by Thomas J. Sonni
At the heart of every Catholic is a great giver. It is the essence of who we are called to be as disciples of Jesus, whose entire life, death and resurrection was about self-giving in its truest form. Through Baptism, grace is implanted in every Catholic to imitate that way of loving God and loving others by giving of self.
Much study and research has been done to show that Catholics are not great givers, especially those with more than average means. This is certainly not true in all cases. In fact, there are many Catholics who give faithfully and generosly of their time, talent and treasure in true faithfulness and extraordinary selflessness. The majority of Catholics are somewhere on the road toward that level of great giving, whether at the very beginning or getting close. The role of the Church's leadership is to meet every Catholic just where they are and nurture the seed of great giving within them.
It may be helpful to think about givers in three broad categories:
Token Givers - these are people who give as little as possible, not at all in proportion to their capability. They see giving as a necessary nuisance and will give you something just so you will "go away."
Got-To Givers - these are people who give because they feel that they should. Often, they give at good levels out of a sense of responsibility, but not the fullest ability. They see giving as an obligation and sometimes resent it.
Great Givers - these are people who have ascended fully to the Gospel benchmark, giving in a spirit of deep faith out of gratitude and guided by God's will. They give freely, gladly and sacrificially, worrying more about how much they really need to keep rather than how much they need to give. They see giving as a privilege and find deep joy and peace in fulfilling God's purpose for them and trusting His providential care.
Developing people to their fullest potential to become great givers is a formidable challenge, especially in our culture, within which we do spiritual battle every day. Some think that we are competing for funds within the Church - between parishes, schools, the Archdiocesan efforts; and beyond the Church with every other non-profit institution. In truth, we are competing much more with the materialistic lifestyle of our age. In the Gospel of Luke we find that "where our treasure is, their our hearts can be found." What are people primarily focused on with their money - houses, furniture, cars, vacations, dining and entertainment, tvs and tech stuff, investment portfolio's, even the lotto? The Gospel challenge states clearly that you must choose God or mammon (money and all it buys).
It is difficult to measrure great giving in terms of how much is given, because we all have different levels of income, assets and different levels of faith that leads us to a truly generouse response. Great giving is established by what level of priority we assign to giving and it is measured for each of us by what we are willing to give up. The young rich man had many possessions and so it was hard for him to be a great giver, since the cost would have been so great.
Being rich is a relative term. When most of us think of 'rich,' we think of Bill Gates or, closer to home, Peter Angelos. In fact, a majority of us in this country are rich - compared with the living standards of the world's population. Helping our Catholic people to become great givers in competition with today's culture is a significant and worthy challenge as a ministry of evengelization to them. At the end of our lives what remains is what we have given. Despirte all the time we spend wanting and worrying about material things, what we are remembered for isn't our house, car, business, or lifestyle, even if they were great. We are remembered for our generosity, our great giving to others we loved, our giving to and through the Church, and our giving to causes we cared about.
Growing great givers is often a gradual step-by-step process. That is why a good program of annual giving is as important to the givers as it is to the Church as a whole. Few people become great givers overnight. More grow into it by giving at greater and greater levels of generosity over time, in line with their potential. Because we cannot possibly know the capacity of each giver to give, the job that we accept as Church leaders is to invite people, without pre-judgement, to grow their personal generosity over time. How people respond to the invitation is ultimately between them and God. We simply carry out our job and trust that God will take care of the rest.
Besides inviting great giving in a way that advances the mission of the Church, other important parts of our job are to express gratitude to those who give and to be good stewards of what is given. Collectively, the Church has been given a mission and collectively, we are accountable to God to do our best to fulfill it. That requires the Church to do the best job possible of inviting, thanking and stewarding what we receive.
It is vitally important to connect the greater giving of our parishioners with greater ministry that can be done to fulfill our mission as a Church. Part of the challenge of Church leadership is to better communicate the many great ways we are already caring for people as a way to affirm their previous generosity. To inspire great giving, the Church has to be great, or at least have a vision of becoming great, in terms of how it cares for people - both spiritually and materially. This is the integrated approach to development - great giving enables great ministry and great ministry enables great giving.
Nurturing the seed of great giving in every Catholic is a tremendous challenge and wonderful blessing both for those that respond and those that are blessed by that response through the greater ministry of the Catholic Church.
