Showing posts with label blessing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blessing. Show all posts

August 29, 2015

Treasures, Doing What We Believe

"Everyone benefits from the sacrifice of gifts that one makes of time, talents and treasure." -- Benedict XVI

It's about putting our faith into action, putting our energies to what matters, being stewards.At its heart the good steward is the good shepherd, caring for ones flock and making provisions for the day to day existence of self and others. It's more than just thinking about material resources.

We believe in the "Giver of Life," our lives as co-creators, that the Lord is the source of infinite abundance. Yet the more we attempt to take, to control, the less we actually have. It's like holding water in our cupped hands and squeezing. It quickly flows away from us.

Only when we relax our grip does the water remain. Doing what we believe involves faith; belief in what we may not yet see, but know deep in our heart; it's making a choice, one small step at a time, to acknowledge our inter-dependence, our inter-being with all of Creation.
Stewardship, then, lies at the heart of the Christian lifestyle. In actuality it's how we live our daily lives which gives evidence of our belief in the Gospel message, in the Good News.

St. Teresa of Avila, mystic and saint, wrote that 'Christ has no body but your own, he has no hands but yours. Yours are the eyes and ears of the Lord through which he is to go about for actions of the Good. Your hands are the hands, like his own, blessing people in the here and now."