Text Box: 5 Text Box: Greetings! The apostle Paul challenges us to “always be thankful.” The attitude of gratitude is the underlying base of a life of stewardship. God has given us everything--our life is a gift. We have individual talents we can develop or choose not to develop. That choice is a gift. We have the ability to love, to be loved, to learn, to remember and reflect. We have the ability to move beyond acting on animal instinct. What a great gift our lives are, given to us by the grace of God. Yet, how short sighted we can be. We live in a culture that tries to convince us that we are less than, that we are not entirely whole, that we are fundamentally lacking unless we have the particular pair of jeans that is currently being marketed, or that special pair of shoes or if we do not make it onto a particular team. We are needy; we are deficient. This process of seeing our lives as diminished begins to happen at a young age. Young people and adults have the pangs that come from comparing what others have and what they do not have. This is exactly what our consumer society banks on; it is what our economy is based on. We are always looking sideways and comparing. We see more what we DON’T have and not the gifts that we do have. To see beyond simply the things we have or don’t have is a real challenge for us today. That is why we need the attitude of gratitude that a life of stewardship can give us. Want to try it out? Try being honest and tithing your income. Give a regular percentage of what you earn to your faith community toward the good works that you can do through them and to other charities. Carefully pray about what you can offer of your time and your talent to better your parish and community. Make careful choices so that you do not burn the candle at both ends but rather give of your time where your gifts lie. We have to stop being tight-fisted with our time and talents and financial resources and open ourselves up to risking a life that is based on a sense of thanksgiving....an attitude of gratitude for all we DO have. Fr. Steve Binsfeld Text Box: The Church of St. Mary 420 Irving Street Alexandria, MN 56308

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