‘Now is the time,’ Bishop Finn tells parish leaders

The Catholic Key (Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph) – By Kevin Kelly – May 14, 2010

INDEPENDENCE — The three “T’s” of stewardship — time, talent, treasure — are well known.

Borrowing from St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson, Bishop Robert W. Finn spoke of the three “P’s” — prayer, participation, payback — at the first diocesan Stewardship Day in seven years, May 7 at St. Mark Parish in Independence.

Keynoting to an audience of some 150 pastors, business managers and lay ecclesial ministers and parish council members who came from all corners of the diocese, Bishop Finn set the tone for the day and the following break-out sessions that stewardship isn’t about increasing parish funds. It’s about conversion to a way of life in which giving back in thanksgiving for gifts received comes naturally.

The first step is prayer, he said.

“If we are going to let God guide things, including our decisions about material goods, we need to listen to him better and more frequently,” Bishop Finn said. “The challenge is this: to give God a big chunk of your most valuable and high quality time in prayer.”

The bishop also reminded his audience that the quality and spirit of participation in the life of the church is as important as the quantity, and extends beyond the church walls.

“Do we participate in and contribute to the life of our communities, our neighborhoods, our workplace?” he said. “Do we bring our faith to bear in all arenas of our life, particularly our secular life?

“If we do not choose to participate fully as baptized persons of living and active faith, then who is going to transform the culture of death into the civilization of life and love? Who if not us?” Bishop Finn said.

“What would our parishes look like if we all gave a tithe of our time in serious prayer? How would our communities become better homes for our parishes if we were actively influencing them through authentic — full, active and conscious — participation?” he said.

Payback, he said, involves giving back to God, and to those people who formed us throughout our lives.

“Many of us are who we are because of someone who was faithful, perhaps a parent, a teacher or mentor,” he said.

“Many of us received a Catholic education,” Bishop Finn said. “If so, it is likely that our parents made some sacrifices, some generous choices that cost them.

“Now it is payback time,” he said. “What have we received? What have we inherited in the parishes where we worship? What will our generation create for those who come after us?”

Bishop Finn noted that even though he saw his parents every Sunday take their collection envelope to Mass, he himself did not begin tithing regularly until his second assignment as a priest, when a pastor spoke of the spiritual aspects of stewardship.

“I started donating to the parish, and throughout my priesthood, I continued to tithe,” he said.

“I still keep tithing through various efforts I have been associated with along the way, and I have been better off for it,” the bishop said. “I don’t budget it. I just take it off the top and sort out what’s left.”

Bishop Finn said parishes have to set budgets and financial goals, but the goal of a total stewardship program is different.

“The goal of stewardship is not ultimately money. It is something spiritual,” he said.

“It has to do with building holiness and a particular set of virtues within holiness. It has to do with becoming more thankful, less material and therefore more spiritual.

“It involves growing in trust with God, in relying on providence to a greater degree than we might otherwise,” he said.

“As such, it has to do with what the Gospel calls spiritual poverty, what Jesus referred to when he proclaimed, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit,’” the bishop said.

“Stewardship might help us to say, ‘God, I don’t have the material means to conquer every trial or challenge. My life is in your hands. I may have to do without, but I know you will get me through, perhaps more simply,’” he said.

“Stewardship has a goal,” Bishop Finn said. “It is to grow more holy, more detached, more peaceful even if we don’t acquire all the things we might be able to acquire.”

Bishop Finn told the parish leaders, “Now is the time for us.”

“I am aware, with admiration, of some amazing things many of you have done and are doing in your parishes in this area of spirituality and stewardship,” he said.

“Please don’t stop. But what can we do as a diocese beyond what we are doing in some blessed individual efforts?” he said.

“I believe that it is God’s plan for the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph that we are great stewards, and that we can be exemplary in living this way as a diocese,” he said.

“I challenge you to join me in a new moment of stewardship in our diocese,” Bishop Finn said. “Can we pray, participate and pay back? Can we give God the best of our time, talent and treasure?”