Michael Halbrook

In fieri.
Ad alta.

In the making. To the heights.
Husband, father, and permanent deacon. Builder of Catholic technology and writer of essays, fiction, and homilies.
The Frame
Husband. Father. Deacon.
Builder. Writer.

For nearly eighteen years, I built at Adobe. The work was real, the people were extraordinary, and the chapter mattered.

But over the last several years, something else has been quietly forming. A diaconate, parish work, books written at night in my office reading chair, a novena offering my work to the Sacred Heart finishing on the Solemnity of Christ the King - a realization of how it all fits together, and a trust in the calling.

I'm not pivoting. I'm integrating - letting all of it finally show up in the same room, under the same name, consecrated to the same Sacred Heart.

The Work

Five doors. One vocation.

Domus Formation
The household as the first place of formation

A Catholic company built on a simple conviction: the home is not where faith goes to rest after Sunday - it is where faith is forged. Multiple paths for daily prayer with the Church - web, email, or app - some with audio. Domus Daily, the free morning newsletter.

Ad Alta Leadership
To the heights. For builders in transition.

Ad Alta Weekly - a free weekly newsletter for executives, founders, and leaders in transition. The perspective layer - what I'm seeing, what I'm thinking through, what's worth your attention.

Subscribe below →

Starting this summer

The Workshop - In officina. A patron's seat at the bench. Monthly letters from inside the work, quarterly conversations with builders, fathers, deacons, men and women of faith doing their craft. In the company of St. Joseph.

An Hour at the Bench - a focused working hour with me on a problem you're sitting with. Brought to the bench, worked through together.

To hear when these open, subscribe to Ad Alta Weekly above. (I'll mention them in Wednesday @ Lunch too.)
Lux Perpetua
Serial fiction at the edge of the sacred

Ordo: A Chronicle of Lux Perpetua - a novel published in two weekly tracks, tracing a custody chain back to 1307. Memberships from $44 to $288. The Seventy-Two seats are capped.

DeaconMichael.net
The deacon's desk

Personal essays, 2 Minute Homilies, weekly Tuesday reflections for Missio Dei Catholic, and a Wednesday-at-lunch letter - the deacon's voice in the middle of the week.

One more thing still in the making.

I'll be able to share more in a few weeks. If you know, you know - thank you for waiting with me.

To hear about it as it comes, the Wednesday @ Lunch newsletter below is the door. Subscribe there and you'll know when I do.

More soon.
The Rule of Life

How it all holds together.

Home in Granite City, Illinois. Married to Suzanne, who collaborates on most of it. Four sons. Permanent deacon at St. Elizabeth Parish, Diocese of Springfield. Knight of Columbus. President of the Archdiocese of Mbarara Foundation. Building these doors with Suzanne and our boys.

Every business consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on Christ the King Sunday, 2025.

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