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Stewardship – A way of life
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Stewardship. The word conjures immediate images. For some it’s synonymous with fundraising. For others the word’s meaning is rooted in the three “t’s”: time, talent and treasure. And for others, it’s careful attention to all the gifts entrusted to us. For Marci McCarthy stewardship is a way of life — one that can’t be explained by a single idea, sentence or pithy meme or quote.
“It runs through everything we do,” says McCarthy, a St. Basil, South Haven parishioner and founding member of the diocesan Stewardship Council. And she quickly adds, “It begins with conversion.”
McCarthy knows firsthand the call to stewardship and the impact it’s had on her own life. For years, McCarthy was climbing the corporate ladder to success, having risen to the post of chief economist for CNBC. Her husband had a similarly demanding position with the Wall Street Journal. Together, they built a comfortable lifestyle on the East Coast. But all that changed about seven years ago, when they decided, as Marci explains, “to live our lives more deliberately.” It was then when they moved to South Haven, a favorite vacation destination they both loved.
Marci, who grew up Baptist in the South, explains that she was religious but not particularly spiritual. In 2001, when she was searching for a church to call home throughout her New Jersey community, she at the same time enrolled her children in Catholic schools.
“I walked through the doors of the school one day, saw a big banner proclaiming ‘Jesus Loves You’ and immediately thought, ‘That’s it, I’m Catholic.’”
Marci then attended RCIA classes and was received into the Church on the feast of Christ the King.
And even though she’s a fairly new Catholic, she was familiar with the church, having attended Catholic schools as a child. And she had no further to look than her own mother for what a steward was.
“I learned and witnessed an example of gratitude from my own mother,” she explains. “ She had grown up in a poor environment in Arkansas — child of sharecroppers. Though she struggled caring for her family financially as a school teacher; she always wrote her first check to the church. She was always convinced that things fell into place, when she put God first. That’s a basic message that resonated with me and still does.”
When she reflects on the impact stewardship has on her own life, Marci points to a powerful sermon that conveys the message.
“When I was in high school I remember listening to this minister who made reference to an image to consider yourself a point of distribution. So, in other words, we don’t take things in and stop. What we have is simply flowing through us. Things are put in your hands — and it’s your job to distribute it.”
And for Marci, that could be anything from your time to your resources to your faith.
And the first place to start? With prayer. It’s not about raising money, or what we do — start from a place of prayer — it’s a powerful force and if everything flows from that prayer then God does the rest.
STEWARDSHIP RESOURCES:
Diocesan web page (Stewardship and Development)
www.diokzoo.org
International Catholic Stewardship Council web page
www.catholicstewardship.com
Stewardship — A Disciples Response —
A Pastoral Letter on Stewardship (USCBB 10th Anniversary)
Bishop Untener’s Little Burgundy Book on Stewardship
(Gospel of Luke edition)
Rediscover Jesus by Mathew Kelly
Rebuilt: Awakening the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, and Making Church Matter by Father Michael White and Tom Corcoran
(Ave Maria Press, 2013)
Conversion: Spiritual Insights into an Essential Encounter with
God by Father Donald Haggerty
