Joy and Dignity in Catholic Philanthropy

Guest Post – Gabriela Robles, Chief Executive

In 1843, when Bishop Bourget founded and supported the Sisters of Providence, he offered this blessing to Blessed Émilie Gamelin and her sisters: “May your joy multiply, as your family — the family of the poor — keeps multiplying.”

He did not say, “May your joy come after the work is done.” Nor did he say, “May you find joy despite the suffering you will witness.” He said that joy and the presence of the poor would grow together. That joy was not the reward at the end of the road. It was part of the road itself.

I think it points to something Catholic philanthropy — and, frankly, the broader social sector — has overlooked.

We are very good at talking about suffering. We are fluent in the language of need, gap analysis, and systemic harm. We are less practiced at naming joy as something communities are owed, not as an afterthought to their basic needs being met, but as part of what it means to live with dignity.

Catholic social teaching is explicit on this point. The principle of human dignity, rooted in the belief that every person is made in the image and likeness of God, does not simply protect people from the worst. It makes an affirmative claim that every person deserves a life of fullness.

After more than two decades in this work, I have come to understand that for marginalized communities, joy is rarely received. It is reclaimed.

The Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange articulate this in their charism. Joy and hope are not peripheral values. They are central to how these women live the Gospel. Their model has been to enter communities, listen, build relationships, and trust that what is already present — resilience, cultural wisdom, and the social fabric — holds the seeds of flourishing.

I saw this in my neighborhood as a kid. Many families were navigating impossible circumstances. And yet there was music and laughter. There were celebrations and shared tables and the specific joy of belonging to people who claimed you. That joy existed alongside the hardship. It was, in a very real sense, how the community refused to be reduced to its circumstances.

That refusal is theological, whether we call it that or not. When people who have been told by policy, poverty, and exclusion that they are less than respond by building community, celebrating, and insisting on beauty and delight, they are making a claim about their own dignity. They are saying that we are more than what has been done to us.

This matters for how we fund and how we lead. If we believe in the dignity of the human person, then we must believe in the right to joy, not just the right to survive. It means asking ourselves whether our strategies leave room for flourishing. It means investing in cultural celebration, intergenerational connection, and the things that make people feel claimed by their communities.

It also means looking honestly at what we are communicating when joy is absent from our frameworks. When we speak only in the language of need, we risk, even unintentionally, confirming the deficit narrative we claim to oppose.

The Sisters of Providence’s founding blessing is still instructive today. Joy is not what comes after justice.

For communities that have earned it through extraordinary persistence, it is itself an act of justice. For those of us in Catholic philanthropy, taking joy as a value and as something the communities we serve have not just desired — but always and already been practicing — is part of what it means to honor the full dignity of every dear neighbor we are called to serve.