The Season of Stewardship Renewal

The seasons are changing from summer to autumn. As the weather cools, we enter another kind of season—the season of stewardship renewal.

Why do we observe this in the Catholic Diocese of Dodge City? Let’s start with two questions.

First, have you ever attended the Diocesan Matrimony Mass? If so, what happens during that Mass? Each married couple renews and celebrates their wedding vows.

Second, what do we Catholics do leading up to Easter Sunday? We renew our baptismal promises.

Why renew these seemingly ordinary experiences? Because they remind us what—and who—we are committed to. Renewal helps us remember and change a little.

“Not the building—the people.”

A reminder that the Church is made of hearts, not walls.

During Stewardship Renewal, we are invited to do the same: to renew our commitment to the Church.
Not the building—the people. The people we worship with each week, the people we may not know but pray alongside anyway. The community that gathers each Sunday to proclaim with one voice: God is with us.

Stewardship renewal is our moment to look inward at all God has given us and respond,

“I am sharing my gifts of time, abilities, and alms with my community in these ways: ____________.”

Renewal should always change us, even a little. Just like renewing our baptismal promises at Easter or our wedding vows at the Matrimony Mass, this season calls us to be transformed.

“My hope for you this year is simple: that we all become a little less selfish, a little more compassionate, a little more generous.”