Christendom professor provides families with blueprint for more intentional homes
John Cuddeback, a professor of philosophy at Christendom College in Virginia, has released a new book titled "The Intentional Household: Living as if People Matter" through Ignatius Press. The book outlines eight principles aimed at making the home the central place of life, emphasizing shared work, leisure, family relationships, and intentional living. Cuddeback draws on thinkers such as Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Wendell Berry, and addresses various family structures, including single, married, divorced, and multigenerational households. He also promotes a podcast and community project called LifeCraft that explores similar themes of household, friendship, work, and stewardship.
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The new book The Intentional Household: Living as if People Matter by John Cuddeback, a philosophy professor at Christendom College, offers eight practical principles aimed at reviving the home as the central place for relationships, work, leisure, and care for both children and aging parents. Drawing on thinkers from Aristotle to St. Thomas Aquinas, the work connects everyday family life to broader Christian teachings and recent Church guidance on technology. 1
Cuddeback defines an intentional household as one where those responsible “have a clear understanding of the rich life they are trying to craft and are willing to do what is needed to bring it about.” The book addresses single, married, divorced, and widowed persons, as well as families with or without children, aiming to speak to a “deep interior voice” that longs for a meaningful home. 1
Cuddeback notes that contemporary customs often push people away from the home, making it “one of the most challenging times for families” to live according to God’s plan. At the same time, he observes a growing desire among many to rediscover a richer, more intentional domestic life, which motivated the book’s creation. 1
For families seeking immediate change, Cuddeback recommends “rethinking meals” and making dinner a shared, present moment for all members—a simple step he believes can spark broader transformation. 1
The book complements Cuddeback’s “LifeCraft” podcast and community project, both of which explore the household, true friendship, good work, and natural stewardship. It also resonates with Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical on safeguarding human dignity in the age of artificial intelligence. 1
Explore Catholic principles guiding intentional family life
Intentional family life, in Catholic understanding, means shaping the household consciously around God’s love, the dignity of each person, the gift of life, the education of children, service to society, and participation in the Church’s mission. It is not the pursuit of a perfect family, but a faithful effort to let ordinary decisions express the Gospel.
The family is more than a private arrangement for mutual support. It is a vocation: a way in which spouses and children are called to grow in holiness and serve others. Familiaris Consortio summarizes this vocation as a summons for the family to “become what you are”—an intimate community of life and love. Its mission is to guard, reveal, and communicate love, reflecting God’s love for humanity and Christ’s love for the Church.
This vocation has four interconnected dimensions:
An intentional household therefore asks not merely, “What is convenient?”, but also:
Catholic family life begins with self-giving love, not individual self-interest. The family is founded and sustained by love as a community of persons: husband and wife, parents and children, and the wider family. Without love, the family cannot grow into the communion it is meant to be.
This love is not simply affection or emotional closeness. It includes:
Pope Francis describes these virtues as essential to a love that is strengthened over time. He also acknowledges that many families experience conflict, brokenness, and a lack of peace; the Church’s response is not condemnation but an invitation to mercy and closeness.
Intentional love therefore becomes visible in concrete habits:
Pope Benedict XVI specifically identifies dialogue, respect for another’s point of view, service, patience, forgiveness, and the humble resolution of conflicts as practices that build family life.
Catholic teaching understands marriage as a covenant in which a man and a woman give themselves to one another in a permanent communion of life and love. Marriage and family are ordered both to the good of the spouses and to the procreation and education of children; in Christ, the family becomes a “domestic church”—a household where faith, hope, and charity are lived.
This means that intentional family planning cannot be reduced to financial calculation, lifestyle preference, or the pursuit of maximum comfort. The Church warns against treating the generation of human life as merely one variable in an individual or couple’s plan. At the same time, the Church calls couples to exercise responsible parenthood and to respect the moral dignity of the person when making decisions about regulating births. Adoption and foster parenting can also express the fruitfulness of married love.
The essential principle is that marital love must remain:
Openness to life does not mean that every family will have the same number of children or face identical circumstances. It means that children are received as persons and gifts, never treated as possessions, burdens, status symbols, or obstacles to personal fulfillment. Decisions about family size, sacrifices, health, and responsibilities require prayer, prudence, honest dialogue, and fidelity to the Church’s moral teaching.
Parents are the primary educators of their children. Education is not limited to formal instruction or religious lessons; children learn through the repeated patterns of family life. Familiaris Consortio calls the family the “first and fundamental school of social living,” where self-giving love becomes the model for relationships among siblings and generations.
An intentional home teaches children through:
Parents are called to teach children a correct relationship with material goods. This includes simplicity, moderation, generosity, and the conviction that a person is more valuable for who he or she is than for what he or she possesses. Children should also be formed in justice and, even more deeply, in love understood as sincere concern and disinterested service, especially toward the poor.
This education requires both affection and authority. Catholic authority is not domination; it is a form of responsible service directed toward the child’s authentic good. Parents gradually teach children to exercise freedom wisely rather than merely satisfy every desire.
Because the Christian family is a domestic church, faith should not be confined to parish buildings or occasional religious observances. The family’s life is meant to become a place where Christ is known, loved, and followed.
A household can cultivate this identity through simple and consistent practices:
The family’s participation in the Church’s mission is meant to be communal: spouses together, and parents and children as a family, serving the Church and society. Familiaris Consortio describes the Christian family as a believing and evangelizing community, a community in dialogue with God, and a community at the service of humanity.
The aim is not to create a religious performance or an atmosphere of anxiety. Rather, family prayer teaches that life is received from God and ordered toward communion with him. It also gives family members a shared language for gratitude, repentance, hope, and discernment.
Modern culture often measures success through income, comfort, possessions, achievement, and constant entertainment. Catholic principles challenge a household to ask whether its way of life serves human flourishing or quietly undermines it.
Pope Benedict XVI warns that a purely utilitarian mentality—one focused on maximum profit and usefulness—can produce competition, inequality, environmental degradation, consumerism, and family tensions.
Intentional family life therefore involves prudent choices about:
This does not require rejecting legitimate material goods. It means placing goods in their proper order. A family may deliberately choose shared meals over constant individual schedules, hospitality over excessive privacy, simplicity over status competition, and presence over perpetual digital distraction.
The family is also described as a principal agent of integral ecology because it unites communion and fruitfulness. Care for creation begins in habits of gratitude, moderation, repair, reuse, and respect for the needs of future generations.
Catholic family life must not become closed in upon itself. A family’s fruitfulness expands beyond biological generation to include hospitality, mercy, solidarity, and care for those who are poor or excluded.
Pope Francis teaches that married love is called to bind wounds, foster a culture of encounter, and pursue justice. Open and caring families make room for the poor and form friendships with those who are less fortunate.
This can take many forms:
The family becomes a school of solidarity when children see that love is not limited to those who can repay it. They learn that the vulnerable are not interruptions to family life but persons entrusted to the family’s care.
Intentional family life does not mean eliminating every difficulty. Illness, disability, unemployment, grief, disagreement, and limitation are part of the human condition. These experiences can expose weakness, but they can also deepen bonds and educate the heart.
Amoris Laetitia observes that illness and hardship can strengthen family relationships, while an education that ignores suffering can leave young people insensitive and unable to face human limitation.
A Catholic household therefore seeks to respond to suffering with:
This is particularly important when a child or family member has a disability. The Church expresses special gratitude for families who welcome, raise, and surround children with disabilities with affection.
The Catholic vision is demanding, but it is not naïve. Many families are affected by separation, divorce, abuse, poverty, infertility, addiction, bereavement, or strained relationships. The ideal of family life must never be used to ignore suffering or excuse injustice.
Pope Francis presents the Church’s teaching as both an affirmation of marriage and a call to accompany families whose lives remain imperfect or lack peace and joy. Pope Benedict likewise addresses those who have experienced breakdown and separation, assuring them of the Church’s support and encouraging them to remain connected to their communities.
Mercy does not mean redefining the truth. It means helping people take the next faithful step toward healing, responsibility, reconciliation, and deeper communion with God and the Church.
A Catholic family can translate these teachings into a simple rule of life:
Catholic intentional family life is ultimately a form of discipleship. The household becomes a community of life and love, a school of virtue, a sanctuary for human dignity, a place of prayer, and a source of service to society. Its goal is not self-sufficiency or outward perfection, but faithful cooperation with God’s grace.
The family fulfills its vocation when its daily life—its work, meals, sacrifices, conflicts, celebrations, and acts of mercy—reveals that love is stronger than self-interest and that every person is made for communion with God and with others.