Novena for Careers, Employment, and Career Discernment

Dear Lord, I thank you and praise you for the many ways you bless me in my life. I ask you today to assist me with the grace of discernment between a career, a proper ministry, and a hobby. There are many reasons that discernment can be difficult in this modern world. There are many distractions and uncertainties I face as I try to understand Your will for my life. You can help me to become truly open to whatever you might be asking me to do.

​

Please give me all that I need to properly discern your will, and I particularly ask today that you help me to grow in true openness to your will. Help me to make growth in holiness and virtue my top priority in life. Give me the grace to serve you unreservedly in every circumstance I face.

​

Dear Jesu, I thank you for giving me your foster father, St. Joseph, as an example of a holy worker. Help me to imitate all of his virtues, particularly his humble spirit of diligence in work.

​

St. Joseph, you worked as a carpenter for many years of your life. You know the importance of a good job through which I can support myself and my family in this world today. Many people suffer a lot as the result of losing their jobs, and they are in great need of assistance as they search for a new job. I am one of them. 

​

O glorious St. Cajetan, you studied to be a lawyer, but when you felt that the Lord called you to his service, you abandoned everything to become a priest. You excelled in virtues, shunning all material rewards for your labor, helping the many unemployed people of your time. You provided loans without interest and you attracted a lot of benefactors who donated to your resources so that you could go on with your activities. Look on me with mercy. I wish to find or create employment that could help me and my family live with dignity.

​

You are a model of virtue among the priests of your time, St. Cajetan. You sought not to receive payments from your ministry, and you taught people how to pray the rosary and develop devotions to saints. You are truly a spiritual shepherd, and your concern was always focused on the salvations of souls. But despite this, you are also aware that with hungry stomachs, the faithful would have difficulty in understanding God's word.

​

St. Joseph, please bring my prayers for employment before God, and pray today especially for those who have been laid off from their jobs. Pray that I may imitate your many virtues in my life. Help me through your prayers to become a holy servant of God. Dear St. Joseph, I thank God for your privilege of being able to work side-by-side with Jesus in the carpenter shop of Nazareth. As a token of your own gratitude to God, obtain for me the grace to respect the dignity of labor and ever to be content with the position in life, however lowly, in which it may please Devine Providence to place me.

​

St. Joseph, patron saint of workers, pray for me!

St. Cajetan, patron saint of unemployed workers and job seekers, pray for me!

​

St. Cajetan, you embarked to help others, not met by giving them bread but helping them gain their living by work. Look on me with pity. There are many unemployed people in our midst and their families go hungry. I ask you to guide the fathers and mothers who are looking for work. Listen to my petitions, dear saint; you, who could easily give up the food on your table for the needy, bring my petitions to Jesus.

​

St. Joseph, I, an unworthy child, greet you. You are the faithful protector and intercessor of all who love and venerate you. Teach me to work for God and with God in the spirit of humility and prayer, as you did, so that I may offer my toil in union with the sacrifice of Jesus in the Holy Mass as a reparation for my sins, and gain rich merit for heaven. You know that I have special confidence in you and that, after My Lord and My Lady, I place all my hope of salvation in you, for you are especially powerful with God and will never abandon your faithful servants. Therefore, I humbly invoke you and commend myself, with all who are dear to me and all that belongs to me, to your intercession.

​

St. Joseph and St. Cajetan, please intercede for me for (mention your petitions here).

​

St. Joseph, I beg you  by your love for My Lord and My Lady, not to abandon me during my life and to assist me at the hour of my death. Glorious Saint Joseph, spouse of the Immaculate Virgin, obtain for me a pure, humble, charitable mind and perfect resignation to the Devine Will. Be my guide, my father and my model through life that I may merit to die as you did in the arms of My Lord and My Lady. Loving St. Joseph, faithful follower of Christ, I raise my heart to you to implore your powerful intercession in obtaining from the Divine Heart of Jesus all the graces necessary for my spiritual and physical welfare. Guardian of the Word Incarnate, I feel confident that your prayers on my behalf will be graciously heard before the throne of God. Remember most pure spouse of Mary, ever Virgin, my loving protector, St. Joseph, that no one ever had requested your protection or asked for your aid without obtaining relief. Confiding, therefore, in your goodness, I come before you and humbly implore you. Despise not my petitions, foster-father of the Redeemer, but graciously receive them.

​

Lord God, I thank you for giving me your priest, St. Cajetan of Thiene as an example of holiness. Help me to imitate the devotion to you that he showed by choosing to serve you. St. Cajetan of Thiene, you first learned about the faith from your pious mother. From her, you learned how to serve God with devotion. As a young man, you studied the faith more as you earned a degree in canon law. You did not immediately set out to become a priest, but you eventually realized God was calling you to this path. Pray that I may be open to God leading me in an unexpected direction. Pray that I will be open to following Him. As a priest, you served Gold whole heartedly. You served Him in the poor and suffering and you desired to reform His Church. Pray for me, that I may serve God as fervently as you did.

​

Lord Jesus everything I have, you gave to me. I surrender all to your will and to your mercy. Please guide me with wisdom and truth in my search for a fulfilling career. Please show me the path you want me to walk in this life, so that I may follow with unwavering footsteps. Please be my shepherd and my sculptor, dear Jesus. Make me into the person you created me to be, so that you may fulfill your will in my life.

​

Amen.

Say Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, three times.