What giftedness have I been given, and do I use my gifts for the building up of the Kingdom of God?

St. Paul writes in today’s Second Scripture reading:  “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;  there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.  To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.”

The many gifts that come from God’s Spirit are meant for the good of all.  What gifts has God given me?  This is the question we prayerfully reflect upon on stewardship commitment Sunday.  Am I using these gifts for the building of the parish community?  What gifts has God given me?

What gifts do we use for the building of the common good of this parish community  --  like the gift of praying, singing, teaching, caring, sharing, encouraging, supporting, motivating, writing, tithing, and social  justice commitment.

Concern for others is a most beautiful giftedness.

I share the gift of priesthood with this community as generously as I am able.  All the members of our staff share their giftedness.  But if we are only a staff-driven parish, then we are a deprived and limited parish community.  As the community of the baptized, we all have gifts to share. This is the meaning of the stewardship commitment we are asking for this weekend.

Naming our giftedness is sometimes difficult to get our head around.  “Father, I come here on Sunday.  Isn’t that enough?”  Actually, in the mind of Jesus, discipleship and stewardship is more than that.  We are to show our concern for others each and every day.

Now it is true each of us  all do individual acts of caring for others.  But the point is there is so much more potential when we are a team, when we are a community, when we are a Church acting in the name of Christ Jesus.  That’s when miracles happen.  When we share the love of Jesus with others through our love for others, this is the most basic miracle.

At the wedding feast of Cana, notice Mary’s complete trust in Jesus when she simply tells the stewards:  “Do whatever what he tells you.”  With that kind of trust and faith in Jesus, the water of our human giftedness becomes the wine of God’s presence on our lives.

There are a variety of gifts God has given this faith community.  May we welcome our diversity and see in our diversity the goodness and wisdom of God.

While we know that there is a variety of gifts and the one Spirit, we are often slow to act on it.  Until a generation ago, for example, it was often said that only priests and nuns had vocations.  Until just before 1970, everything at Mass, except for bringing the cruets to the altar, was done by the priest and all the people were just “hearing Mass.”  The gifts of the baptized were being ignored.

So this reading from St Paul prompts a series of questioning:  first, each of us must ask what gifts have I given to be put in the service of our faith community; second, as a community are we using all these gifts from the variety of all the members of the church for the building of this parish community; third, let me proactive in saying the hierarchy of the Church in its rules and regulations could be more welcoming of the giftedness of all the baptized.  Yes, this is true.  However, this does not let us off the hook in our commitment to stewardship, to name our giftedness and trusting in the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

It comes to the powerful  words of Mary spoken to us and the wine stewards:  “Do whatever He tells you.”  When we name our giftedness and become stakeholders in our parish community and trust in God’s presence among us, all things are possible with God.

What is the reason for the success of our neighbors at Browncroft Community Church?  The whole parish community is involved in proclaiming the Good News of the love of Jesus to others?  Parishioners are not passive; they are active proclaimers of the love of Jesus.  How much more so with the gifts of the sacraments that are part of our part of our spiritual DNA do we need to be motivated to embrace a life of stewardship?

I guarantee you, if all of us, work together as stewards in our parish community relying on the grace of God, miracles of God’s love will abound in our midst.

I wish to conclude by expressing my gratitude to you for coming together at the table of the Lord in the mystery of the Eucharist to give thanks to the Lord our God,  and I invite in the second collection to place your stewardship commitment card in the second collection card.  If you do have your stewardship commitment with you and you have not already returned it to us, please take a couple of moments now to fill out the card.  There are extra ones in the pews.  Again, please place in the second collection. Thank you so much.

As we reflect on our spiritual identity as the community of the baptized, we are called to be stewards of the mysteries of God.

When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan Riven by John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit descended upon him and a voice from heaven spoke, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”  With his Baptism, Jesus’ own mission was now to start.  And so, Jesus began his public ministry.  A new people of God was about to be born.  By His words and by His actions, Jesus proclaimed the Good News of His teaching, His healing and his saving ministry.  The Kingdom of God was to be discovered in the mission and ministry of Jesus.

On this Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, we reflect on our baptism as well.  Yes, we too are God’s beloved sons and daughters.  In Baptism we are initiated into the life of Christ.   When I am privileged as a priest to say, ‘I baptize you in the name of the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,’   the baptized infant or the baptized adult becomes God’s beloved son or daughter.  We are called to discipleship of the Lord Jesus.

As we reflect on our spiritual identity as the community of the baptized, we are Catholics; we are the disciples of the Lord Jesus; another way of describing our ourselves is  --  we are stewards.

We are called to a life of stewardship.  What is a steward?  In the Book of Genesis in the creation account, we are missioned by God to be co-stewards of all of God’s creation.  St Paul says we are stewards of the mysteries of God.

In our spirituality of stewardship, our basic truths are that all is a gift of God.  We are the recipients of God’s unending love.  Our best response to God’s love for us is gratitude.  We gather to give thanks to the Lord our God.  In baptism, we are called to share in the mission of Jesus; we are to witness to the love of Jesus in all we say and do.

You have received a stewardship commitment card in the mail, and we are asking you to place this stewardship commitment card in the collection next weekend -- Stewardship Commitment Sunday.

We break down our stewardship commitment into three components; stewardship of time, of talents, and of treasure.

Stewardship of Time:  This is the most important component of stewardship. Stewardship of time is our prayer life.  The fact that you are present for this celebration of the Eucharist indicates your commitment to value the Eucharist in your stewardship of time.  My challenge for myself and to you is to go beyond this one hour of the week.   How else during the course of the week do you commit yourself to prayer?  Do you as a family pray together?  Do you spend some time each day to give thanks to God for the blessings of your life?  What is your preferred form of prayer?

Many of us, myself included, let the busyness of life keep us from valuing more the stewardship of time spent in prayer.  We need to be very, very intentional about allowing even a few minutes each day to be still and to live in gratitude for the blessings of life.

Stewardship of Talent – What commitment, what priority do you place on sharing your talents with our parish community?  What responsibility do you feel in making this community a more vibrant  -- in a liturgical ministry or as a catechist?  There are so many ways to participate  --  liturgically, as a catechist,  in social outreach, in pastoral care, and in extending the welcome of the parish to one and all.

I celebrated the Eucharist this past Wednesday with the students and their families in our Wednesday evening faith formation.  We are grateful to the catechists who volunteer their time each week to teach and fashion our youth after the mind and heart of Jesus.  This is such a beautiful example of parishioners sharing their talents to help our youth.

Stewardship of Treasure -- As the pastor, there is no doubt that this parish isn’t just about dollars and cents.  I deeply believe stewardship of time and talent are more important.  On the other hand, the parish is dependent upon your financial generosity.  There is no doubt about that either.

A troubling issue for me quite frankly is that when we compare our Sunday collection year to date with last year’s, we are running $30,000 behind last year.  For us to keep the ministries and/or to expand the ministries in our parish life, we need to increase the tithing in the Sunday collection.   I personally make the pledge to increase my Sunday offering.   The way I contribute is automatic withdrawal from  my checking account.  Last Wednesday at our state of the parish dialogue, another parishioner has committed herself to increase her tithing to the parish.  My hope is we can create a momentum, among those who are able, to increase our tithing to the parish in the Sunday collection, with the automatic withdrawal a preferred method.  To whom much is given, much is expected.

It is so important as we talk about the stewardship of time, talent, and treasure that we see these as three components of our spiritual life.  Stewardship is how we share in the mission and ministry of Jesus.  The grace of our baptism is a lifelong grace.  We are the recipients of God’s unending love.  We gather to give thanks for the blessings of life.  In our stewardship commitment, we vow to make a difference.  We are to use our giftedness for the building of the kingdom of God in the here and now.

May God bless our stewardship commitment to our parish life, and may God bless our commitment to be stewards of all of God’s creation.

There is one God for everyone, and He is a God for all peoples.

“They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother.   They prostrated themselves and did him homage.  Then they opened their treasure and offered him the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

The Epiphany message is the universality of the Gospel message.  All are welcome at the Bethlehem crib including the migrants, the refugees from the East who came in search of the newborn king.

In the Epiphany account, the magi offered the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the Christ child.

As we pray over the gift-giving of the magi, we ask ourselves what gifts have we to offer to God, the giver of all good gifts?  God has given us all we are and all we have. 

Perhaps our greatest gift is the gift that the Holy Family gave to the magi – the gift of welcome, the gift of their love. 

What about us?  If the newcomers that we are to welcome come from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Mexico and Honduras … dromedaries from Russia and Sudan, will we extend our welcome with open arms?  What about Muslims and Jews, immigrants and refugees, the poverty-stricken and the unemployed, the sick, the hungry and the homeless?   Will we offer the same welcome that each receives from God?  Will we reach out in love? 

The best gift we can give back to the Lord is the gift of self.  Can we give the gift of our self to the God who is present in the migrants, the sick, the hungry, and the homeless?

This kind of welcome to one and all is the Epiphany challenge and the grace we seek.

Last month, on Dec 8, 2015, Pope Francis declared the beginning of a Holy Year of Mercy, at which time he opened a Holy Door, a Door of Mercy, which will remain open for the duration of the year.  Those who pass through that door will experience the love of God, who consoles, pardons, and instills hope.  The Holy Father expressed his intent that church doors be similarly opened throughout the world so that all of humankind, without exception, may know what he has called the “visceral” love and mercy of God.

In this jubilee year of mercy, may the doors of the Church of the Holy Spirit be wide open to all who seek to discover the Lord in 2016.  May our hearts welcome all those who need to experience the love of God.  As at the Bethlehem crib, all are welcome – refugees, the magi, and the shepherds.  So too, may we extend a jubilee of welcome and mercy to one and all.

Perhaps darkness has returned to us as we discuss our fear of immigrants and refugees.  We live in fear of the threat of terrorism, do we not?  May we continue to believe that there is one God for everyone, and He is a God for all peoples.  Instead of being enveloped in criticism and fear, we need to do our best to accept all people as they are, to love them, and to help them, to care for them, and thus show that we are really Christian by our love.

The magi came to Jerusalem and asked:  “Where is the newborn king of the Jews?”  May the question of the magi be our question as well:  “Where are we to find Jesus who has come to save us?  Are we to find him in a stable?  Do we experience the presence of the Savior in our celebration of the Eucharist?  In the stillness and quiet of Eucharistic Adoration, do we encounter Jesus?  Are we to find the Word of God in the human words that we speak?    Are we to find the Son of God in one another --  in the least of these his brothers and sisters and to declare his glory shining there?

The Bethlehem crib helps to be aware of where we are to find Jesus in our lives.  God does not manifest his presence in the power of this world but speaks to us in the humbleness of his love.  The crib points to God’s desire to be discovered in self-abasement, in downward mobility rather than upward mobility.  His glory is revealed in the manger of Bethlehem crib, on the cross of Calvary, in each of our suffering brothers and sisters.

The wise men are models of conversion in they believed in the goodness of God rather than the power of this world.  They followed a star in search of the Christ child.  Where do we find the star in our life that leads to the Christ child.  Our stars may not be found in the sky in the dark of night.  Perhaps your star is a person who reveals the face of God to you.  Who is the person for you who leads you to God.  Treasure this person as a most beautiful star in your life.

May our faith community be a star that leads us to encounter Christ.  May our prayer and may the ministries of our parish life lead us to journey in faith to the Bethlehem crib.

It is also true that we discover the star of Bethlehem in the dark of night.  Amid the struggles and challenges and the darknesses of our lives, know that there is a star that leads us to God.  May we have the spiritual sightedness to discover the light of Christ.

God is made manifest in the Epiphany feast.  There is no darkness in life in which God is not present.  There is no one who is not welcome at the Bethlehem crib.