One of my pet peeves is coming home at the end of the day to find my daughters’ bicycles strewn on the driveway. Of course I’m frustrated that I’m unable to pull into the garage. Even more, I expect the girls to take better care of their possessions.
It's not that I care so much about the bikes themselves, but I want to train my daughters to have grateful hearts.
I picked out each of their bikes especially for them, making sure they were just the right size and color. How my girls manage these and all their gifts reflects their attitude toward the giver of the gift. If they treat their gifts well, they honor the giver and grow in virtue and responsibility. Someday I want to be able to entrust them with more responsibility than merely a bike with training wheels.
Stewardship is the word we use to describe the appropriate attitude toward and use of the many gifts God has given us. We usually think of stewardship in terms of material creation, such as the prudent use of natural resources or even the generous dedication of our time, talent, and treasure to the needs of the Church.
Christian stewardship certainly includes those things, but sometimes we fail to realize that we're also stewards of the gift of faith that we received at baptism. We have truly been given a pearl of great price (Mt 13:45-46). Now that we have this precious pearl, what do we do with it? Do we, perhaps inadvertently, take this treasure for granted? Do our lives reflect the gratitude and joy of one who has been given such a valuable gift?
There are times when it is important to communicate reality “as it is,” not “how I'd like it to be.” After all, objective reality is a given, not something I create or spin. For example, when we watch the news, we usually can distinguish facts from opinions. When the sports anchor gives us the score of a game or the news anchor tells us the closing prices of stocks, we trust that he or she is reporting facts and not making the information up. When I argued cases as a lawyer, I surely was an advocate, but as an officer of the court I was not free to create legal precedent as I went. Rather, I had to work with existing statutes and case law.
Similarly, when it comes to the teachings of Christ — especially in areas where there is confusion or widespread dissent — we must be faithful to the gift of faith that we've received. It's wrong to substitute our own opinion or agenda for God's Word. We're called to embrace the words of Christ, who said, this “teaching is not mine, but His who sent me” (Jn 7:16). That's why Pope John Paul II has emphasized that a catechist, above all, should not try to inculcate his own personal opinions instead of the life-changing teachings of the Church.
All of this points to what I consider to be the first requirement of being a steward of God's Word: We must understand that our faith is not something of our own making. Rather, it is something we receive as a gift from God that re-creates and transforms us into saints.
But what do we do with this gift?
When my daughters leave their bikes on the driveway, there's the real danger that the bikes will become weather-beaten and possibly even get snatched away. The careless treatment of a gift not only shows a certain lack of appreciation and gratitude, but could even lead to the loss of the gift.
Not surprisingly, then, we are expected to take good care of the precious gift of faith lest we lose it. In fact, the First Commandment “requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything opposed to it” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2088).
St. Paul stresses this point in his letters to his disciple St. Timothy. He instructs him to guard what has been entrusted to him (1 Tm 6:20), and again in the next letter he exhorts him to “guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us” (2 Tm 1:14).
Defending the riches of our gift of faith includes charitably and patiently addressing the more obvious, frontal attacks on the faith. Even more, however, we need to courageously confront the subtle, interior challenges to our faith that we encounter every day, by trusting the Church and frequently asking the Lord to increase our faith.
In the Parable of the Talents (Mt 25:14-30), the master did not simply want his talents back, but he fully expected a return on his investment. In fact, the man who timidly held onto his talent was called “wicked” and “lazy” by the master. The talent was taken away from him and he was cast into the darkness.
When we talk about Christian stewardship in general, we typically turn to the creation account where God entrusts the created world to man, commanding him to be fruitful and multiply (Gn 1:28). This concept of bearing fruit, of giving God a return on His investment, applies forcefully to the gift of faith. This gift is by its nature fruitful, as it impels us to offer it to others out of love (2 Cor 5:14). This is the great paradox of Christian stewardship: We most effectively acknowledge and guard the gift of faith by giving it away.
As stewards of God's Word, may we understand our own Christian faith as a gift that must be protected, nourished, and offered freely to others. As Pope John Paul II reminds us, “Those who have come into genuine contact with Christ cannot keep Him for themselves; they must proclaim Him.”
Leon J. Suprenant, Jr. is the president of Catholics United for the Faith (CUF) and Emmaus Road Publishing and the editor-in-chief of Lay Witness magazine, all based in Steubenville, Ohio. He is a contributor to Catholic for a Reason III: Scripture and the Mystery of the Mass and an adviser to CE’s Catholic Scripture Study. His email address is leon@cuf.org.
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