“Exodus 90” helps Catholic men to reject earthly pleasures “Agents for Numbing” and to receive God’s Grace. The spiritual regimen builds connection and healing through Christ and through fasting, prayer… and cold showers.
Tommy was thirty weeks in the womb when he died in the womb of Rob Dauses’ wife, Shannon.
The loss hit hard and lasted. For several days, Rob used what he calls “numbing agents” – including alcohol and a cell phone.
Although he and Shannon were church-going Catholics, God was not his first stop in the grieving process.
“I have never dealt with my faith in meaningful ways. I was kind of going through the motions,” Douses said.
About five years ago, a guy sitting two pews in front suggested Exodus 90, a Catholic spiritual program for men.
For 90 days, participants commit to giving up hot showers, alcohol, sodas, snacks, sweets, television, video games, unnecessary purchases, and unnecessary use of cell phones and the Internet.
They also agree that every day they will read and think about selected passages from the Holy Scriptures, offer the morning offering, keep the Holy Hour and conduct a nightly examination of conscience.
Adherents do not eat meat on Wednesdays and Fridays, and on those days they eat only one full meal, along with two smaller ones.
The idea is spiritual – and to some extent physical – purification.
With Shannon’s encouragement, Rob tried.
It became a habit. Last 1. January, Rob started the program for the sixth time.
The experience taught him humility and perseverance, he told the Register, and also made him more considerate of his wife and their 13-year-old daughter, Grace.
“I’m a better husband, for sure. And I think I’m a better father,” said Douses, 38, of Jarretsville, Maryland, who works in technical sales for a printing and graphic communications company. “I feel less distracted, more adventurous as a dad — like, ‘Let’s go play outside,’ instead of ‘Let’s go watch something.'”
Where does it come from?
Exodus 90 originated from the ascetic practices that Father Brian Doerr, a priest from the Diocese of Lafeyette, Indiana, encouraged seminarians at Mount Saint Mary’s in Emmitsburg, Maryland, to follow, beginning in 2011.
“90” in Exodus 90 refers to the 90 days the program lasts. The “Exodus” part is taken from the Book of Exodus, which describes the captivity of the ancient Israelites in Egypt and their leading to freedom by God through Moses.
(“Get rid of your pharaohs,” says the homepage of the Exodus website.)
In September 2015, Father Doerr’s friend, Jamie Baxter, then 24, dropped out of St. Meinrad in Indiana, after realizing that he was not called to the priesthood. Father Doerr, shared ascetic practices with Baxter, and with the priest’s encouragement, decided to share them with the laity.
Baxter told the Register that after leaving, preparing for the priesthood, he experienced “a complete void of the brotherhood that I had taken for granted during my six years in seminary,” and that he wanted to offer some of that experience to men who would not go through seminary life.
With no money and little knowledge and experience, Baxter set to work. With his brother’s help, he raised $8,000 online to build a website.
Eight years later, about 100,000 men in eighty-six countries have gone through the program, according to Exodus, the 14-employee organization that sponsors it. About 33,000 men are currently going through it, Bexter told the Register.
How did it develop so quickly?
Exodus has a marketing plan, Baxter said during an October 2023 appearance. in a podcast called The Catholic Man Show, but it’s hard to say how well it works.
“The truth about Exodus is that it’s really just these guys inviting their friends. That’s all. It’s just organic – ‘It helped me; I think there is something in this one for you, in your own way. Let me tell you about it. Let me call you,’” Baxter said.
How hard is it?
“That sounds like a lot of things. That sounds intense,” is how many people react when they first hear about Exodus 90, said Nick Meyer, director of growth and success for Exodus, an organization that runs what organizers call “90s” and other spiritual programs throughout the year.
They are not wrong, he said, but it is feasible – through what the organizers describe as the “pillars” of the program: “Prayer”, “Asceticism”, “Brotherhood”.
The “fraternity” is made up of small groups of men, who often gather for 90 days to offer accountability and encouragement.
For many men, Exodus 90 is a way to try to get rid of bad habits, such as pornography.
But it also curbs tendencies that are not immoral but can act as distractions.
“I have so much time, because I threw out all that stuff. Those aren’t necessarily bad things — but for bigger things,” Meyer said.
For Will McNamara, 30, a Chicago native, those things included staying out late at night before work or spending the entire Sunday watching National Football League games on television.
“I could see ways that I wasn’t available to others, who needed me,” said McNamara, who recently moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, is currently single but in a relationship and works for a financial technology company that sells embedded payment systems to software companies.
He has completed three Exodus sessions and is starting his fourth this month.
In late December 2023, a few days before the current 90-day program began, the Register asked McNamara if he was looking forward to it with joy or trepidation.
He said that most men who start Exodus 90 are enthusiastic about it for the first fortnight, which is about the time when cold showers and twice-weekly fasting days become a bit depressing.
Despite this, he said, he looks forward to each period because of the spiritual growth he expects to experience as a result. It never gets old, he said, because he has new things to work on every time, keeping up with what’s going on in his life at the time.
“And every time, there’s a joy — in, ‘Who am I going to be in 90 days?'” McNamara said.
What are you doing?
The current session, Exodus 90, began on January 1st and runs until Easter, which is March 31st. (While the current program is ongoing, Exodus welcomes latecomers. The organization offers men to join for Lent, which this year begins on the 14th. February).
Exodus 90 participants download an app that provides a structure for the experience, including access to daily reflections on the Scripture readings.
After a 14-day free trial, access to the app costs $10 per month or $90 for the year — although it’s possible to keep your membership for just three months of Exodus 90 and then cancel after paying $30. Exodus uses the money to pay staff, writers, contractors, marketing, servers and computers, and to maintain the app.
The app, organizers say, is designed to be helpful without being time-consuming or addictive. Participants have access to only the information they need for a given day and nothing more.
During the first 45 days, they read excerpts from the Book of Exodus, which preaches about the slavery of the ancient Israelites in Egypt, their deliverance, receiving the Ten Commandments and wandering in the desert.
It is common for people who read or hear the biblical account to lose patience with the Israelites, who often fall into complaining and idolatry, despite having received clear instructions from God about what they should do and what they should avoid.
Still, their experiences seem familiar, Douses said.
“Now I see that we are exactly like them,” he said. “We do all the same things. And we need the same kind of freedom that God wants to give, that the Israelites got because of their trust in God.”
Healing through suffering
Douses credits Exodus 90 with helping him cope with the loss of his son.
Neither Tommy’s death, nor his parents’ grief, seem meaningless anymore.
“I think a lot of it was a change in my framework of why we suffer and what it’s for,” Douses said. “It must have taught me a lot about the nature of suffering, that the Lord used it to draw both my wife and I closer to Himself.”
The speaker of Exodus 90, who came to his parish a few years ago, recommended that every time a person participating in the program enters a cold shower, he should say the name of a certain person out loud.
This sums up the point of ascetic practices for Douses: “So that suffering is not done in vain. These sacrifices are intended for others. That is the nature of love.”
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