STEWARDSHIP is fundamentally a way of responding to God as a disciple of Jesus. Stewardship is an outlook which sees everything we are and have as a gift from God, given to be shared with others as an expression of gratitude to God. Stewardship is a conscious, firm, decision carried out in action to be a follower of Christ despite the cost. Stewardship is a commitment which we carry out in our entire way of life. It changes how we understand our lives, our mindset, disposition, and attitude.

Stewardship involves management of our finances, but it is far more than that. Stewardship involves how we use our Time and our Talent as well as our Treasure. They are all gifts given so we can in turn use them to share with others and thereby glorify God.

A dimension of Stewardship is sacrificial giving. Such giving is planned, proportionate to the gifts we have received, sacrificial -- from our substance rather than from our abundance, and prayerful. Sacrificial giving is a response to God that imitates Christ's example of sacrificial giving of self.

Sacrifice involves trusting God as our ultimate security, a willingness to give from the very core of who we are, and doing so as an act of gratitude and a sign of the praise we want to give to our Creator and Savior.

The 1992 Pastoral Letter on Stewardship: A Disciples Response by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops can be found at www.usccb.org/stewardship/disciplesresponse.pdf.