Money, Money, Money

Weekly Notes

It is Tuesday. My family leaves tomorrow for our pilgrimage. And I am vacillating between total excitement and total terror. We definitely need prayers. If you could offer a few big ones for us over the next couple of days, I would be incredibly grateful. Please also send me any requests you might have. You can use the dm feature here or on Instagram. I may not have a chance to respond, but I promise I will see every one and remember every one as we make our way with many small children through Assisi, Siena, and Rome.

I will be mostly offline while we are away, but I’ll try to share some pictures on Instagram as I can (and here when we return). I also have dusted off some things I wrote long, long ago and scheduled them to arrive via Substack every Tuesday while we are gone, so your inbox won’t be totally empty of missives from me. Newsletters will then keep coming all through the summer, but throughout July and early August, the only place you will be able to find me online is Substack. I’ve been wanting to take an extended break from Instagram and Facebook for a while, and after praying about it for the past month, I decided this summer is the time to do it. I’ll report back on how it goes.

Thank you, as always, for supporting this newsletter, my work, and our family. This summer marks the third anniversary of “Through a Glass Darkly,” and besides Ellie, it has been the very best gift of the past three years. And if you’re not already a full subscriber, I hope you join us as one soon. Maybe even today!

Question Box

When planning these Q&A’s, I always draw from questions sent to me via Instagram and dms. Sometimes, there is no theme. Other times, I get so many questions related to one particular topic that I decide to group them all into one newsletter. Recently, I’ve had so many questions about money, that I decided to answer some of those questions here, all at once. Hence, today’s theme.

I saw a Catholic influencer say not all Catholics are called to pursue poverty. What are your thoughts?

It depends on what they meant by “pursue poverty.”

It’s true that not all Christians need to pursue living in abject poverty. We don’t all have to be Saint Francis. The Church doesn’t condemn people who own homes or who go on vacations. Nor does she teach that wealth, in and of itself, is evil. Wealth received gratefully, given generously, held loosely, and used to glorify God and serve others can be a good. Likewise, simply being wealthy is not a vice, nor is being poor a virtue. You can be a humble, grateful, and generous rich man or a proud, miserly, envious poor man. It’s how you see money—how you understand it, value it, and pursue it—far more than the fact of money itself, that carries moral weight.

That right attitude towards money is what all Christians are called to pursue. We are called to pursue being poor in spirit—detached from wealth and the trappings of wealth, recognizing that everything we have belongs to the Lord, and practicing sacrificial generosity regardless of whether we have more money or less.

The reason why we are called to be poor in spirit is because while wealth might not be evil, it is dangerous. Very dangerous. Scripture warns us repeatedly about this. Jesus said it was harder for a rich man to go to heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle (Matthew 19:24). He also said we cannot serve both God and money (Matthew 6:24). Saint Paul, for his part, tells us that love of money is the root of all evil and that the desire to be rich will “plunge” us into “ruin and destruction,” (1 Timothy 6:9-10). The most disturbing line of all, if you have money, comes from the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus says, “Woe to you who are rich, for you have your reward now,” (Luke 6:24). Now. As in, “not in Heaven.”

These and so many other Scripture passages about wealth are dire warnings, but precious few of us take them seriously. The sheer number of Christians who play the lottery, chasing after the very thing that Jesus warns us against, is proof of that. But Jesus is extremely clear: wealth is spiritually dangerous. It is a tremendous responsibility, and most people who have that responsibility don’t handle it well. They end up loving their money more than God and their neighbor. It becomes an idol. And in the end, they experience their wealth as a curse, not a blessing.

So, while Christians don’t have to pursue abject poverty, we should not pursue wealth either. Being wealthy should never be our goal. We should not presume so much on our own virtue. It’s okay to not want to be poor. But if we find ourselves simply wanting to be rich—if wealth is the goal of our work, the end to which we’re ordering our life and time—that is profoundly unwise. Rather, our goal with our work should always be service to God and man. It also should be glorifying God by being the person He made us to be. So, building a company that provides a valuable service and creates jobs for others is a worthy goal. Pursuing a career that allows you to use your gifts in a way that brings you joy and serves the common good is a worthy goal. Seeking to do your job well because want to serve and glorify God in all you do is a worthy goal. And yes, putting food on the table, paying the mortgage, and being able to afford your kids’ tuition—all of which serves your family—is also a worthy goal.

But as we pursue those goals, we need to make sure that the desire for money doesn’t outpace our higher desires. If we find ourselves compromising our integrity, cutting ethical corners, caring more about profit than persons, not treating others justly, or prioritizing work over family, friends, and faith, then we need to step back to reevaluate and reorder our priorities. The same holds true if we find ourselves reluctant to give our money away— feeling put upon every time we’re asked to donate to something, resenting fundraising requests, and never giving sacrificially to anything. The true sign of our detachment to wealth is how freely we give it to the Church and those in need.

In the end, maybe the most helpful way to think about this question is that God doesn’t call us to pursue poverty or wealth. He calls us to pursue His will. He calls us to pursue Him. He may ask us to embrace poverty as part of that pursuit. Alternately, He may ask us to accept the burden of wealth as part of that pursuit. But the pursuit always has to be of Him. If we keep that focus, then we can trust He will offer us all the grace we need to navigate the troubles and sorrows of either wealth or poverty.

How can we enjoy beauty and the finer things without becoming greedy for wealth?

Traditionally, greed is considered one of the seven deadly (or capital) sins. It earns that distinction not simply because greed itself can kill the life of grace in our soul, but also because it is a gateway sin, leading us to commit other sins that are equally deadly. When we make money our god, we do what we need to do to serve it. We lie, cheat, covet, and steal. We especially steal from the poor. We also fail to love our neighbor and serve the common good. We lose our taste for the truly finer things of life: love, friendship, communion, wisdom, and virtue. Worst of all, we forget how much we need God.

Avoiding this particular form of idolatry can be tricky, because our fallen human condition so often leads us to desire created goods more than we desire the Creator. And money can secure so many of those goods. Which is why I suppose the best antidote to not letting the created supplant the Creator is to grow closer and closer to the Creator. The more time we spend in the Word and with the Word, the less likely we are to confuse the good of God with the good of His creations. A real and abiding relationship with Christ won’t make us immune to temptation, but it does increase our chances of seeing how hollow that temptation is when it comes along.

It also helps to, in a sense, mind our own business, paying minimal attention to the lifestyles of others, especially via social media, which can be a hotbed of temptation to envy and greed. For example, the other day I opened Instagram and the first thing that popped up was a reel featuring a young Influencer lounging in a villa in the South of France. It was a stunning villa with a stunning view. I am happy the young woman gets to enjoy it. But it’s not good for me to spend too much time looking at reels like that. It can pull my focus away from the beauty of my own life and make it seem not enough.

In reality, the beauty in my life is tremendous. But it’s also tangled up with a lot of crazy, and the crazy can make the beauty harder to appreciate. I am sure crazy also abounds in the life of the young woman swimming in the South of France. But it’s not in her reel. Her reel is a romanticized version of her life. It is anything but real. And giving too much attention—or maybe any attention at all—to what is not real or not ours seems to be a quick path to greed.

It is good, however, to give our attention to the finer things money can’t buy. So many of the most beautiful things in this life cost little or nothing. Flowers, sunrises, and the laughter of babies are all free to enjoy. So is sitting in a quiet church filled with stained glass, marble, and the Real Presence of God. Good books and good music, morning walks, evening strolls, and long conversations over candlelit dinners at the kitchen table cost nothing or almost nothing. There is so much that is good and beautiful and true in the world that is free to enjoy, and the more we fill our time and our hearts with appreciating those things, the less room there is for greed to take hold.

Last but not least, it’s important to spend time with the poor and practice radical generosity. We’re all called to do this, but it’s especially important for those who live comfortable lives and those who have (or spend time around) great wealth. Just like too much time watching Instagram can make us covetous, too much time enjoying life’s luxuries or moving among the wealthy can give us a distorted sense of the world and what matters. The most virtuous wealthy people I know (and I know some very virtuous wealthy people) spend an extraordinary amount of time among the poor. They volunteer regularly in soup kitchens and women’s shelters, go on mission trips to serve the poorest of the poor, know the names of the homeless men and women downtown, and give well more than ten percent of their income away. In doing that, they find a joy they can’t find in the very lovely, but often empty bubbles that money can buy.

Do you have any advice on how I should plan my finances as a single woman?

Financial advice is normally not my thing, but I would say it’s probably not helpful to think there is a difference between good financial advice for single women and good financial advice for married couples. Good financial advice is good financial advice. Period. I get why it’s tempting to think, otherwise, though. Many single women do.

Over the years, I’ve seen single women struggle with financial decisions in two main ways. Some make decisions without any thought for marriage and family; they don’t think about how the financial decisions they’re making in the present—debt, spending, student loans, career paths—will affect a future husband and children. Others struggle because the “what ifs” about their future paralyze them: they put off making important financial decisions and managing their money well, thinking those things can wait until a husband and family comes along.

I understand those struggles. It is hard to both live in the now and plan for an unknown “not yet.” But that’s everyone’s challenge, not just single women’s. None of us know what the future holds or how illness, accident, and our fallen human condition can upend even the best laid plans. The most any of us can do is try to make decisions that will bless our future selves and the life we hope to live, but that also correspond to our needs and opportunities in the present moment, which is where God is always speaking to us and making His will for us known.

I’m sorry if that sounds abstract! It’s hard to be more specific because we all have different gifts, opportunities, and limitations. But just make the best decisions you can now, given your present circumstances. Pay off your credit card monthly. Invest in your education, but don’t borrow exorbitantly. Work hard to pay down any existing student loans or credit card debt as quickly as you reasonably can. Make a budget. Build an emergency fund. Start saving for retirement. Give generously to the Church and the poor. And if and when it makes sense to buy a starter home, buy one, even as a single woman.  Don’t wait for the future to manage your time and resources well. But do think about the future as you respond to the needs and opportunities of the present moment.

Also, I feel like I say this all the time, but just remember that God is not some game show host in the sky, wondering if you are going to correctly guess what He wants you to do and planning on sending you home with laundry detergent instead of the life of your dreams if you guess incorrectly. God loves you. He has a plan for you. And that plan is to get you to Him. He knows what choices you are going to make today and tomorrow, and He is going to work through those choices to help lead you to Him. He also is not going to call you to something right now that will make what He has in store for you in the future impossible. God’s will does not work against itself. So, use the reason He gave you. Make smart choices now. And keep seeking His will in all things every day. He will take care of the rest.

How do you decide which organizations and causes to give money to? There are so many.

There are so many. And no one can give to all of them. There’s also no hard and fast rule about who gets what percentage of your charitable giving, so what my husband and I prefer to do, might not be what you prefer to do.

That being said, Catholics do have a canonical obligation to support the work of the Church. Canon law tell us, “The Christian faithful are obliged to assist with the needs of the Church so that the Church has what is necessary for divine worship, for the works of the apostolate and of charity, and for the decent support of ministers,” (Can. 222 §1).

We also have a moral obligation to support the poor. Scripture is full of admonitions to give to the poor and the Catechism states that, “God blesses those who come to the aid of the poor and rebukes those who turn away from them.” To not give generously to the poor, she continues, isn’t just a failure of generosity; it’s theft. Quoting Saint John Chrysostom, the Catechism states, “Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs,” (CCC, 2446).

Given both those obligations—to the Church and the poor—every Catholic should be directing at least some of their money to their parish and to those in need. Beyond that, it’s just a question of prudence and preference.

Over the past few years, Chris and I have found a balance that works for us. We give about half of our tithe to our parish. The other half goes to apostolates that serve the materially poor, religious orders, Catholic schools and universities, missionary organizations, Catholic apostolates (including some Substacks), and individuals. With the occasional exception, we give something to almost every good Catholic organization that asks us because they’re doing good things and we want to help, even if only in a small way. Saying “yes” a lot is also a good exercise in detachment. My husband says that when someone asks us for money, they’re actually doing us a favor. They’re helping us remember that all the money we have belongs to God, and they’re giving us the opportunity to get rid of something that, if horded, can lead to perdition.

That being said, a lot the gifts we give are small. Chris and I both work for the Church. We don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to give away. Some of our automatic monthly gifts are as little as $5. But that’s okay. I think one of the lies the devil likes us to believe is that the only donations which matter are big donations. It’s a great way to keep many people from giving anything. But small gifts do matter. I’ve assisted dozens of Catholic organizations with their fundraising efforts over the past 20 years and have seen how many small gifts add up to truly life-changing amounts of money. We experienced this ourselves when we did our adoption fundraisers. Thanks to hundreds of people giving $10 or $20 to get my adoption cookbook, we were able to bring both Becket and Ellie home.

I don’t know if that’s helpful or not. But if you are giving generously to the Church and those in need, and not letting your inability to give big gifts stop you from giving any gifts, you will be doing well.

Five Things I’m Loving

1. Chris and I are madly late to the party on this, but after watching and enjoying Beyond Paradise on Prime, we are now going back and watching all 13 seasons of Death in Paradise. It’s not quite a cozy British mystery series (since it is set on a Caribbean island), but it’s totally delightful just the same.

2. Given recent discussions on here, I appreciated both of these articles on the struggles young men in our culture face today, and think you will, too: “Boys Get Everything Except the Thing Most Worth Having” and “The Atmosphere of the Manosphere is Toxic” (a little old, but still good).

3. For my fellow lovers of vintage lighting, I finally found a store which specializes in high quality reproductions, similar to what Rejuvenation used to make before they were bought and destroyed by Pottery Barn: Revival Lighting. They are a small store, based in Washington State, and the pictures online aren’t that great. But we bought two lights from them back in March, and I am super impressed with the quality. The selection is more limited than what Rejuvenation’s used to be, but the quality is just as high (and the prices considerably lower).

4. It’s summer time, which means it’s the perfect time to make my favorite hot weather dessert: Salted Carmel and Cashew Ice Cream Cake.

5. Ever since Beautycounter shut down, I’ve been struggling to find replacements I love. I have found some good things, but most I will set aside in a heartbeat if Beautycounter comes back. There are, however, a few replacements I’ve found that I will absolutely keep using, including the Merit Perfecting Complexion Stick. It is a foundation and concealer in one, that goes on easily, covers perfectly, stays on all day, and somehow doesn’t make me look like I have makeup on. The one downside is that it doesn’t contains SPF, so I am using the Crunchi facial sunscreen underneath. The sunscreen is very light and absorbs quickly, while offering excellent protection for my fairer than fair skin, which is good. Like many Crunchi products, it has a strong smell that I find unpleasant. Fortunately, the smell goes away quickly, making it the best alternative to Beautycounter’s sunscreen I’ve found thus far.

Can I ask you a favor? With me traveling and off social media for most of the summer, I could really use some help spreading the word about this newsletter. Even if you’re not able to become a full subcriber, it would be such a blessing if you could share this or other favorite newsletters of mine on social media or with friends and family via email. Every share is so appreciated! Thank you!

In Case You Missed It

Why the Devil Wants Women to Do It All (Full Subscribers Only)

Suffering, Hell, Confession, and More (Free for all Subscribers)

The Heresies of the Manosphere, Part 1 (Free for all Subscribers)