In the parish of San Roque de Pasay, under the leadership of Rev. Fr. Joey B. Tuazon, the community has been immersed to the KATIWALA or Stewardship Spirituality. At first, I thought that this spirituality was simply the sharing of one’s time, treasure and talent for the works of the church. Yet, underneath the commonly known three “T’s” are the underlying core values of identity, trust, gratitude and love.

Our Christian IDENTITY is founded upon the basic idea of God as Creator. God created us in His image and likeness (Gen 1:27). This means that we have human dignity, but don’t stop there. We are created by God for God. In a very real way, we are not our own. We belong to God. Thus, we can truly say, “I am a child of God. I belong to God.”

A good illustration of is this is the parable of the talents found in Matthew’s Gospel chapter 25. The word “talent” is a unit of coinage. The English word we use is derived directly from this Biblical passage.

In the story a man, who goes on a journey, calls in his servants and entrusts his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents, to another two and to a third, one — each according to his ability.

Then he went away. Immediately, the one who received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five. Likewise, the one who received two made another two. But the man who received one went and dug a hole in the ground and buried his master’s money.

Please notice that the man did not bury his OWN money, but his master’s money. The “talents” did not belong to the servant. They were given to the servant by the master. They were given to be used, not wasted. The same is true of us. Our talents are not our own, because we are not our own. We belong to God and everything we have is from God.

It’s important to remember this value of identity because as we look at our identity we begin to realize that “We are stewards.” What does it mean to be a steward, a good steward? To be a good steward, we have to go back to the relationship between God and us. God is the Creator. He created us in His image and likeness.

“We are created by God” is what most people would agree upon. Of course, God created me! But what most of us Christians have a hard time accepting is “I am not only created BY God; I am created FOR God.” I am created for God, not for myself. This is not what much of the world tells us, however. The trend nowadays is towards individualism, which emphasizes, “I was created for myself so that I could satisfy all my needs and wants.” No. This is not the case. Nowhere in Christianity do you find that concept. Rather, we are created by God for God.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, teaches us of our Universal Desire for God. It says, “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God for God.” Thus I can truly say, “I am created by God and for God, to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next.”

The “FOR God” part is an essential part of stewardship spirituality. It is something we need to inculcate in our lives as stewards. It begins to create a detachment from things, even from ourselves.

In that detachment we can see that God is the owner of everything.

In stewardship spirituality we’re looking at that very basic identity issue: “Who am I?” I am created by God, for God. This is very clear in the Old Testament. The New Testament tells us we are temples of the Holy Spirit. We are not our own. We were purchased at a price, the price of the cross. It’s there repeatedly. We really don’t own ourselves.

I often remind people about our bodies. Our bodies are not ours. They are God’s. It is God’s body. He has given it to us and it is temporary. It dies. We get our permanent one at the Resurrection of the Dead. That’s our permanent body. The one we have right now is mortal. It will die. And God asks us to steward it as we steward every other thing in our lives.

Knowing our identity and relationship with being created for Him has a lot of implications. If I am not my own, then all the things that I “own,” and all that I have are not mine either. They are lent to me by God. They are given to me by God. We are His stewards, who will take care of everything that He has given us.

Remember, a steward is someone who manages someone else’s things. We are stewards of all God has given us. We manage them ourselves as well as all the other things God has given in our care.

We steward our own talents, our time and our treasure and we, perhaps, steward other’s treasure, time and talent, especially in our roles as parents, priests, or other positions of authority.

———————– oOo——————————

For any personal comments or suggestions, you may call 0917-4805585 or email me at [email protected].

AUTHOR PROFILE

Bro. Clifford T. Sorita