Dear Parish Family,
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” they say. And Christmas truly is wonderful. But now that Christmas Day has past, do you feel a bit of a Christmas “hangover?”
There’s a good chance you do, not necessarily from drinking alcohol, but from all that Christmas celebrations have the potential to bring: too many parties, too many sweets, and perhaps even too many gifts. Globally, people spend more than $1,000,000,000,000 each Christmas. (That’s what one-trillion dollars looks like, written out.)
If you can relate to the feeling “I don’t really need anything; I already have all I need,” you may appreciate hearing something that someone suggested once to me. I was talking about some guilt I felt from the sheer number of gifts that I had received, and they suggested tithing them.
Tithing is the faith practice of taking 10% off the top of whatever you receive and giving it away to someone in need. Many people have considered tithing their income, but it struck me that tithing my gifts is another way to make sharing a part of my lifestyle.
If, all together, you received $100 tucked into the Christmas cards you received, might you give $10 of it to a charity? If you received 10 gift cards, might you pick the one you got for the supermarket as a gift you give to our parish food pantry? The list of organizations doing good work for the poor, the elderly and the disabled who deserve support is staggering. How good it would feel to be able to know that you’re part of their mission by contributing some of your abundance to their work?
If you’re looking for a way to do something that will invigorate you in 2022, consider tithing. It feels better than you could ever imagine. There are very few “former tithers” – once someone experiences the joy that comes from letting abundance flow through their life to others, they’re hooked for life.
Merry Christmas…
Fr. Scott