Recent convert develops ‘The Saintmaker,’ a Catholic-inspired daily life planner

Self-proclaimed ‘productivity junkie’ aims to keep on-the-go Catholics on task and in grace with daily devotions based on liturgical cycle

DETROIT — Nathan Meffert has a plan to get it done.

Meffert is the president and creative director at Modern Animal Digital Marketing and Media Studio, a company he co-founded. More importantly, he’s a recent Catholic convert who wanted a way to incorporate his newfound faith into his work-life balance.

“I’m a productivity junkie, and once I came into the Church, I became fascinated with the liturgical calendar and how it presented a yearly curriculum for spiritual growth,” Meffert told Detroit Catholic. “As a designer and someone who appreciates beauty, I saw a lot of elegance in the liturgical year. And as someone with a technical mind, working in manufacturing part of the time outside of my work, I really saw a well-developed system for leading a meaningful life.”

After working off other life planners, Meffert didn’t see any that combined work, life and faith in a way he desired, so he developed his own.

The Saintmaker Catholic Life Planner “is designed to help Catholics deepen your faith, take charge of your life, and restore the Church,” said Meffert, who is set to launch his authentically Catholic planner in March.

Meffert did extensive research on the history and devotions related to particular feast days and solemnities in the Church calendar, noting how the liturgical seasons provide their own sense of a personal planner.

Meffert wanted to find a way to better organize his life with his faith, creating a blueprint where he could stay on track with personal and professional goals, but develop a structure for keeping up with devotions in the church.

Among other things, The Saintmaker is a blueprint for staying on track with personal and professional goals, as well as for keeping up with devotions in the Church. To create it, Meffert combed through online sources and books on the major feast days and solemnities in the Catholic calendar, compiling them into a single resource for the on-the-go Catholic.

“The Saintmaker takes serious Catholics on a step-by-step process on discerning yearly goals and then pursing them on a seasonal basis that trickles down to weekly, daily and monthly schedules,” said Meffert, who came into the Church in 2019 at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Ann Arbor and now attends St. Joseph Shrine in Detroit. “The main intention is to allow people who want to meet ambitious goals to do so in a way that is focused on Christ and keeps their faith at the center of those efforts.”

The leather-bound planner comes in four seasonal editions that cover the entire year. Meffert, a recent devotee of the traditional Latin Mass but who still appreciates the ordinary form of the liturgy, included feast days, solemnities and devotions that fit both the pre-1962 liturgical calendar and the current calendar.

The seasonal planner not only provides a place to keep appointments and tasks at hand, but also seasonal liturgical devotions to enrich one’s soul.

“The planner includes a monthly layout in both forms of the Church calendar,” Meffert said. “On a monthly basis, it takes you through major feast days, about 5-10 per month, that people can focus on with recommended devotions,” including prayers, Scripture readings, encyclicals and writings from the saints.

Beyond his own research and experience with other personal planners, Meffert spoke with other laypeople, students, professionals, homemakers, clergy and seminarians about how to make the planner efficient and edifying.

“It’s meant to be Catholic, which means it’s meant to be universal; it should be useful to everyone who picks it up who is serious about their faith,” Meffert said. “I spoke to many professionals, and one of their main concerns was how life gets busy, and it’s hard to keep faith in focus. It’s hard to keep a focus on the Church and Christ and God’s will for us at the center of our lives.”

Meffert wants The Saintmaker to be a convenient way for Catholics to keep their commitments in the secular world, as well as their commitments to God — a bit of structure in a crazy, messy world.

The Saintmaker is available for pre-order at TheSaintmaker.com, where people can purchase a single-season planner or a yearly subscription to four seasonal planners that cover the entire liturgical year. Those who order by March 1 can get the pre-order price, $39.99, or the yearly subscription of $125.

“The Saintmaker” comes in a leather-bound format, covering four liturgical seasons throughout the year. People can purchase a single planner or a subscription to four seasonal planners that cover the whole year.

“I really think there is an opportunity for Catholics to recommit to living a liturgically centered life,” Meffert said. “A lot of times, we go to Mass on Sunday, and then forget about it the rest of the week. I’ve been that person many times. I’d like to see The Saintmaker help people integrate the faith into their daily lives, into their work, their families, so it really becomes this thing they are living out and participating in all the time.”

The Saintmaker Catholic Life Planner

To pre-order The Saintmaker Catholic Life Planner or for more information, visit TheSaintmaker.com.