“Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices” (St. Teresa of Ávila).
Last year, my family was going through a challenging time (does it count as a sleep regression if your baby just never sleeps?). One evening, my husband kicked me out of the house to attend my Well-Read Mom meeting.
“If she needs you, I’ll call you,” he promised, taking our baby from me.
When I got home that night, I told my husband that I thought I’d been close to burning out. The relatively brief time I’d been at my friend’s house for our book club had been rejuvenating and energizing. It was the first evening in a couple of weeks I hadn’t spent going in and out of the baby’s room trying to get her back to sleep (followed by a night of the same). And I was grateful to my husband.
I think that was the last Well-Read Mom meeting of my friend’s that I went to. It just kept feeling too difficult to leave our house and daughters and drive into town one evening a week. My husband, however, wouldn’t hear of me canceling my membership. My solution was to start my own group — to meet at least some of the time in my own home — with the responsibility of leadership to hold me accountable.
It’s all too easy in the year 2026 for a woman (mother or otherwise) to let herself crash and burn. Dr. Pamela M. Patnode’s new book, “Beyond Burnout: Learning Balance From the Rule of St. Benedict” (Our Sunday Visitor), is an antidote to hustle culture (for men and women). As a Benedictine Oblate, Patnode draws from the Rule of St. Benedict and the wisdom of other saints to show how rest, true leisure, boundaries, and — above all — prayer and worship can heal and even prevent burnout.
What Is Burnout?
In an article she wrote for Catholic Women in Business last year, Patnode described burnout as more than a temporary feeling of exhaustion. “It lasts longer and can have significant physical, mental, and spiritual health consequences,” she said. She describes some of them in her book, and James D. Conley, bishop of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, shares his own experience of burnout in the foreword.
For Christians, perhaps the most significant consequence of burnout can be “to grow lax in spiritual practices or to grow distant from the Church, thus potentially separating oneself from the very practices and community that can provide support during challenging times.” Patnode describes having experienced this distance herself, despite working in ministry. In fact, she shares that the great Carmelite Doctor of the Church, St. Teresa of Ávila, felt that distance as well!
If you are experiencing burnout, you’re in good company—especially if you take steps to find peace and, like St. Teresa, sanctity.
Rest and Boundaries
Perhaps the most obvious elements of keeping burnout at bay are getting enough rest and setting effective boundaries. Patnode discusses the importance of rest to one’s health but also points out that while secular culture has started valuing (or, I would add, at least talking about valuing) rest, “it is still important to view rest through the lens of our growth toward God.” Indeed, among the benefits of rest she points to are “keep[ing] one’s moral compass in working order,” and she also discusses what it means to keep the Sabbath holy.
Anyone who’s had multiple demands on her time and energy can understand the role of boundaries in preventing burnout. I especially appreciated Patnode’s insights on the subject and the connections she made to the work of Saints Thomas Aquinas, John Henry Nemwan, and Teresa of Ávila.
Leisure and Relationship
The next area Patnode focuses on is leisure and relationship: an area —as shown in my Well-Read Mom experience — I badly need to work on! She reminds us that leisure isn’t scrolling your phone or watching mindless television. Rather, “true leisure is connected to creation and to contemplation of who we are as human persons created in the image of God.”
Patnode discerns her leisure activities through the lens of Philippians 4:8. What excellent advice! I would add that discerning relationships through this lens would also be wise.
Patnode shares an anecdote about St. Teresa of Ávila that I’d never heard before but that reminded me of a time in my own life. According to her autobiography, Teresa developed a habit of reading what Patnode describes as “virtue-lacking romance novels.” She found that they made her vain and to feel that she could, in Teresa’s words, “never be happy without a new book.”
We’re often told that it doesn’t matter what we read, because any book is beneficial. But St. Teresa knew that not all books are equally restful, and certainly they don’t all bring us closer to God.
Prayer and Worship
Finally, but most importantly, are prayer and worship. If we don’t ground our days in prayer and worship, we may find ourselves quickly descending into burnout. Patnode describes striving to develop a relationship with Christ rather than treating prayer as an item on her to-do list. She also describes prayer as “warfare to the last breath,” citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as “The Sayings of the Desert Fathers,” and elaborating on its other essential benefits.
Patnode devotes a chapter to the Sabbath and what it really means to have a day of rest and worship. “Through the worship of Christ,” she writes, “we become well integrated: our minds, our will, and our passions.” Mass must be the “summit of our week,” and she offers some practical advice to help readers plan ahead to make Sunday the Lord’s day.
Abundance, Not Balance
“The saints,” writes Patnode, “did not seek balance in life — at least not ‘balance’ in the worldly sense of the word. Rather, the saints sought obedience to God’s will, and in doing so, they lived rightly-ordered lives of abundance.”
Obedience is challenging. As Wendell Berry writes in his novel “Jayber Crow,” “Thy will be done” can be a frightening, indescribably difficult prayer. But the more we pray, the easier we will find it to obey. And the more we obey God’s will for our life, the less we will tend toward burnout.
Taryn DeLong co-wrote Holy Ambition: Thriving as a Catholic Woman at Work and at Home (Ave Maria Press) to help women hear and follow God’s unique calling for their life. Following her own calling, she currently spends much of her time caring for and homeschooling her two daughters. Taryn studied psychology and education at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC. Before becoming a mother, she worked in university advancement and then B2B editing. Since Taryn was a child, she’s called the Raleigh area home, and she and her husband are now raising their family in a small Raleigh suburb. In addition to supporting Catholic women, she's passionate about inclusion of people with disabilities in life, work, and (most importantly) the Church. She also enjoys reading and playing the piano.
