Yes, Your Business Can Serve the Kingdom if You’re Not Selling a Catholic Product or Service
“Work is fundamental to the dignity of the person.” (Pope Francis).
In a community of incredible Catholic business owners, I have, at times, struggled to see whether my work is worthy, because it’s not inherently Catholic or even Christian—or, frankly, religious at all. I create content for attorneys and law firms to use in their thought leadership and marketing materials. In and of itself, my work does not carry an explicitly Catholic mission. However, not only is that true of most jobs, but not everyone is called to sell Catholic jewelry or coach Catholic moms. So, where does that leave the rest of us? Can our work be meaningful in the eyes of the Church even if it does not carry expressly evangelical power?
Spoiler alert: I believe the answer is a resounding yes.
Using Your Gifts in Service of Others
Whether it’s running a Fortune 500 company, managing a home, cleaning bathrooms, or entering data, there are many different needs to fill in our homes, our communities, the market, and the world. While not all of them carry the mantle of Christianity, they all (assuming they are not illegal or immoral) fill some gap. Addressing those needs has a real human impact, even if on a small scale.
Economic health trickles straight down to families and individuals at a deeply human, granular level. Granted, some jobs may require us to dig a bit deeper to see and articulate this human impact. Doing so is a worthy exercise that teaches us to appreciate the many different ways the various members of the Body of Christ serve one another with their time, talent, and treasure. And, when we respond to a call to use our gifts and skills in service of these needs, we open ourselves up to sanctification—even, and maybe especially, when we cannot immediately see the kingdom impact of our work.
Cultivating Humility
It is easy to make ourselves the arbiters of whether our work is “worthy.” But, ultimately, that’s not up to us. It’s not about the work we do but, rather, how we do it—and, more importantly, how the Lord uses us in our day-to-day work. It’s about trusting that there may be some good that we do not see, not now or maybe not ever, yet stepping out in faith anyway.
I remember hearing a story about a young lawyer who was disenchanted with his first job out of law school. One day, his boss wanted to treat everyone in the office to lunch at a local hot dog joint. He asked this young lawyer to pick up the hot dogs, bring them back to the office, warm them up in the microwave, and then cut them into bite-sized pieces and distribute them to the staff.
Cutting up hot dogs wasn’t exactly how this young lawyer envisioned using his hard-won professional degree. In a talk to my law school copyright class, he told us that he had never before felt so disrespected, and he was tempted to quit. He didn’t, though, and he eventually found great fulfillment and success in his work—success that led him to be a sought-after speaker to young lawyers and law students.
Now, whenever I find myself stuck in some mundane aspect of my work, I remember this man and his story, and I simply say to myself, “Hot dogs.”
It’s a reminder that none of us is “too good” to say yes to tasks that feel beneath us and that in doing so, we prepare our souls to sow the seeds of humility.
The Intrinsic Dignity of Work
It is telling that before Jesus started his ministry, he worked as a carpenter—a job many might dismiss as “blue-collar.” It is a worthwhile message for those of us caught up in a culture that is obsessed with meaning. Sometimes, it’s not about finding work that drips with evangelical possibility or thrums with meaning. Growth in virtue comes from showing up to faithfully do the day’s tasks when they feel completely ordinary or even meaningless.
We see examples of this obedience to daily labor throughout the Bible and Church history. St. Thérèse provides one of the most powerful examples through her Little Way. The life of St. Teresa of Kolkata also resonates, as she spent her days cleaning the wounds of the sick and suffering in the streets of Kolkata while privately grieving her feeling that God was impossibly distant. Now, she is exalted as one of the greats in Church history.
Pope Francis himself has spoken to this concept that work carries its own dignity, saying, “Work is fundamental to the dignity of the person. Work … ‘anoints’ with dignity, fills us with dignity, makes us similar to God who has worked and still works, who always acts.”
As much as we crave meaning in our day-to-day life and yearn to do something meaningful for the Church, we often fail to see that God can create meaning out of virtually anything, given that we show up with a humble, willing, and curious spirit to do what the day asks of us—that we simply ask, “What does love require of me today?”, and then show up to do the good, hard, holy work, no matter what it may be and no matter how we may feel about it.
Alexandra Macey Davis is a wife, mother, and writer who shares her take on issues at the intersection of faith, culture, and family life. Her work has been published in Verily Magazine, Coffee + Crumbs, Public Discourse, FemCatholic, Everyday Mamas, She is Kindred, and many more. By day, she runs Davis Legal Media - a ghostwriting service for lawyers - and in the margins, you can find her wheeling her double stroller through vintage furniture stores, hoarding her favorite recipes, or writing at coffee shops. You can connect with Alex on her website, on Instagram, or by joining her monthly newsletter, where she encourages working moms to pursue goodness, truth, and beauty in their vocations.