When I was a summer seminarian intern, like first year theology student Chris Mannerino,who is with us in the two parishes until August 5, on my first Sunday in the parish the pastor asked me to come into the rectory dining room. After the first Mass of the morning, he, the two parochial vicars and the housekeeper spilled the collection from the Saturday evening Mass onto the dining room table. The pastor instructed me to go into the kitchen and get a knife. Then he sat me down, and showed me how to open the offertory envelopes from the parishioners, make sure the amount inside the envelope was marked on the outside of the envelope, put the cash in a pile in the middle of the table, and set the envelope aside, so that later the parish secretary could record the contribution of the parishioner or family. (I used the knife when there was so much scotch tape on the envelope I couldn't open it with my hands.) When we were finished opening the envelopes, we counted the cash, checks and coins, marked the total on a sheet, and moved onto the next Mass's collection.
Back in the 20th century there were no tamper-proof bags (the ushers put the collection in an old pillow case), no diocesan procedures to prevent theft, no laity involved with a revolving list of money-counters. This was my introduction to parish fundraising.
Taking up a collection at Mass is probably as old as readings from the bible at Mass and boring homilies by the priest. In poorer countries the collection might have little money, but include a few chickens or basket of vegetables for the priest's meals. Today in the bulletins I read from parishioners and their travels near and far, it is not unusual to see Sunday offertory collections exceeding $30,000 for one weekend, and $100,000 for Christmas.
We still take up a collection for the needs of each parish at every Sunday and holyday Mass, as well as 12 second collections in the Diocese of Pittsburgh for a wide variety of local, antional and international Catholic needs. But in recent years the Catholic Church has learned that such collections have to be part of a comprehensive vision of how to use God's gifts. Such a vision is called Christian Stewardship. It starts with reflecting on two of my favorite passages from the bible:
"Jesus said, 'The gift you have received, give as a gift.'" (Matthew 10:8)
"As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace." (I Peter 4:10)
What identifies a good steward? Someone who safeguards material and human resources and uses them responsibly. Who is a good Christian steward? Ah, that means much more. In the words of the U.S. Catholic bishops, in their ground-breaking 1992 pastoral letter, Stewardship: A Disciples's Response, "As Christian stewards, we receive God's gifts gratefully, cultivate them responsibly, share them lovingly in justice with others, and return them with increase to the Lord." (Read the entire pastoral letter at www.old.usccb.org/stewardship/disciplesresponse.pdf .)
Being a good Christian steward begins with being a discple of Jesus Christ--someone who wishes to follow the Lord with all his/her heart, soul and being. Disciples look to the life and teachings of Jesus for guidance in living as Christian stewards.
By virtue of our baptism, we are called by Jesus to follow him. This means we desire to shape and mold our understanding of our lives and the ways in which we live by the teachings of Christ and his Church. We practice stewardship of God's creation, by appreciating the awesome God-given beauty and wonder of nature, and protecting the environment. We practice stewardship by respecting all human lives, from conception to natural death. We practice stewardship by honoring our vocation (single, married, widowed, vowed religious, deacon, priest, bishop) as Christ desires. And we practice stewardship in the four steps of the above definition:
- We understand that all that we have and are comes from God, and we are very, very grateful to God for all these gifts.
- We use the gifts of time, education, skill, talent and energy for good purposes. We don't waste our gifts on fruitless pursuits.
- We share our gifts with our family, our church, our community and the needs of poor people, as Jesus taught. We don't hoard our gifts for ourselves.
- At the end of our lives we again give thanks to God for what we have received, and hand them over to God's purposes with whatever increase we have brought through our hard work and ingenuity.
Christian stewardship invites me to see my whole life in relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It challenges me to hear the voice of Jesus speaking to me, the unique person that I am. Each person who takes up the disciple's way of stewardship is going to do it a little differently, because of our uniqueness. But all can contribute, and all contributions (of money, time, energy, skill, talent or prayer) are valuable and worthwhile.
One of the mistakes we pastors have made is to limit the generosity of the faithful. We tell the parishioners, we need X, Y and Z for our parish. Can you help? X, Y and Z are important, and help to implement our parish's mission. X could be the amount of money needed to run the basic parish functions and offices. Y could be things or scholarships for parish school, CCD, or festival. Z could be volunteers in liturgical or social service ministries. These are all good things. It is worthwhile to share the church's needs with the faithful, so they can respond generously.
But a Christian steward goes deeper, and asks more basic questions: What can I give? To whom should I give? In what manner can I give? Can I stretch my giving to be sacrificial? For what reasons do I give?
If you are reading this, I ask, have you ever heard of the concept of Christian stewardship? Do you have more questions? It is my hope over the next several months to enlighten our parishioners more about this very exciting, and very challenging, message, of committed discipleship to Jesus the Christ and stewardship of all my gifts in his name. Drop me a line if you have questions, or maybe wish to tell me a story when you practiced true Christian stewardship, or saw someone else do so.
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