Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius
June 14, 20115
Spiritual Ponderings
Spirituality of Fundraising

In our last Spiritual Ponderings, I reflected on Dr. Gottman’s insight on how money is more than money to us and how money has become a symbol of a dreams and hopes. Some of the dreams are dreams of pleasure and some of these dreams are attempts to avoid nightmares and thus have more to do with security. Either way, we also know our dreams and our hopes are intimate part of who we are. And this is where things get tricky because God wants us to share with Him our whole lives and this is where stewardship comes in. As a Catholic, I know that everything I have is a gift from God and that God desires a personal relationship with Him. In a very real way when I share with God some of my money, I am sharing with God my dreams and hopes. When I share with God my money I am saying “Lord I trust that Your dreams are better than mine,” “Lord I trust, that if I am faithful to You with the small amount of things that I have, You will reward/entrust me with more,” and “Lord I trust, in You to take care of me, more than I trust in myself or my own efforts.” This amazing sign of trust and sharing with God our dreams cannot but help strengthen our relationship with God because God is always faithful and God is never outdone in generosity.

A few years ago a priest friend gave me a little book that changed my life forever. It was a book written by Henri Nouwen and was only about 50 pages called: The Spirituality of Fundraising. For the rest of our Spiritual Ponderings this month, I am going to share with you different quotes from Fr. Nouwen’s little book. His quotes will be in bold and my commentary will follow in regular font.

From the perspective of the gospel, fund-raising is not a response to a crisis. Fund-raising is, first and foremost, a form of ministry. It is a way of announcing our vision and inviting other people into our mission.

Soon after I arrived at Epiphany of Our Lord Parish as pastor, it was discovered that our beautiful rose window in the back of the Church was in severe needs of repairs. It was determined that in order to do the job correctly, the repairs would cost around $18,000. After consulting different people from the parish, I decided to hand out canisters of mini M&M’s with a label on it asking the people of Epiphany of Our Lord parish to enjoy the M&Ms and return the canister the next weekend with a donation toward the stained glass window repairs. I honestly thought that after a month, we would have about $6,000 toward our goal but amazingly after three weeks we had collected the entire $18,000 because of the generosity of the people of Epiphany.

From that moment on, I realized that the people of Epiphany have a deep love for their Church both the physical building but also the building made up of living stones and that many people have the same trust in God and shared dream of a beautiful Church to worship in. I went from seeing financial challenges like the stained glass windows as an a crisis to seeing them as an opportunity to allow people to come together. The people of Epiphany announced loud and clear that month of October that their faith was important to them and I felt/feel blest to be a part of this community.

Fund-raising is proclaiming what we believe in such a way that we offer other people an opportunity to participate with us in our vision and mission.

In the Advent of 2013, I held up to Epiphany Parish three parish goals with the one of them being to raise money for Sts. Peter and Paul Community Center as they fight to end homelessness in St. Louis. Why out of all the charities in the St. Louis area did I choose Peter and Paul Community Center? It was because an old high school teacher, who now works for them, invited me to see all the good that they were doing for the homeless in the Saint Louis area. As I talked with my old high school teacher, I felt that I was getting more than just a sales pitch for some product. I could tell that he was invested and believed in the mission of Peter and Paul Community Center and now he was invited me to be a part of his vision which included working with the chronically homeless.

Fund-raising is precisely the opposite of begging. When we seek to raise funds we are not saying, “Please, could you help us out because lately it’s been hard.” Rather, we are declaring, “We have a vision that is amazing and exciting.”

When I am at a parish fundraiser, the bottom line for me is not how much money we bring in. The bottom line for me is how much community have we built. Are people leaving this parish event with a stronger idea that Catholics are loving and joy filled people? We could make a $1,000,000 on a fundraiser and if we give people a negative idea about what it means to be a Catholic then we have not had a successful fundraiser. I love our parish fish fries, homecomings, BBQ competitions because it gives me a chance to see the people of God gather and celebrate life together.