Stewardship

Stewards nurture their relationship with God by having a prayer life. Whether that is two minutes or two hours a day, listening and responding to God is at the core of the disciple’s life.

Stewards, according to the pastoral letter Stewardship: A Disciple’s Response, do four things:

  1. Receive God’s gifts gratefully
  2. Nurture God’s gifts responsibly
  3. Share God’s gifts justly and charitably
  4. Return those gifts to God abundantly

Gratitude is the cornerstone of stewardship. All is gift for those who see life with the eyes of faith. God gives us our existence and talents, our time and our treasure, our family and friends. Stewards express their gratitude by a life of generosity.

When we recognize that God is the origin of all life, the giver of everything that we have and are, the source of our freedom and giftedness, we respond by thanking God through prayer, by serving God and God’s people through ministry, by sharing our financial resources with those in need. Stewardship is a way of life based upon conversion of heart.

A strange phenomenon happens in the stewardship world. The greater the generosity and the greater the sacrifice, the greater the joy. Joy, according to some authors, is impossible without generosity. And as one author states, joy is the infallible sign of God’s presence.
      Theology of Stewardship—Bishop Robert Morneau

“Stewardship plays an important role in the lives of people who seek to follow Christ. In particular, Christians must be stewards of their personal vocations, for it is these that show how, according to the circumstances of their individual lives, God wants them to cherish and serve a broad range of interests and concerns: life and health, along with their intellectual and spiritual well being and that of others; material goods and resources; the natural environment; the cultural heritage of humankind.”
     Stewardship: A Disciple’s Response, 1992
     United States Conference of Catholic Bishops