In their Pastoral Letter on Stewardship, a Disciple’s Response, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops state:
"The Christian steward is 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."
Stewardship involves all of life
Stewardship involves all of life – body, mind and spirit, our material possessions, friendships, etc. All we are and have is a gift from our Creator for us to use wisely to build up God’s kingdom here on earth.
Time is a very precious gift. Most of us feel we don’t have enough time for all the things we want to do. Everyone is given the same amount of time: 24 hours each day, 168 hours each week. How do you use your time in the service of God? How do you gift your time to others?
All of us have been blessed with various talents, whether we are aware of it or not, or whether we have developed our talents or not. Of course, it is usually not possible to develop all of our talents. But, ideally, we can and should develop some of them and use them wisely to bless the communities we belong to.
To find out ways you can share your Time and Talent with your parish family, please call our office at (813) 988-1593. You many also choose to learn more about the ministries of our parish by clicking on the links to each of the parish ministry pages.When it comes to financial support of our church family, the biblical ideal is a tithe - or 10% - of one’s income. Our Catholic Church leaders suggest giving 5% to church and 5% to charity. Most Catholics who tithe reach this ideal gradually. In this area of stewardship, one of the most important steps to consider is to become an "intentional giver". An intentional giver is one who has the willing diligence to look at his/her annual income and then prayerfully and intentionally decide what percentage should be set aside for the support of the church and for charity.
The key to understanding how God wants us to give to the Church is found in 1 Corinthians 16:2, "On the first day each week each of you should set aside and save whatever one can afford," and in 2 Corinthians 9:5-8, "So I thought if necessary to encourage the brothers to go on ahead to you and arrange in advance for your promised gift, so that in this way it might be ready as a bountiful gift and not as an exaction. Consider this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each must do as already determined, without sadness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Moreover, God is able to make every grace abundant to you so that in all things, always having all you need, you may have an abundance for every good work."