Stewardship is often spoken of in terms of responsibility—what we manage, what we protect, what we are entrusted with. But at its deepest level, stewardship is not merely about care for things; it is about care for the soul. It is the daily, intentional practice of tending to our inner life with reverence, humility, and love. To be a good steward of one’s life is to recognize that wisdom, patience, devotion, and purpose are not self-generated. They are received, cultivated, and returned. In this way, stewardship becomes an act of prayer in motion—a lived conversation between the human heart and the divine.
Saint Benedict understood this well. His prayer for personal stewardship does not ask first for success or certainty, but for formation: eyes that see, a heart that meditates, a life that proclaims. It is a prayer that frames faith not as performance, but as posture.
Personal Stewardship
“Father, give us wisdom to perceive you,
Intellect to understand you,
Diligence to seek you,
Patience to wait for you,
Eye to behold you,
A heart to meditate on you,
And a life to proclaim you,
Through the power of the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
— St. Benedict
This prayer reminds us that devotion is holistic. It involves the mind that seeks understanding, the body that practices patience, and the spirit that learns to wait without fear. Stewardship, then, is not about control—it is about attunement.
In many spiritual traditions, including those shaped by African diasporic experience, faith has never been confined to doctrine alone. It is embodied, contextual, and responsive to history. The ways people pray, interpret God, and understand identity are deeply shaped by survival, culture, and inherited memory. This is why scholarship such as Alison Sellers’ master’s thesis on Orisa tradition, Catholicism, and the construction of Black identity in 19th-century Brazil and Cuba is so meaningful. It explores how spiritual systems met, overlapped, and adapted—how people stewarded their faith under conditions of displacement, colonial pressure, and transformation. Even in constraint, devotion found expression. Even in fragmentation, sacred identity endured. At its heart, stewardship is the choice to remain faithful—to God, to conscience, to calling—even when the path is complex. It is the willingness to tend what is sacred within us, trusting that careful attention today becomes testimony tomorrow.
May we be wise enough to perceive, patient enough to wait, and courageous enough to live what we proclaim. Amen.
.webp)
.png)
.gif)
.jpg)
Post a Comment