Celebrating the Easter Season as a Grateful Stewardship Parish

This year, just as April gets underway, we know that we will soon enter the Easter season. This is a hopeful and joyous time for us as Easter people because we confidently know that through the grace of God, we will reach eternal life with Him.

On Easter Sunday, we celebrate Christ’s resurrection, through which He broke the chains of sin and death, opening for us the way to eternal life. Yet, His mission was not over. He was back with His disciples, showing them that what had been promised to their fathers had been fulfilled.

However, we know there is still more. As a stewardship parish and as faithful disciples, we recognize that God’s gifts never stop being poured out — even in the face of uncertain times, just like those we have faced over the past year. In turn, we must never stop thanking Him for His gifts. This is an essential part of celebrating the Easter season, and is central to the theme of this year’s Stewardship Renewal: Discipleship in the Risen Christ.

After all, we cannot know of His promises or gifts without sharing them. This is what it means to proclaim the Good News of our faith, living it out as stewards with our very being. We share our time, talents, and treasure — God’s gifts to us — with our parish and community, out of gratitude for what He has so generously given.

The season of Easter — during which we are holding this year’s Stewardship Renewal — offers us an ideal time to reflect on our lives as disciples and to commit, or re-commit, ourselves to Christ through sharing our stewardship gifts.

Let us ask ourselves:

• “How can I grow in my relationship with God through prayer and increase the time I spend in prayer?”

• “How can I serve God by serving our parish and our wider community, and how may I discern where God is calling me to use my talents?”

• “How can I give back a portion of my treasure in gratitude to God?

So, throughout this Easter season, may we continually reflect on how we may live out stewardship in gratitude to God, and may we keep one another in prayer during this moment of renewal in the life of our parish as we celebrate Discipleship in the Risen Christ!