Stewardship is about our response to God’s invitation.
Stewardship is an attitude, a stance in life of expressing through our daily living our gratitude to the Lord for all of His blessings. Stewardship is a way of life that calls us to ongoing conversion of heart and practical, concrete changes in our lives. Stewardship is what we do after we say “I Believe.”
Let’s be clear: Stewardship is NOT about what we do with a portion of our time, talent and treasure. It is NOT just about the portion we give to the Church. Rather, stewardship is about how we love our lives in total.
The key question is not, “how much time do I give to God?” but instead, “from how much of my time do I exclude God?”
The key question is not, “How much am I putting into the collection basket or giving to charity?” but instead, “How am I using all of the gifts of treasure at our disposal?”, it is a matter of knowing the critical difference between what I own and what owns me.
Stewardship is about how we use all of our gifts for the building up of the Kingdom of God. Still, we are mindful of our particular responsibilities to our parish and our Archdiocesan Church.
Our parish has been built up by faithful stewards every day since 1979. Four generations of men and women of faith built this Church and School, and have maintained and expanded it to keep up with the needs of the day. These generations of stewards have given of their time and talent to build a community in which the seeds of faith could grow and develop. The sacrifices of those parishioners and their generous stewardship of their gifts has made Prince of Peace a parish in which we can take pride, a parish that draws people closer to Jesus and the bonds of the Catholic Church every day.
We owe a debt of gratitude to those good and faithful stewards, a debt we repay, in part, by our involvement and commitment in the life of the Church. WE can only be the parish the Lord is calling us to be if every parishioner responds generously to the Lord’s invitation to give and not just receive. WE can do the Lord’s work only if we are committed to good stewardship of our time, talent and treasure.
We will speak more directly about stewardship over the next two weeks. Parishioners will receive several mailings as well. I emphasize Stewardship because our parish needs it, each of us needs it, and our God is expecting us to reply to His invitation.