CATHOLIC CHURCH
“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.” ~ St. Francis of Assisi
What does being a good steward of your time, talent, treasure and faith mean to you? How do you share your God-given gifts with your parish community? Why is it important to you? Find out the answers to these questions directly from our parishioners in their Stories of Stewardship. It's time to Get Involved!
Stewardship. It’s an interesting word. It’s a word that is not used often in our everyday conversations, even though the meaning of stewardship is so, so important in our daily lives.
Our family believes that God entrusted his people to be good stewards of the earth and maybe more importantly, each other. Being Catholics means we have a responsibility to care for and help others and a responsibility to care for this beautiful earth God has given us the privilege to call our home during this life.
When my husband, Brian, and I got married I will honestly say I don’t remember every part of our wedding mass. However, I vividly remember making my way to the statue of Mary towards the end of the ceremony where I silently prayed to be blessed with children. Children who I promised to raise in good faith and teach the importance of taking care of each other and our Earth. Almost 19 years later we have been blessed with three! Three beautiful kids that we have taught and modeled good stewardship for!
Our family believes in taking care of God’s creations and taking the time to enjoy the beauty that surrounds us. My husband and I strive to make responsible use of the resources God has given us and have passed that belief on to our children. Part of being good stewards to our Earth is also taking care of each other. God created humans and it is our job as Catholics to help and take care of each other.
In the Howe family we all help others in different ways. If my husband sees a need in someone’s life he strongly feels it is our job to offer help. It could be something small, such as lending a neighbor a hand with yard work or something on perhaps a larger scale such as providing financial help for those in need if we are able. All three of our children have been involved with projects which involve taking care of others. Our daughters, Anabella and Lucia, have participated and raised money for families with food deficits in the Chicagoland area. They have also done little things like delivered small tokens of Spring joy on May Day to others in our community.
Our son Aidan is heavily involved in Boy Scouts and believes we should take care of the Earth and do our best to leave it in the same state as when God lent it to us. He believes in helping others when he can and completed his Eagle Project at St Francis to help improve the Prayer Garden for others in our parish to enjoy. I myself have chosen a career in helping others. I am a teacher and my teaching philosophy is to help the future of our society learn and grow. And most importantly, help my students to be kind people and successful contributing members of our world.
If we take care of Gods’ creations I do feel that it brings not only benefits to the world around us, but it brings meaning and fulfillment to our own lives as well. There are many terrible things that happen in our world. But there are always people willing to help. It is important that we choose to be one those helpers. God entrusted his children to be good stewards of his creations. Sometimes it is hard not to focus on the bad. However, as long as we continue to grow in stewardship it is so much easier to focus on the good and see the beauty in God’s world.
- Adriana Howe
(Pictured: Aidan, Anabella, Adriana, Lucia, Brian)