At Our Lady of the Lakes we are going to have our first meeting on stewardship in the parish this Tuesday (8/17/2010), which raises the question what is stewardship?

Stewardship is a word that is becoming more commonly used in Catholic Churches.  Sometimes it is seen as just another way of asking people for money.

Stewardship efforts include money but stewardship is not just about money.  Infoplease.com defines a steward as “A person who manages another’s property or financial affairs; one who administers anything as the agent of another or others.”

Christian stewardship should be a natural part of living as God calls us.  God created the world and gave us dominion over the world (Gen 1:26-31).  God also gave us free will so we are free to do as we wish.  If, as faithful Christians, we see God’s creation as a gift to us, then we can see ourselves as managing God’s property.  As stewards of what belongs to God, we are called to make wise use of it.

This is not simply a question of what we do with our money.  True stewardship includes time, talent, and treasure. The treasure includes our money but we also recognize that each of us has different talents (the things that we are good at).  We could use all our time and talents just to benefit ourselves.  We could, but that would not be Christian.

Our faith calls us to use wisely what God has given us to take care of our needs and then to help others.

For more on Stewardship check out the article “Christian Stewardship”  that I wrote about five years ago.

How is God calling you to use your time, talent, and treasure for the building up of his Kingdom?

Peace,

Fr. Jeff