To praise you day by day for
the marvels of your wisdom and power
In the fifth Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer for Sundays in
Ordinary Time, we pray “All things are of your making, all times
and seasons obey your laws, but you chose to create humanity in
your own image, setting us over the whole world in all its wonder.
You made us the stewards of creation, to praise you day by day for
the marvels of your wisdom and power, through Jesus Christ our
Lord.” It is an expression of the awesome gift of all things around
us, and their presentation to us as the crowning glory of that
creation. It is also an expression of the awesome responsibility
inherent in our lofty position, and the need for us to make every
effort to care for all that surrounds us.
Stewards are often seen as people such as flight attendants or
ship's stewards, those who are charged with fulfilling the needs of
those passengers entrusted to them. For me, the good steward is one
who is able to bring two very different worlds together in care and
concern. First, the good steward has become aware of the needs that
surrounds him or her, and second, the good steward develops an
awareness of what resources he or she has at his or her disposal to
meet those needs. In short, one is not born a good steward, but
rather becomes one through practice, through learning, and through
first-hand experience in life.
Lent gives to us a great annual opportunity to move toward the
lofty position of good steward of God's creation, an opportunity
often missed by us because our attention is so much drawn toward
the personal and private path toward salvation. Through prayer,
fasting and almsgiving, the three main disciplines of the season
presented to us for our own nourishment and fortification, we are
truly able to move away from the focus on “me” to the care of “us”.
These time-honored and tested practices form the foundation of
developing our lives as good stewards of all that we have been
given: we become aware of the needs, our own and those of others;
we recognize what we have been given, and the sheer abundance of
those gifts; and we bring both together, from sacrifice and not
merely from surplus. As we grow in awareness of all things, we
grow in appreciation and in gratitude.
Prayer this Lent will take on many and varied forms for every
one of us. A few more minutes less TV given over to
communicating with our Creator God might be the beginning. Or
perhaps it will be the acquiring and reading of the Scriptures, guided
by any number of publications already available, or left to the free
guidance of the Holy Spirit. Or maybe for some it will be a
commitment to be at Mass every Sunday and as many days during
the week as possible, sacrificing bits of time spent uselessly
otherwise. For some of us it might be an effort to not only end the
day with turning our attention to God, but also beginning the day in
the same fashion, a habit that may not be our own at this time, but
one that will definitely see the bearing of great fruit. Whatever the
form our prayer will take in the coming weeks, one thing is assured.
When we enter the presence of God with intention and
consciousness, God's intentions and awareness of us will become
truly evident. Instead of getting to prayer “whenever”, the
discipline necessary to become “regular prayers” will help us to
grow into good stewards. Without such awareness, our activity will
be about us and not God. It will be haphazard at best, and fruitless
at worst.
