Grace Between the Lines: The Gospel According to Madison Avenue

“The Billboard That Wouldn’t Leave Him Alone”

Daniel Price wasn’t looking for God that Tuesday morning.
He was looking for a parking spot.

He circled the downtown block with the same growing frustration familiar to anyone who has commuted in a city designed before automobiles and after patience. His coffee had gone cold. His tie was crooked. His mood was uncharitable.

And then he saw it — the billboard.

It stood three stories tall above the corner bakery: a grinning athlete sprinting across a backdrop of neon red with the words:
JUST DO IT.

Daniel snorted.
“Do what, exactly?” he muttered. “Run a marathon? Fix my life? Find parking?”

He finally gave up, parked three blocks away, and stomped toward his office. But the billboard followed him — not physically, of course, but mentally — the way a tune gets stuck in your head even when you don’t like the song.

At lunch, he saw another advertisement plastered on a bus stop:
BECAUSE YOU’RE WORTH IT.

He raised an eyebrow. “Says who? And how much?”

By mid-afternoon he passed a digital ad flashing,
HAVE IT YOUR WAY.

At that point he laughed — the short, cynical laugh of a man who knows he has very little “his way” left in life.

He didn’t think of himself as spiritually inclined. His Catholic upbringing had become something like his high school Latin: technically part of his education, rarely part of his day.

But that evening, sitting in traffic, something happened that unnerved him.

He found himself arguing with a slogan. Not out loud. Not dramatically. Just quietly, almost gently — the way a man argues with his conscience when he knows he’s losing.

He looked again at the giant words glowing above the bakery.
JUST DO IT.

Something inside him whispered — unexpectedly, uninvited:
What if the real “it” is the thing you’ve been avoiding?

For months he had been dodging a confession he knew he needed. Dodging reconciliation with someone he had wronged. Dodging prayer. Dodging God.

And now, courtesy of a multinational corporation, Heaven had found a crack.

That night he lay in bed replaying the day’s slogans like unwelcome homilies: Just do it. Because you’re worth it. Have it your way. Reach out and touch someone. Don’t leave home without it.

He sighed.

“Lord,” he whispered into the dark, half embarrassed, “if You’re trying to tell me something through Madison Avenue… I hear You.”

Silence.

Then another thought — softer and deeper than the ads that inspired it:
You don’t need a billboard. You need grace.

He closed his eyes. For the first time in months, he prayed a real prayer — awkward, halting, uncomfortable, but unmistakably genuine. He asked for forgiveness. He asked for direction. He asked for the courage to go to confession before another season of life slipped into regret.

And when he finally drifted to sleep, it was with a strange mixture of peace and conviction — like a man who has finally stopped running and realized Someone has been keeping pace with him all along.

The next morning, long before the bakery opened and the city’s noise returned, Daniel parked on the same street corner. The billboard still glowed. But this time, the words hit differently.

JUST DO IT.

He smiled — a real smile, small but sincere.
“Alright, Lord,” he whispered. “This time, I will.”

He turned away from the billboard, walked across the quiet street, and headed toward the church on the next block — the one he had avoided for far too long.

The doors were unlocked. The sanctuary was quiet. The confessional light was on.

It seemed that Heaven, unlike Madison Avenue, never missed its target audience.

When Daniel left the church twenty minutes later, the morning sun had just begun to warm the sidewalk. He felt lighter — perhaps for the first time in years.

On his way back to the car, he glanced once more at the billboard. It hadn’t changed. But he had.

Salvation cannot be sold — but it was purchased, once for all, by the blood of Christ. Every age still tries to market what only grace can give. Yet in God’s strange economy, even earthly riches can become heavenly currency when offered with a rightly ordered will. The only safe investment is charity, with dividends paid in eternity — but only when the giver’s soul is alive in grace. For charity, as St. Paul understood it, is not sentiment but sanctifying grace — the very life of God in the soul. The essay that follows steps into the bright marketplace of Madison Avenue to contrast that divine commerce with the world’s counterfeit gospel of self.

The slogans of the modern marketplace preach a gospel of their own—concise, persuasive, and aimed straight at the human heart. Each one whispers a promise: happiness, identity, belonging, transformation. Strip away the product and you find the same longing that shaped Augustine’s confession—“Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” Advertising is secular evangelization; its apostles are copywriters, its sacraments thirty-second spots aired between sitcoms and sports.

Madison Avenue did not invent desire. It merely repackaged the ancient ache for God into the language of consumption. Every billboard and jingle is an echo of Eden, a half-remembered yearning for wholeness. The world sells what the soul seeks, but without grace the purchase never satisfies.

This essay pauses midway through our pilgrimage not to sneer at commercial culture but to baptize it. Even in the noise of the market, there are faint chords of grace. The slogans endure because they touch truths that never change.

The Catechism of Commercials

“Just Do It.” — Nike, 1988
The world hears defiance: willpower, adrenaline, achievement. Heaven hears obedience: Fiat voluntas tua. Mary’s “Let it be done to me” remains the truest “Just do it” ever spoken. Christian action begins not with self-assertion but with surrender. Grace empowers what pride exhausts.

“Because You’re Worth It.” — L’Oréal, 1973
The advertiser flatters vanity; the Church proclaims dignity. We are worth it—not because of what we buy, but because of what was paid for us. “You were bought with a price” (1 Cor 6:20). The price was Blood, not blush. Human worth is intrinsic, not manufactured.

“Don’t Leave Home Without It.” — American Express, 1975
The card offers security; the Christian knows only grace guarantees safe passage. We travel light but never alone. Without grace, we are spiritually bankrupt. Each confession, each Eucharist, is Heaven’s renewal of our credit line.

“Reach Out and Touch Someone.” — AT&T, 1984
A plea to connect becomes a parable of charity. The Incarnation is God’s long-distance call to mankind; prayer is our return line. Real communication requires communion—soul touching soul through grace.

“The Real Thing.” — Coca-Cola, 1971
The world sings of authenticity; the altar holds it. Amid synthetic flavors and virtual lives, the Eucharist remains what no slogan can counterfeit: the Real Presence. “Take and drink,” Christ said—not metaphor but mystery.

“When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best.” — Hallmark, 1944
The card company understood the language of gift before theology gave it a name. At Bethlehem and on Calvary, God sent the Very Best—His Son. The Nativity was Heaven’s greeting card written in flesh and blood.

“You Only Go Around Once in Life, So Grab All the Gusto You Can.” — Schlitz Beer, 1970s
The commercial preached consumption; the Gospel preaches conversion. We do go around once—“It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment” (Heb 9:27)—but the goal is not gusto, it is grace. The wise man grabs virtue while he still can.

“Think Different.” — Apple, 1997
Innovation was their creed; transformation is ours. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom 12:2). The Christian life is the ultimate act of creativity—thinking with the mind of Christ.

“Have It Your Way.” — Burger King, 1974
Free will misused becomes fast food for the soul. Eden’s first sin was “my way.” The saint learns a better menu: “Not my will but Thine be done.”

“Built Ford Tough.” — Ford Trucks, 1979
The ad sells durability; the faith builds endurance. Holiness isn’t about being unbreakable but about letting God forge strength through suffering. Sanctity is toughness tempered by trust.

Each slogan is a secular parable, a fragment of revelation misplaced in the marketplace. The world keeps selling temporal happiness because eternity keeps haunting it. The same heart that wants clearer skin or faster cars secretly longs for resurrection.

The Christian writer’s task is not to mock culture but to reclaim its vocabulary. Words belong to God first. When we rescue them from misuse, they become instruments of evangelization in plain sight. Advertising may trade in illusion, but the Church announces reality—the one joy no campaign can plagiarize.

Even Madison Avenue preaches continuity: the next version, the next upgrade, the promise of “new.” The Gospel answers: “Behold, I make all things new.” The difference is permanence. Marketing thrives on novelty; grace endures on fidelity.

Every commercial ultimately admits defeat by repetition. Next quarter demands a new slogan because last quarter’s promise expired. Yet the Church repeats one line for two millennia and it never grows old: “This is My Body.”

We make editors pay attention to our writing the old-fashioned way—we earn it. But grace earns nothing; it gives everything. The Church has no billboards, yet its message endures because truth sells itself.

Somewhere between the slogans and the sacraments, the world keeps humming its search for God. Our vocation is to listen—to catch those half-sacred jingles in the din and answer them with the melody of faith.

So when the next commercial promises the good life, remember: it’s already been offered, fully paid, eternally guaranteed—no subscription required.

I. Meaning — What This Essay Asserts

II. Nuance — What This Essay Is Not Saying

III. Relation — How This Shapes the Christian Life

IV. The Interior Response — Questions for Reflection

  1. What promises regularly capture my attention—and what do they reveal about what I truly desire?
  2. Where have I substituted consumption, distraction, or self-assertion for repentance and grace?
  3. Am I attentive to how God may be calling me through ordinary, even secular, moments?

V. Closing Orientation

The world advertises desire; grace answers it.
Truth does not need to shout — it waits to be heard.

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