Professional Catholics

Reflection for November 15, 2026 – 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus shares the Parable of the Talents, encouraging his disciples to show themselves as “good and faithful” stewards of the Gospel. Find the daily reading here.

They call us “professional Catholics.”

You know many of these folks. Maybe you are one (I am). Maybe it’s part of your actual job to work for the Church. “Manna from Heaven,” I once called it — the privilege of seeing your bills paid by money earned talking about God.

I was having dinner with a friend recently who works in a local parish. She shared with me that some of her colleagues don’t seem to have much of a devotional life outside of their jobs. Some don’t even attend regular Mass, though their lives revolve around the Church.

“That’s terrible,” I said, not wanting to think of the holy hours I haven’t had time for, the Rosaries I haven’t finished, and the stack of spiritual books next to my desk, spines uncracked.

You don’t have to earn a paycheck to be a professional Catholic. A professional Catholic can be anyone who spends a good deal of time simply identifying as a disciple, without embracing what that actually means.

See, I was wrong to call it “manna from Heaven.” Manna merely sustains life, and we shouldn’t be satisfied with that. The reward of a disciple should be more.

The opportunity to spread the Gospel is a fortune, lavishly endowed to the care of a servant by a master who is long delayed. He doesn’t care about return on investment. He’ll be just as pleased with a twofold increase as a five-fold one. It’s not about profits. It’s about engagement.

How terrible will it be, when I stand before God, if all I can tell Him is this: “I did my job. I was a professional.”

I want to tell Him I did more. I pray I can tell Him I did more.

©LPi