Keeping Up with the Blessings

Mark S. Roberti, Director of Stewardship & Development

Heartland Parishes of Ellis County

As your average cradle Catholic, my faith journey has been a very long haul.  Along the journey, some things just haven’t made sense.  It took a 73-year-old Dominican Friar, back in 1977, to put it all into perspective for me.  I was in a Western Civilization class, in my junior year of college, when I had asked him to explain a “why” question about God.

Fr. Mullervy, smugly went to the blackboard, drew a huge circle, and said, “Consider this circle the mind of God . . . except that God’s mind is infinitely larger than this.”  He then put a speck inside the circle and said, “This, Mark, is the size of your mind in comparison.  How can you expect this (the speck), to understand that (the huge circle)?”

I can still hear the chalk hitting the blackboard to make the speck, that speck that was my mind.  This was a defining moment in my faith and in my life.  If there was a God, how could I expect to sit and process His mind?  I simply had to trust that in goodness, the one who created me loves me.

This same lesson applies to stewardship.  To understand stewardship, we must understand that God has no real need of anyone or anything.  He has always been, He is now, and He will be forever.  He created everyone and everything, out of nothing.  In Himself, three eternal persons in one nature, He is infinitely happy.  We can add nothing to, or take anything away from His being.

Yet, mysteriously, out of sheer goodness, and for no other reason that He is good, generous, and loving, God has chosen to become intimately involved with us in each and every facet of our being.  Moreover, He meets us here, where we are in the mire of human existence, to bring us up to where He is, in heavenly glory.  Phew!

Since God, the all-powerful, all-sufficient, all-knowing creator and giver of life, chose to share with us, should we not rejoice in this opportunity?  Should He not be given a share in our time (prayer life), talent (ministry and service) and treasure?  Should we not recognize and acknowledge that everything we have and everything we are comes from Him?  Should we not return a portion of the gifts He has given us in advance?  Should we not do this simply out of appreciation, out of love, in gratitude for our very existence?  Isn’t it crazy to think otherwise?

But let’s take a step backwards for a moment.  As God is all-sufficient, there could be nothing He needs from us.  So the question then becomes, what does He want of us?  He wants us to participate in his work of salvation.  He wants His kingdom to come, His will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  That’s the Lord’s Prayer.  It is His prayer to His Heavenly Father.

God’s will  could be done by His actions alone, by a sheer act of His will.  But, clearly, He feels we should do something from our end, too.  I used to wonder, why?  But I have figured that out over the years.  He wants us to participate in our salvation because it is better for us.  Even our praising and glorifying God do nothing for Him.  We need it!  We have an innate need to glorify God.  Likewise, we have a need to conjoin the fruits of our own efforts and sacrifice with His.

Believe it or not, when St. Augustine says our hearts will not find rest until they rest in Him, that is exactly what this great saint means.  This is why the stewardship of TIME, going to Mass, time in prayer, time in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, time reading and studying scripture, and other spiritual activities are so important.  They bring the kingdom of God to us on earth.  They make us more complete, more fully human.  And, in a very real sense, they make us divine.

I realize that last sentence can be misunderstood, so let me explain this the way St. Maximilian Kolbe explains it.  Catholics do not believe, as some religions do, that we someday can become gods.  What we do believe is that when we die, those who will share eternity with God become incorporated into God such that we share in the one divinity of Christ.  This is why the stewardship of time is so important!  We can be further incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ right now!  With each person’s turn toward conversion, the Kingdom of God breaks into earth a little further.

But what else does God want of us, and why?  He wants us to love one another.  “As the Father loves me, so I also love you . . .  This is my commandment:  love one another as I love you.” (Jn 15:9,12).  He even established a mechanism – no, not a mechanism, an organism – through which we could best love one another.  He established a Church to educate, guide, and protect us.  Loving one another requires that we love Him first.  But in loving Him we can, at the same time, love each other through the Church.

That all-encompassing command of Jesus, to love one another, tells us that our talent and treasure must, somehow, be shared with all our brothers and sisters.  It does not pertain just to those in our Church, but to everyone.  Maybe, just maybe, by giving of ourselves to others they, too, will at some time, become more fully incorporated in to the Church.

This is why sharing our gifts of talent is also important.  Imagine the problems we would have as communities if we all had the same abilities and skills.  God has given each of us unique gifts of talent for the benefit of all.  We grow in faith and holiness, we grow as a faith community, if we offer these talents & gifts to others and to God.  Remember, God gave us our gifts and talents in advance!  If we follow His example we will all benefit more.  It is like the passage about a seed having to die and fall to the ground (that is, give itself up) before it can produce a multifold.

What about stewardship of treasure?  Of all the people I have met, and all the theology courses I have taken, this was best explained to me by a friend who is a great steward.  I had asked him to write a reflection on stewardship, which he refused to do.

But he did explain it very clearly to me.  “Many years ago,” he said, “I made the commitment to give 10% of my income to church and charity, out of gratitude.  Ever since that time I have not been able to keep up with the blessings!”

And this, my brothers and sisters, is what stewardship is about, giving gratefully to God out of love.  Not to “earn” blessings:  you have already received them.  But to return, in gratitude, the first fruits of those blessings to God.

God loves you.  He knows what you need.  He knows the number of hairs on your head.  He just wants you to trust in Him and love Him.  Pretty simple.