Scripture Reflection, August 12: Bringing Life to Others

Scripture Readings:
Wisdom 18: 6-9
Psalm 33
Hebrews 11: 1-2, 8-19
Luke 12: 32-48

As a member of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Stewardship and Development Department, I have the privilege of raising funds for Archdiocesan ministries while educating Chicago Catholics about God’s generosity in our lives and our invitation to respond in gratitude to this abundance by sharing of our time, talent and treasure. This sharing requires a supreme trust that God cannot be outdone in generosity and will always provide for what we need, though not necessarily for everything we want. Stewardship, or “faith in action,” is what we call this in church circles. Today’s readings challenge us on how to be good stewards of all that has been entrusted to us.

Similar to the faith Abraham and Sarah exhibited in a God who granted them the “power to generate” (Hebrews 11) when they were thought infertile, the same is true for all of us—that we have reason to have faith and hope in God and all that is of God. Things of God are generative and life-giving, whether it be actual new life or things that create life. But stepping out in faith is not always easy and sometimes it asks difficult things of us, as was asked of Abraham in sacrificing his son Isaac. Though I am not a scripture scholar, I could never wrap my brain around why God would want a human sacrificed, particularly a young boy that was as longed for as Isaac was. In witnessing to a supreme trust in God, Abraham no longer had to sacrifice someone he loved so deeply.

Though God does not ask us to sacrifice life, God does ask us to sacrifice so that we may bring life--God’s life--to others. We can do this is by sharing of our financial resources and ourselves. We have been entrusted in this responsibility to co-create with God and are told that “much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more” (Luke 12: 48). In allowing ourselves to be nonattached to things and fully dependent on God, we can focus on the truest wealth in life: God. Prayer and relationship brings us closer to this realization and makes walking in faith to wherever that may lead with the one who is our truest treasure and deserving of all of our heart (Luke 12: 34) possible.

Anne Marie Tirpak

Anne Marie Tirpak is a CTU Bernardin Scholar and works for the Department of Stewardship and Development, Archdiocese of Chicago.