new." (Rev 21:5) These words struck me to the heart especially when, in the movie 'The Passion of the Christ,' those words were on the lips of Jesus as he fell, battered and bleeding, on his way to Golgotha. Even as He bore such violence, He held nothing back for me and for the whole human family. He makes all things new even in the middle of His suffering.

Now we find ourselves, in the Diocese of Calgary, in a remarkable journey of Renewal. Women and men and children and families and parishes are being profoundly invited into renewal of faith in the one who is, in His Real Presence, 'the source and summit of the Christian life.' (CCC#1324) Jesus is at the heart of all renewal.

​The Heroic Men 31 day Challenge is an invitation into the Christian virtues, throughout the month of March, the month of St. Joseph, who is the man who taught the virtues to our Lord Himself. Let us not miss out on this opportunity to walk with St. Joseph, and with our Lord Himself, this month of March, as we prepare to unite ourselves with him in a death like His, and thus to a resurrection like His. (Rom. 6:5)