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Chapter 2

Our Sisters, the Saints

I’m the daughter of a working mother. My mother was, and still is, a teacher, and many times during my childhood she was the sole breadwinner for our family. Most of my female relatives work outside the home, and many of my elementary school teachers were working mothers.

I wasn’t raised Catholic, and working mothers were not unusual in the Protestant denomination I grew up in. As a child, I knew that some of my classmates had mothers who didn’t work outside the home, but my experience was such that I viewed SAHMs as the exception, not the norm.

Imagine my confusion, as a fairly new Catholic convert and new working mother, when I first encountered fellow Catholics who firmly believed that the teaching of the Catholic Church was that mothers shouldn’t work outside the home as a general rule. They believed that there may be extreme cases in which a mother who was widowed (or worse, divorced or unmarried) might need to work, but that those cases needed to be few and far between, and that the woman needed to find herself a Catholic husband as soon as possible so she could quit her job and raise her children.

Is this an accurate reflection of what the Church taught or teaches about working mothers?

Well, sort of … but not really.

The Church does teach that a father is obligated to support his family … but it doesn’t teach that only the father may or should support the family.

The Church does teach that a father should not force or pressure his wife to work outside the home, or expect that she will without discussing it with her … but it doesn’t teach that a wife must never work outside the home except in “extraordinary” circumstances, or must never desire to work outside the home.

The Church does teach that a mother should keep up a good home and raise her children properly … but it doesn’t teach that a mother can only do this if she doesn’t work outside the home.

The Church does teach that greed or selfishness should not cause parents to neglect their children … but it doesn’t teach that a mother who works does so due to motives of greed or selfishness.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church and papal encyclicals throughout history are great resources on the subject of working mothers. However, what I find most compelling in regard to this discussion is the lives of the saints, whom we are encouraged to emulate in our own lives.

Several biblical figures and saints were working mothers. They may not have been “working” in the sense that we know it today, where a mother typically leaves the house in the morning, works in an external location, and returns home every evening, but they worked nonetheless.

For instance, the woman described in Proverbs 31 had several occupations — even reading that chapter makes me tired! She “seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands” (31:13). She "considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard” (31:14). She “puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle” (31:19). She “opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to the needy” (31:20). She “makes linen garments and sells them; she delivers girdles to the merchant” (31:24). All that, and she looks to the needs of her household, including managing a staff of servants!

Priscilla and Lydia, two women mentioned in the New Testament, also may have been working mothers, although this is not explicitly stated. Priscilla was married to Aquila, and they worked together as tent-makers. Later, they traveled with the Apostle Paul. We don’t know if they had children, but I have found at least one icon that features Priscilla and Aquila as parents.²

“My job doesn’t interfere with my vocation, it wonderfully ties into and supports it. In the same way, my husband’s job supports his vocation of fatherhood. He makes sure it doesn’t get in the way by keeping strict working hours and setting limits with his bosses so they know that he won’t sell his soul and all of his waking hours to the office. His vocation of fatherhood is equally important to mine of motherhood. Yes, they look different, but this isn’t a concern that only occurs with working mothers. It just isn’t.”

— Amy G.

Lydia was a seller of purple cloth. It is speculated that Lydia was a widow, indicated by the fact that she was able to invite strangers — and strange men, at that — to reside in her home, a freedom unheard of for a single or currently married woman at that time. The Bible mentions that she had her “entire household” baptized — a household that may have included her own children (cf. Acts 16:14–15).

The communion of canonized saints also counts several working mothers among its number. One whom I only recently learned about is Saint Frances of Rome. An excellent patroness for the reluctant working woman, her dearest desire was to devote herself to religious life. However, her father commanded her to marry instead, and after a long interior struggle, she submitted her life to God’s will. She and her husband had several children, and in addition to managing her household, 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 a wife and mother. Per her biography on the Vatican website, “with simplicity and equilibrium she harmonized the demands of mother, wife, doctor, and her passion for life.”⁷

It is true that Gianna had made the decision to give up her medical practice once her fourth child was born, but her decision was not because she had come to the conclusion that working outside the home was somehow wrong or inappropriate. As her husband, Pietro, said in a biography about his wife:

Already during our engagement, Gianna had asked me about continuing her profession at least as long as her obligations as wife and above all as mother allowed it. I did not oppose that because I knew well how enthusiastically she practiced medicine, how attached she was to her patients. Later, by mutual agreement, we made the decision that she would stop at the birth of our fourth child. In this understanding, she continued her profession until her last confinement.⁸

A study of Saint Gianna’s life, including the letters she wrote to her husband, reveals a devout woman who had been immersed in the teachings of the Catholic Church from childhood, and who was devoted to serving God in all aspects of her life. She lived a life of heroic virtue, as is evidenced by the fact that she was canonized as a saint.

May we all be so skilled as Saint Gianna in managing our varied vocations as wives, mothers, and working women!