Community and Stewardship
The New Covenant in and through Christ—the reconciliation he effects between humankind and God—forms a community: the new People of God, the Body of Christ, the Church. The unity of this people is itself a precious good, to be cherished, preserved, and built up by lives of love. The epistle to the Ephesians exhorts Christians to “live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all” (Eph 4:1-6).

Because its individual members do collectively make up the Body of Christ, that body’s health and well-being are the responsibility of the members—the personal responsibility of each one of us. We all are stewards of the Church. As “to each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit” (1 Cor 12:7), so stewardship in an ecc1esial setting means cherishing and fostering the gifts of all, while using one’s own gifts to serve the community of faith. The rich tradition of tithing set forth in the Old Testament is an expression of this. (See, for example, Dt 14:22; Lv 27:30.) Those who set their hearts upon spiritual gifts must “seek to have an abundance for building up the church” (1 Cor 14:12).

But how is the Church built up? In a sense there are as many answers to that question as there are individual members with individual vocations. But the overarching answer for all is this: through personal participation in and support of the Church’s mission of proclaiming and teaching, serving and sanctifying.

This participation takes different forms according to people’s different gifts and offices, but there is a fundamental obligation arising from the sacrament of baptism (cf. Pope John Paul II, Christifideles Laici, 15): that people place their gifts, their resources—theirselves—at God’s service in and through the Church. Here also Jesus is the model. Even though his perfect self-emptying is unique, it is within the power of disciples, and a duty, that they be generous stewards of the Church, giving freely of their time, talent, and treasure. “Consider this,” Paul says, addressing not only the Christians of Corinth but all of us. “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully… God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:6-7).

Evangelization and Stewardship
In various ways, then, stewardship of the Church leads people to share in the work of evangelization or proclaiming the good news, in the work of catechesis or transmitting and strengthening the faith, and in works of justice and mercy on behalf of persons in need. Stewardship requires support for the Church’s institutions and programs for these purposes. But, according to their opportunities and circumstances, members of the Church also should engage in such activities personally and on their own initiative.

Parents, for instance, have work of great importance to do in the domestic church, the home. Within the family, they must teach their children the truths of the faith and pray with them; share Christian values with them in the face of pressures to conform to the hostile values of a secularized society; and initiate them into the practice of stewardship itself, in all its dimensions, contrary to today’s widespread consumerism and individualism. This may require adjusting the family’s own patterns of consumption and its life-style, including the use of television and other media which sometimes preach values in conflict with the mind of Christ. Above all, it requires that parents themselves be models of stewardship, especially by their selfless service to one another, to their children, and to church and community needs.

Parishes, too, must be, or become, true communities of faith within which this Christian way of life is learned and practiced. Sound business practice is a fundamenta1 of good stewardship, and stewardship as it relates to church finances must include the most stringent ethical, legal, and fiscal standards. That requires several things: pastors and parish staff must be open, consultative, collegial, and accountable in the conduct of affairs. And parishioners must accept responsibility for their parishes and contribute generously both money and personal service—to their programs and projects. The success or failure of parish programs, the vitality of parish life or its absence, the ability or inability of a parish to render needed services to its members and the community depend upon all.

We, therefore, urge the Catholics of every parish in our land to ponder the words of St. Paul: “Now as you excel in every respect, in faith, discourse, knowledge, all earnestness, and in the love we have for you, may you excel in this gracious act also” (2 Cor 8:7). Only by living as generous stewards of these local Christian communities, their parishes, can the Catholics of the United States hope to make them the vital sources of faith-filled Christian dynamism they are meant to be.

At the same time, stewardship in and for the parish should not be narrowly parochial. For the diocese is not merely an administrative structure but instead joins communities called parishes into a “local church” and unites its people in faith, worship, and service. The same spirit of personal responsibility in which a Catholic approaches his or her parish should extend to the diocese and be expressed in essentially the same ways: generous material support and self-giving. As in the case of the parish, too, lay Catholics ought to have an active role in the oversight of the stewardship of pastoral leaders and administrators at the diocesan level. At the present time, it seems clear that many Catholics need to develop a better understanding of the financial needs of the Church at the diocesan level. Indeed, the spirit and practice of stewardship should extend to other local churches and to the Universal Church—to the Christian community and to one’s sisters and brothers in Christ everywhere—and be expressed in deeds of service and mutual support. For some, this will mean direct personal participation in evangelization and mission work, for others generous giving to the collections established for these purposes and other worthy programs.

Every member of the Church is called to evangelize, and the practice of authentic Christian stewardship inevitably leads to evangelization. As stewards of the mysteries of God (cf. 1 Cor 4:1), people desire to tell others about them and about the light they shed on human life, to share the gifts and graces they have received from God, especially knowledge of Christ Jesus, “who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30). Human beings, says Pope Paul VI, “have the right to know the riches of the mystery of Christ. It is in these that the whole human family can find in the most comprehensive form and beyond all their expectations everything for which they have been groping” (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 53).

Solidarity and Stewardship
While the unity arising from the covenant assumes and requires human solidarity, it also goes beyond it, producing spiritual fruit insofar as it is founded on union with the Lord. “I am the vine, you are the branches,” Jesus says. “Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit” (Jn 15:5). As Simone Weil remarks, “A single piece of bread given to a hungry man is enough to save a soul if it is given in the right way.”

In this world, however, solidarity encounters many obstacles on both the individual and social levels. It is essential that Jesus’ disciples do what can be done to remove them.

The most basic and pervasive obstacle is sheer selfish lack of love, a lack which people must acknowledge and seek to correct when they find it in their own hearts and lives. For the absence of charity from the lives of disciples of Jesus in itself is self-defeating and hypocritical. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 Jn 4:20).

Extreme disparities in wealth and power also block unity and communion. Such disparities exist today between person and person, social class and social class, nation and nation. They are contrary to that virtue of solidarity, grounded in charity, which Pope John Paul II commends as the basis of a world order embodying “a new model of the unity of the human race” whose “supreme model” is the intimate life of the Trinity itself (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 40). Familiarity with the Church’s growing body of social doctrine is necessary in order to grasp and respond to the practical requirements of discipleship and stewardship in light of the complex realities of today’s national and international socioeconomic life.

Social justice, which the pastoral letter Economic Justice for All calls a kind of contributive justice, is a particular aspect of the virtue of solidarity. Encompassing the duty of “all who are able to create the goods, services, and other nonmaterial or spiritual values necessary for the welfare of the whole community,” it gives moral as well as economic content to the concept of productivity. Thus productivity “cannot be measured solely by its output of goods and services.” Rather, “patterns of productivity must be measured in light of their impact on the fulfillment of basic needs, employment levels, patterns of discrimination, environmental impact, and sense of community” (Economic Justice for All, 71).

Finally, and most poignantly, solidarity is obstructed by the persistence of religious conflicts and divisions, including those that sunder even followers of Christ. Christians remain tragically far from realizing Jesus’ priestly prayer “that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you” (Jn 17:21).

As all this suggests, our individual lives as disciples and stewards must be seen in relation to God’s larger purposes. From the outset of his covenanting, God had it in mind to make many one. He promised Abram: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you” (Gn 12:23). In Jesus, the kingdom of God is inaugurated—a kingdom open to all. Those who enter into Jesus’ New Covenant find themselves growing in a union of minds and hearts with others who also have responded to God’s call. They find their hearts and minds expanding to embrace all men and women, especially those in need, in a communion of mercy and love.

Eucharistic Stewardship
The Eucharist is the great sign and agent of this expansive communion of charity. “Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf’ (l Cor 10:17). Here people enjoy a unique union with Christ and, in him, with one another. Here his love—indeed, his very self—flows into his disciples and, through them and their practice of stewardship, to the entire human race. Here Jesus renews his covenant-forming act of perfect fidelity to God, while also making it possible for us to cooperate. In the Eucharist, Christians reaffirm their participation in the New Covenant; they give thanks to God for blessings received; and they strengthen their bonds of commitment to one another as members of the covenant community Jesus forms.

And what do Christians bring to the Eucharistic celebration and join there with Jesus’ offering? Their lives as Christian disciples; their personal vocations and the stewardship they have exercised regarding them; their individual contributions to the great work of restoring all things in Christ. Disciples give thanks to God for gifts received and strive to share them with others. That is why, as Vatican II says of the Eucharist, “if this celebration is to be sincere and thorough, it must lead to various works of charity and mutual help, as well as to missionary activity and to different forms of Christian witness” (Presbyterorum Ordinis, 6).

More than that, the Eucharist is the sign and agent of that heavenly communion in which we shall together share, enjoying the fruits of stewardship “freed of stain, burnished and transfigured” (Gaudium et Spes, 39). It is not only the promise but the commencement of the heavenly banquet where human lives are perfectly fulfilled.

We have Jesus’ word for it: “Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51). The glory and the boast of Christian stewards lie in mirroring, however poorly, the stewardship of Jesus Christ, who gave and still gives all he has and is, in order to be faithful to God’s will and carry through to completion his redemptive stewardship of human beings and their world.