A Word from Our Outpost, with Joseph and Crystal Gruber

Pope Leo's new encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas , includes two striking Biblical images, the construction of the tower of Babel and the rebuilding of Jerusalem. The fact that he presents the City of Man and the City of God as two realities under construction is very striking, and worth thinking on. This episode doesn't begin to exhaust the images, but it hopefully prompts more reflection! Find the...

We maybe psych ourselves out when it comes to making invitations, but it's better to be making bad invitations than to make no invitations...    As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/ see what we have upcoming i...

Joseph is joined by Santonio Hill, another alum of FOCUS and quite the storyteller!  His website is here: https://www.santoniospeaks.com/ Santonio runs Catholic Balm-- if you're interested in all things Catholic and beard-related, check it out! https://catholicbalm.co/collections?utm_source=ouroutpost&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=santonioguest As always,  support our work by going here ! j...

Dietrich von Hildebrand, in The Roots of Moral Evil , mostly discusses pride and concupiscence. But there's a funny little chapter in the back on the book on immanent logic, and getting stuck inside an activity to the point of immorality. Once you see the trap, it's easy to see how we can get caught up in it for an hour, or a day, or a lifetime. Worth a listen! As always,  support our work by...

Everything made of matter will eventually fail, including our daughter's cochlear implant. Purposes will eventually be frustrated, and without meaning to undergird what we do, it would be easy to fall into despair. Join Joseph as he reflects on the years spent trying to introduce our daughter to a world of sound, and how to process her infection that led to losing the implant. Listen in to find ou...

Joseph discusses mission and the world of non-profits with Joe Henkels, founder of Knights Coffee. He sells good coffee, from Catholic farmers, and donates the profits to seminarians. For Catholic coffee lovers, it's hard to beat that. Check out the coffee at knights.coffee ! As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter lis...

If the social fabric as a whole seems threadbare, it's good to start addressing it at the most local level-- around us!    As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/ see what we have upcoming in terms of events here...

The only tragedy is not becoming a saint...so who are you becoming?   As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/ see what we have upcoming in terms of events here: https://ouroutpost.org/events/ send us an email at...

Not every hack is created equal, but this one, as they say, is a doozy...  Listen in to find out more! As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/ see what we have upcoming in terms of events here: https://ouroutpost...

After 13 years serving as a Catholic missionary with FOCUS, my best story happened my first week on campus...    As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/ see what we have upcoming in terms of events here: https://...

Happy Easter! Christ is risen!  While not technically a comparative, it's good to situate Easter as the in-between between what was and what will be. As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/ see what we have upcom...

Joseph discusses what the ups and downs of the Christian life are like, and why we experience them. **a correction: St. Ignatius had two books with him while convalescing, but they were both religious (a life of Christ and a book on saints), and he was merely preoccupied with stories of chivalry and the like, not reading such stories**    As always,  support our work by going here ! join the...

We do a lot of things at Mass; here's a walk-through of some of them, and how we can find greater fruit in their practice. Listen in to find out more! As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/ see what we have upco...

There are a lot of good reasons to practice fasting; Joseph will share three of them in this episode. They won't make fasting any easier, but they'll at least help explain why fasting is hard... Listen in to find out more! As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage,...

Lest you skip this episode because you think it's only for the singles out there, know that at least 1/3 of this episode will apply to everybody! Listen in to find out more! As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts...

Intercessory prayer=good.  Our behavior online=not always so good. What is intercessory prayer, and why should it have more of a place online? As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/ see what we have upcoming in...

I recently re-read G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday , and recently had my heart blown wide open again. So I thought I'd share some lessons from this madcap novel about mission! Listen in to find out more! As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by click...

Almost all of us could safely fast from some element of social media/online consumption. But which element? And with what might we replace it? Listen in to find out more! As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/ s...

Genesis 1 often gets a bad reputation in Christian or atheist circles-- "Are you a science-denier or a God-denier" sort of rhetoric is often associated with it. Here are just some reflections about the beauty of Genesis 1 and things that I keep coming back to.  I hope you enjoy it! As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newslett...

How we view Jesus changes how we talk to Him and talk about Him. So it's worth taking a minute and considering-- how do we think of Him?    As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/ see what we have upcoming in ter...

If we don't want to be holy, and maybe are struggling to even want to want to be holy, here's something to do that will lift our sinking spirits and help us re-enter the fray! Listen in to find out more! As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: h...

Social media feeds comparison...and it doesn't have to. We're offering a free workshop, "Escaping the Comparison Trap," on Sunday, January 25th, 2026 for Catholic married couples-- come check it out here: https://ouroutpost.kit.com/comparison As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast,...

It's tempting (for me at least) to approach the Catholic faith in a debatey mindset, where I'm looking to be right and to find back-up for my points. But the reality of the faith is that it just is never done changing us. Prompted in part by watching this debate on Capturing Christianity between Joe Heschmeyer and Jacob Hansen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nWfaX_iJ6I As always,  support o...

Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? Hard to say? Are there lessons I took from it when I watched it during this Christmas season? Absolutely. And herein are three of those lessons!   As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podc...

We have the delight of hosting Andrew Farnsworth, a husband and father who began his marriage as he began his time with FOCUS over ten years ago!  Andrew works as the Director of Catholic Partnerships at Alliance Catholic Credit Union, and spent time both as a NET missionary and as a FOCUS missionary, serving at Wright State University, Central Michigan University, and Franciscan University in Ste...