she devoted herself to charitable work — including running a hospital for the poor.
“We cannot ‘cookie-cutter’ every mom into 24/7 SAHMs, if working is what helps their husband — (and their entire family) — to pay the bills/save/whatever. It is a very hard struggle for some in ministry, clerical, or lay. And so we gently witness that God made us all differently, and our families to function differently, than some ‘ideal.’”
— Naomi B.
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton converted to Catholicism after being widowed. Although she was the sole caretaker for her five children, she founded a school and a religious order. The order “made provisions for Elizabeth to continue raising her children” while she worked as a teacher.3
One of my favorite saints is Saint Zélie Martin, mother of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. In addition to being a faithful Catholic wife and mother, she was also a working professional. Before her marriage, she learned the craft of lace-making, and she was so talented in her field that she started her own business. Her clientele and reputation grew to the point that her husband, who had been a watchmaker, elected to leave his own business in order to join his wife’s!
Saint Zélie was an amazing example of a working mother. Per the Carmelite Sisters in Ireland:
That same year [1870] Louis sold his business to his nephew so that he could help Zélie with hers. He had already taken over the bookkeeping and was now free to travel to obtain orders. Zélie had fifteen women working for her in their own homes, and every Thursday they brought her the work they had done and received the cotton and their instructions for the next week. Zélie assembled the pieces that they brought to her. She often worked late into the night as she always gave time to her children when they needed it and she wrote many letters especially to her two eldest daughters when they were in boarding school.4
Note that Zélie not only placed her elder daughters in boarding school, but she also gave over the care of her youngest daughter to a nurse for the first eighteen months of her life, per the Society of the Little Flower:
Due to Thérèse’s weak and frail condition at birth, she was taken care of by a nurse for her first year and a half. Because of this care, she became a lively, mischievous, and self-confident child.5
Given that all five of Zélie’s surviving daughters eventually entered religious life — and several of them are either saints or on the path to sainthood — it doesn’t seem like they were much harmed by having a working mother or going to “daycare”!
Another inspirational saint for working mothers is Saint Edith Stein, also known as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a Jewish convert to the faith and brilliant philosopher who was killed in a Nazi concentration camp.
Although Stein had a vocation to religious life instead of one to marriage and family, and thus only experienced spiritual motherhood, she was a gifted academic and philosopher who penned a large volume of work and gave many lectures regarding the nature and vocation of women.
In her Essays on Woman, she notes in a 1931 lecture titled “The Separate Vocations of Men and Women According to Nature and Grace,” that “the question whether women should enter the professional life or stay at home has been controversial for some time.”
Later in this particular essay, she discusses the economic situation that has made women in the workforce a reality and asks, “On the whole[,] does woman’s professional life outside of the home violate the order of nature and grace? I believe that one must answer ‘no’ to this question.”
She continues:
Wherever the circle of domestic duties is too narrow for the wife to attain the full formation of her powers, both nature and reason concur that she reach out beyond this circle. It appears to me, however, that there is a limit to such professional activities whenever it jeopardizes domestic life, i.e., the community of life and formation consisting of parents and children. It seems to me a contradiction of the divine order when the professional activities of the husband escalate to a degree which cuts him off completely from family life. This is even more true of the wife. Any social condition is an unhealthy one which compels married women to seek gainful employment and makes it impossible for them to manage their home. And we should accept as normal that the married woman is restricted to domestic life at a time when her household duties exact her total energies.6
Here Edith Stein reiterates the teachings of the popes: It is not inherently wrong or sinful for a mother to work outside the home, but such work should not cause the neglect of home and family — and that goes for the husband as well. She decries social conditions that compel women to seek gainful employment — the implication being that they do so against their will, due to economic conditions — AND (not “or”) make it impossible for them to manage their home.
Additionally, the last line of this quote makes the case for extended maternity leave long before such policies were even proposed, let alone enacted.
I would love to reprint her essay (not to mention several others) in its entirety, but it would make this chapter entirely too long. I highly recommend reading her works, especially the essays in this particular volume, as they are brilliant discourses on theological issues that are pertinent to Catholic women, whether they are single, married, or in religious life.
Of course, no book about working mothers would be complete without discussion of our patroness: Saint Gianna Beretta Molla.
Saint Gianna was born in 1922 in Milan, Italy, into a devout Catholic family. Her solid faith and dedication to prayer led her to devote her life to the service of others. She realized this vocation by studying medicine, becoming a doctor, and opening her own pediatrics practice, while also serving the poor and elderly through volunteer work. She discerned a vocation to marriage and family, and was wedded to Pietro Molla, an engineer, on September 24, 1955. Following her marriage, she had three children in four years while continuing to work as a pediatrician.
In the first trimester of her fourth pregnancy, Gianna was diagnosed with a dangerously large fibroid tumor in her uterus. Per Catholic teaching, a therapeutic hysterectomy was a morally licit option under the principle of double effect, but Gianna chose a riskier surgery to remove only the fibroid in an attempt to save the baby.
The surgery was successful, but the remainder of her pregnancy was fraught with anxiety as it was unknown what effects or complications the surgery might have had on the baby, and the early surgery also made her subsequent delivery riskier as well. Throughout, Gianna insisted that, if a choice had to be made, she wanted her husband and medical providers to save the baby, not her.
“[H]opefully, in addition to the working moms already canonized, WE can be the people our Catholic friends hold up as examples of someone who is a good Catholic and working mom, doing good work, and being a good mom.”
— Katie F.
Her fourth child, a girl christened Gianna Emanuela, was eventually born safely, but the delivery included complications that claimed Saint Gianna’s life one week later. She died on April 28, 1962. On April 24, 1994, she was beatified by Saint John Paul II, and canonized by him on May 16, 2004. Her husband and children were present at her canonization.
Gianna did not undertake work outside the home due to financial necessity; her husband was an engineer, and his income would have been more than adequate for his family’s needs. Instead, she worked outside the home because she felt she had been called by God to serve the members of her community as a doctor, while also serving her husband and children as
