The Patron Saint of the Job Hunt: Who Is St. Cajetan?
Looking for work? There is a saint for exactly that, and his feast is August 7.
If you are looking for work, the Church has a saint for exactly that. His name is Cajetan, and his feast falls on August 7.
A lawyer who became a reformer
Cajetan was born in 1480 in Vicenza, in northern Italy, and trained as a lawyer before becoming a priest. In 1524 he helped found the Theatines, an order committed to poverty, prayer, and complete trust in God’s providence. He gave away what he had, worked among the sick and the poor, and cared especially for people who had no way to support themselves.
Why job seekers claim him
Cajetan’s link to work is not sentimental; it is practical. He is remembered for helping the unemployed directly, and tradition credits him with setting up a way to connect people who needed work with those who could hire them, a kind of employment service centuries before the phrase existed. That concern for the jobless, paired with his trust that God provides, made him the patron of the unemployed and of job seekers.
The crowds who ask for bread and work
Nowhere is that devotion stronger than in Latin America. In Argentina, where he is known as San Cayetano, enormous lines form at his shrine every August 7. People wait for hours, many carrying stalks of wheat, to pray for what they call pan y trabajo, bread and work. It is one of the most striking sights in the Catholic year: a saint of quiet providence surrounded by a very public, very human plea for a job.
A patron with a sense of range
Cajetan’s patronages are a small comfort to anyone whose life feels uncertain. Along with the unemployed and job seekers, he is invoked by gamblers and for good fortune generally, which is either fitting or funny depending on your week. Under all of it is the same idea he built his life on: that you can work hard, do your part, and still leave the outcome in bigger hands.
Keeping his feast
If August 7 finds you job hunting, his day is a natural one to mark. Some people pray a novena to him in the nine days before; others simply ask his prayers and keep going. There is no magic in it, and the saints would be the first to say so. What Cajetan offers is companionship in the search, and the reminder that providing for people was holy work long before it was a line on a resume.
A saint like this, every month
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