Reconciling Generational Wealth with God's Will for Your Legacy

During the CF Guild topic call on November 11, 2025, we chatted about the profound question of Considering Our Own Legacy: Our Will or God’s Will, seeking to reconcile the ambition to build generational wealth and family businesses with the Catholic call to virtue and magnanimity and the true purpose of work and wealth. This post is for any paid members who couldn’t attend.

Watch the recording above — or — browse the notes and key takeaways from the discussion below.

Note: If you’d like access to the full transcript, you can request access here.

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One-Liner Takeaway

For those who aren’t paid members yet, here’s the quick one-liner takeaway:

“Our grandest ambitions are not an act of ego, but a call to magnanimity: wealth is merely the incidental outcome of achieving the great good God intends through us.”

As Catholic entrepreneurs, we went deep into the tension every founder faces: how do we build generational wealth and a lasting family legacy without it becoming a source of ego or a stumbling block to salvation?

We agreed the critical distinction isn’t having money, but being attached to it, citing the rich man and the eye of the needle. We must not be lazy or shrink away from an opportunity to generate resources, especially if that wealth can be intentionally deployed to fund the Church and Catholic causes for generations, following the examples of saints like St. Francis of Assisi and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.

It’s okay to pass an inheritance onto our children. But it should not be so that they don’t work. It should be so that they can achieve their full potential as a human. Work is good, so not working would be bad for the human spirit. But, working without the need to provide financially (working for fulfillment rather than money) could be a great opportunity to make themselves a gift to God (in the same way some saints were children of inheritance and used that inheritance to build up the Church).

This requires radical, prayerful discernment to align our “grandiose visions” with God’s will, remembering, as one member noted, that our primary mission is to those “in front of us.” By accepting the grace to become instruments of God’s will, we will achieve more than we could on our own.

Alright, the rest of this session is exclusively for CF Guild members. If you’d like to join future calls, consider upgrading to a paid membership today.