Before I entered seminary, my understanding of stewardship was “Time, Talent, and Treasure.” There was a good reason for this: it was the only way I had ever heard it explained. Msgr. McGread spoke of stewardship this way at St. Francis when he arrived as pastor in 1968. He taught that sharing our gifts of time, talent, and treasure for the service of God and his people was how we can live the advice of St. Peter in his first letter, “As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” (4:10)
In 1985, Bishop Gerber asked all the parishes of our diocese to begin living in this same way. When we hear stewardship, we are tempted to think “this is how the diocese pays for schools,” but in reality, it is so much more than this.
In his 1985 letter, Bishop Gerber wrote:
“The parish is for most Catholics the single most important part of the Church. This is where for them the mission of Christ continues. This is where they publicly express their faith, joining with others to give proof of their communion with God and with one another …
” Whatever the form, a parish seeks to become evermore fully a PEOPLE of God, sharing the MISSION of Jesus Christ, in developing the STRUCTURE necessary for supporting its community life and carrying out its mission …
“The parish … is a people, a people called together by God. It is a people empowered by the spirit to make increasingly true and obvious their response to God through Christ …
” … the parish, in all its life, is sacramental: through it, God acts. Furthermore, the sacraments are specially graced events of God’s action and our response.
I would love to quote the whole introduction, but I’ll confine myself to one last quote. Bishop Gerber wrote, “Central to this vision of parish life, central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, central to the spirituality of the individual, is stewardship – what one does with the time, the talent, and the resources given by God.”
Stewardship is about renewing the People of God to share in the mission of Jesus Christ. In our parishes, this takes the form of preparing a structure to assist people in this mission. One way we do this is to educate children so they can be disciples and witnesses to Jesus Christ, but at its core, we are called to invite God to act within our hearts, and then to share the fruits of that action with those around us.
In the 41 years since Bishop Gerber took this courageous step forward–we are the only diocese in the entire world that operates this way–we have grown so much in our understanding of stewardship. Living a life of stewardship, of response to God’s amazing gifts, we learn to imitate God’s generosity and grow closer to his heart. We learn of his love for us. We become, more fully, disciples of Christ.
Fr. Matt