Men of Mary
The Path of True Formation
We, the Viri Mariae, commit ourselves to a lifelong formation in Veritas, seeking eternal beatitude rather than worldly acclaim or passing opinion. We return to the perennial wisdom of the Church and the classical tradition that shaped saints, scholars, and civilizations. ​Formation here is not merely academic. It is the shaping of a man’s inner life: how he thinks, how he prays, how he speaks, and how he leads.
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We have two powers that mark us as human and make us like God: the intellect and the will. The perfection of the intellect is truth, and the perfection of the will is goodness. True education is the training of the mind to know the truth and the shaping of the will to love the good.
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Formation is the deliberate cultivation of these powers so a man lives in harmony with reality, delights in the truth, and freely chooses the good. In this way he becomes more fully himself and more conformed to Christ, who is Truth and Goodness Himself.
Like Mary, we sit at the feet of Wisdom and drink deeply from the springs that nourished the saints: Sacred Scripture, the Catechism, the Church Fathers, and the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. In him, the wisdom of Aristotle and the best of the virtuous pagans was received and sanctified for the service of the Church. It did not seek to impress, but to impress truth upon the soul.
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From these sources, we look further back to the older foundations: the liberal arts and classical philosophy that shaped the minds of the early Church and gave rise to Christendom itself.
Why the Classical Liberal Arts?
Far from being outdated relics, the classical liberal arts offer a proven path to forming men of clarity, discipline, and virtue. In learning them, we are not innovating; we are listening to the voices of history’s wisest men and walking paths they once trod.
Divided into the Trivium and the Quadrivium, the seven liberal arts are grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. ​These arts were not invented by the Church, but the Church received them, sanctifying and perfecting their use. Saints like Augustine and Aquinas were formed both in holiness and in intellect, their sanctity built securely on the foundations of reason.
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To recover the faith, we must recover the formation that sustained it.
A Pathway for Brothers: The Classical Liberal Arts Academy
To support this formation, we commend to our brothers the Classical Liberal Arts Academy (CLAA) - an accredited, authentically Catholic platform restoring the fullness of classical education.
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This structured program of classical Catholic study provides a coherent framework for both intellectual and spiritual growth. ​Whether you are a father, student, teacher, or working professional, you can begin your formation in:
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Sacred Scripture
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Catholic Philosophy
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Classical Ethics
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Theology and Sacred History
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Latin & Greek
Their curriculum is self-paced, affordable, and rests upon the Church’s living tradition. ​
As men striving to follow Our Lady, we look to her not only as a model of virtue but as a model of formation.
According to St. Albert the Great, Mary possessed the liberal arts in the highest degree. Her example reminds us that classical learning, rightly ordered, trains the soul to receive and defend divine truth.
Under the Mantle of Wisdom
Viri Mariae aims to shape minds and hearts as the Church has always intended: by truth, for love, toward sanctity. In a world obsessed with progress but forgetful of wisdom, we choose the slower, deeper way. Not to keep pace with the times, but to grow in fidelity to Christ. Haste and hunger for relevance offer no lasting fruit. Formation takes time, and we remain steady in that truth.
To follow Him under the standard of Our Lady is to pursue wisdom with courage and humility. In every generation, the Church is renewed by men who form their minds in truth, their wills in virtue, and their lives poured out in service of the King. Let us be among them.
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