“Give, and it shall be given to you. …For the measure you measure with will be measured back to you.” (Luke 6:38). In considering stewardship, we often think of giving to God and our neighbor, our time, our talents and our treasure. But what did the apostles and the early Christians have? Their greatest treasure was not material, but the experience of knowing Jesus Christ and the grace of the Holy Spirit. We share in that experience and grace. If we think that we don’t, then we are called to ask that the eyes of our hearts be opened to know that Jesus and his Holy Spirit are with us. Confident in his presence, we can offer to others, not a piece of baked fish as our Gospel mentions, but our lives – our time, talents and treasure – knowing that Jesus counts this as being done to him. We can witness to him by the generosity of our lives, caring for others, growing in a knowledge of and a living out of the Gospel, and by a love of the sick, the suffering, the grieving, the poor, the addicted, the prisoner, and the lonely. This is what the early Christians did so well that the pagans said, “Look, how they love one another.” And many were drawn to join the community of the church.

-Fr. John