Rev. C. Jarrod Lies

April 21st, 2017

“As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.”

(1 Peter 4:10)

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring love. Where there is offense, let me bring pardon. Where there is discord, let me bring union. Where there is error, let me bring truth. Where there is doubt, let me bring faith. Where there is despair, let me bring hope. Where there is darkness, let me bring your light. Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.

Prayer

O Master, let me not seek as much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love, for it is in giving that one receives, it is in self-forgetting that one finds, it is in pardoning that one is pardoned, it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.

Prayer

A Little Story

Everybody

Somebody

Anybody

Nobody

I. The Landscape

II. The Definition

III. The Portrait

IV. The Next 25 Years

The Tee-up

Of Stewardship

The destructive “isms” from Stewardship: a Disciple’s Response

1. Materialism

2. Relativism

3. Hedonism

4. Individualism

5. Consumerism

Enemies of Stewardship

1. Complacency

2. Assumption

3. Fatigue

4. Entitlement

5. Quid pro Quo

Enemies of Stewardship

1. Elderly and homebound

2. Single parent households

3. The grieving

4. Families

5. Persons with Disabilities

6. Persons in crisis

The Focus: Service

Stewardship: A Disicple’s Response - Preface

1. Evangelization

2. Catechesis

3. Family

4. Ecology

5. Marketplace and institutions

6. Social Justice

7. Diocesan

8. Universal Church

The Arena: The Whole World

1. St. John’s Clonmel

2. St. Francis of Assisi - July 1959

1. August 1968 – Msgr. McGread

2. May 1969 – First Parish Dinner

3. March 1982 – SEAS Establish

4. April 2008 – St. Catherine’s

3. The Demographic pinch

1. Parish became landlocked

2. Increase of Urban Flight

3. % Shift of Major Giver

4. Equilateral Giving ( >$70k)

5. 3 classrooms per grade

6. “One can never overestimate strong economics” (Bob Hemberger).

The Challenge: Demographics

Of a Christian Steward

One who receives God’s gifts gratefully,

cherishes and tends them

in a responsible and accountable manner,

shares them in justice and love with others,

and returns them with increase to the Lord.

Glossary - Stewardship: a Disciple’s Response

Definition of a Steward

A grateful heart silences a complaining

voice.

Name one thing you have that you have not received.

(1 Cor 4:7)

Gratitude

Responding to Jesus’ call to follow him and shaping one’s life in imitation of him.

Conversion

Discipleship

Spousal Love

Familial Love

Responsible and Accountable Prepare a full account of your stewardship… (Luke 16:2)

A pastor is to… prudently correct the faithful if they are failing in certain areas. (Canon 529)

Efforts of a parish or diocese requires a visible commitment to accountability (SDR 61).

What parishioners can expect of their parish…

….What a parish can expect of its parishioners (Divine Renovation).

Responsible and Accountable

1. Are you going to Mass every Sunday and holy days of obligation?

2. Are you participating in time and talent opportunities in the parish?

3. Are you making and keeping an honest pledge of your treasure?

Accountable Parishioners

1. Are you providing the parish with reverent and well planned liturgies and sacraments?

2. Have you developed adequate opportunities for parishioners to participate in parish life • Adult Education?

• Prayer Formation?

• Service Opportunities?

• Adoration?

3. Are you transparent, prudent and respectful of parish finances and resources?

Accountable Parishes

In Six Profiles

1. It takes faith

2. Trust: The Apex

3. Stewardship must be life-long

4. Changes according to the seasons of ones life

Profile 1: A Way of Life

“Jarrod, I need your help.”

Psalm 116:13

How can I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done to me?

I shall takeup the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the LORD.

The God who Himself is a Community of Persons desires to be worshipped in a community of persons.

Profile 2: Eucharist

1. Family… Friendship… Neighborhood… Workplace… Parish… University… Media… (Scott Hahn – Evangelizing Catholics )

2. Missionary Disciples: “Mission is at once a passion of Jesus and a passion for his people… a sense of belonging… closeness” (EG 268-269).

Profile 3: Evangelization

1. “Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor 4:1).

2. Parish School of Religion

3. Youth Ministry

4. Catholic Schools

5. R.C.I.A.

6. Sacramental Prep: Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Marriage

Profile 4: Formation

Which form of Catechesis

does the Church consider

“…the principal form of

catechesis” (CT, 43):

1. Adult Faith Formation

2. “The Christian community cannot carry out a permanent catechesis without the direct and skilled participation of adults, whether as receivers or as promoters of catechetical activity” (43)

Profile 4: Formation

od’s Life

emption from sin

avent of Christ

onfessing His name

ternal life Kerygma

Profile 4: Formation

1. The equalizer

2. Adoration

3. Intercession

Profile 5: Time and Talent

1. Self-gift

2. Personalizes the Parish

3. The Dual Complement of Stewardship: I - Thou

4. Serving people creates avenues for generous participation

5. The need to give rather than giving for a need.

Profile 5: Time and Talent

1. “As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10).

2. Terrestrial (mechanical) vs. Spiritual

3. Charisms: “spiritual gifts” (1 Cor 12:31)

Eph 4:1-16; Rom 12:3-6; 1 Cor 12-14; 1 Pet 4:10-11.

4. “As with all things pertaining to the Gospel, stewardship is fundamentally the work of the Spirit” (SDR– Preface).

5. Thus, “the purpose of charisms, then, is diakonia, or service or ministry” (Cantalamessa, Intoxicating Power of the Spirit, 65).

Profile 5: Gift

1. "If you then, being evil, know how to give

good gifts to your children, how much more

will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit

to those who ask Him?“ (Luke 11:13).

2. “God as the self-donating… self-distributing… gift”

(Ratzinger, The Holy Spirit as Communio)

3. Koinonia: an intimate sharing of persons or also money or possessions

(Tom Smail, The Giving Gift: The Holy Spirit in Person)

Profile 5: Gift

1. Maximum Giving: Whatever you can give… give. Just don’t give nothing.

2. God cannot be outdone in generosity.

3. Sacrificial

4. Prioritized

Profile 6: Treasure

Arrange for the gift you have promised so that it may be ready as a willing gift, and not as an exaction (9:5).

Whoever sows generously will also reap generously (9:6).

God loves a cheerful giver! (9:7).

Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion (9:7).

So that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work (9:8).

Your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God (9:11).

Profile 6: Treasure - 2 Cor 9:5-11

Conclusion

1. Catechizing authentic stewardship

2. Discipleship before stewardship

3. Founded on kerygma

4. Increasing tie to evangelization

5. Dialogue of accountability

6. Systematic adult faith formation

7. Understanding gift in spiritual terms.

8. Redefining in terms of service… not benefit or need

9. Organic development of Stewardship light of changing demographics

The Next 25 Years

A Parish's Mission is only as big as it’s

stewardship…

…stewardship is only as strong as it’s commitment…

….commitment is only as big as it’s

discipleship…

…discipleship is only as engaged as it’s evangelization…

…evangelization is only as effective as

it’s collaboration with the Holy Spirit.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring love. Where there is offense, let me bring pardon. Where there is discord, let me bring union. Where there is error, let me bring truth. Where there is doubt, let me bring faith. Where there is despair, let me bring hope. Where there is darkness, let me bring your light. Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.

Prayer

O Master, let me not seek as much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love, for it is in giving that one receives, it is in self-forgetting that one finds, it is in pardoning that one is pardoned, it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.

Prayer