stewardship on Lack

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

In recent years, I (Smith) have been leading a study called the “Science of Generosity Initiative” at the University of Notre Dame, in which I (Davidson) have been deeply involved. In that study, we h...

If our goods are not available to the community, they are stolen goods.

Those who give much without sacrifice are reckoned as having given little.

It’s a cultural disability in America that we worship pleasure, leisure, and affluence. I think the church is doubly damned when they use Jesus as a vehicle for achieving all of that. Like, if you giv...

Gracious God, we fail to give to others, when you have so generously given to us. We look for our maximum benefit and minimum sacrifice. We have forgotten where every good gift comes from – you. Holy ...

You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.

Medieval Dominican friar Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), in his commentary on the Lord’s Prayer, specifically the fourth petition (“give us this day our daily bread”), points out several ways that our own...

I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Gracious God, you are the giver of every good and perfect gift. You give us our talents, our freedom, and our financial resources. We struggle to give back to you from these gifts. We often worry that...

If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone.

O Giver of every good and perfect gift, we confess that we are poor stewards of your bounty. You give us time, but we waste it. You give us life, but we use it to glorify ourselves. You give us wealth...

Teach us to give and not to count the cost.

As we gather on your good earth, before the bounty of your Word and Table, and the majesty of your holy presence, We remember and repent Forgive us, Abiding One, We keep you at a distance We defy you...

Almighty God, you bless us so richly. You renew us and give us new life. You equip us with the gifts of your Spirit. You give us an amazing calling to follow you each day. But we fail to use the gifts...

In his book on the subject, Philip Yancey describes the tension he himself deals with as a Christian related to money: Many Christians have one issue that haunts them and never falls silent: for som...

He that gives all, though but little gives much; because God looks not to the quantity of the gift, but to the quality of the givers.

Away, then, with that inhuman philosophy which, while conceding only a necessary use of creatures, not only malignantly deprives us of the lawful fruit of God’s beneficence but cannot be practiced unl...

Generous God our Father – who gives us all good gifts: Gifts of life, love and, relationships; gifts of work and leisure, effort and rest; and, most of all, gifts of Your Son and our salvation, yo...

Holy and merciful God, in your presence we confess our sinfulness, our shortcomings, and our offenses against you. You alone know how often we have sinned in wandering from your ways, in wasting your ...

If silver and gold are things evil in themselves, then those who keep away from them deserve to be praised. But if they are good creatures of God, which we can use both for the needs of our neighbor a...

Take what you have—whatever you have—take it into your hands and hold it lightly, very lightly. Then bless it—thank God for what you have and make it holy by giving it away for love. Then break it—sor...

Introduction Our Gospel reading for today, the well-known “Parable of the Talents,” is one of a series of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of Matthew that focuses on what Davies and Allison rightly lab...

Loving God, you show us grace and mercy, again and again and again. You shower gifts on us that we could never earn, and you are slow to punish us when we most deserve it. All too often, we forget to ...

The unjust steward who, hearing he is going to be fired, doctors his master’s accounts to secure another job, is commended precisely because he acted. The point does not concern morality but apathy. H...

Giving frees us from the familiar territory of our own needs by opening our mind to the unexplained worlds occupied by the needs of others.

Talents have been variously described in interpretation, but the literal meaning of a talent is money. And each disciple has, in fact, been entrusted with a certain amount of money. A talent may also ...

The three immutable facts: You own stuff. You will die. Someone will get that stuff.

As a novice in a Catholic religious order, Ronald Rolheiser was taught the importance of religious poverty by having to write “Ad Usam” inside every book he was given. This was to teach him that the b...