St. John Neumann
Catholic Church

First, consider what the bishops meant by “God’s gifts”.  Were they talking about financial wealth?  Yes indeed, because our wealth along with our ability to create our wealth is a gift of God’s grace!  All that we are and all that we have are gifts to us from the Father.  But it matters very little if we are talking about gifts of time, gifts or talent and ability or gifts of treasure.  The same measurements are applied to all stewardship, all gifts.  Those measurements are: gratitude, responsibility, charity and accountability.  

So we might ask ourselves, are we wisely responsible with our time?  Are we truly charitable or are we miserly with our talent?  Are we accountable in our stewardship of treasure?  And most importantly, do we return to God’s use our time, our talent and our treasure with real gratitude or do we grumble… object… withhold… calculate…. Place condition after condition upon each gift:

“I’m not volunteering this year.  I didn’t even get a thank you last year.”

“I don’t have time to sit around listening to other people talk on and on about every detail.”

“I’m not giving this place another dime until they change ______________.” (You fill in the blank.)

Such sentiments are real and heartfelt and very human.  But do they arise from gratitude or from resentment and are they the speech of a mature Christian steward?  The bishops’ letter says, “...in probing the Christian meaning of stewardship one confronts an astonishing fact: God wishes human beings to be his collaborators in the work of creation, redemption and sanctification; and such collaboration involves stewardship in its most profound sense.”

In Christ,

Monsignor Frank Giusta

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