Tithing for Children
This week, I finish up at Sacred Heart my four-week run of tithing homilies. I find tithing homilies to be important, and I want everyone to receive a consistent message, but I will be happy to be on to other topics soon.
In all of these, one topic I wanted to address but always cut for time was tithing by children. In many of our churches, it is common for parents to give their children a dollar or two to put in the collection basket, or to hand the family envelope to a child so that they can put it in. These thoughtful gestures between parents and children are beautiful, to be sure, but I also find them to be long-term unhelpful.
With children, everything is a teaching moment (sometimes, whether we want it to be or not!). What are we teaching them by handing them money for the tithe? Well, we are showing them that the family gives to the church, which is good. But the unintended lesson is that other people (their parents) will take care of the church, and that they do not have a personal responsibility. Instead, I have found that a best practice with children is, once they are old enough for an allowance, to require that they give 10% of that allowance to the church. This teaches them about their personal responsibility to support the church, and that every blessing is returned to God in thanksgiving before we allow ourselves to personally benefit from it.
To that end, I found a few dozen children’s tithing envelopes in the basement of the Assumption office building. I will try to get those distributed to our different churches over the next few weeks, in case parents want to take up this practice. (It might also be helpful to read this week’s first reading and Gospel with kids at home, which are all about giving to God first.)
A Delicate System
If I am honest, pastoring our entire county is doable, but it does balance on a knife’s edge. I have a system of visiting each office each week, and that allows me to get a sufficient amount of office work done each week that nothing catches on fire. However, from time-to-time, I have to take an entire day for something, and that feels almost unrecoverable.
Two weeks ago, I was in Seattle for a full day for an all-pastors-all-principals meeting with the Office of Catholic Schools. Last week, I had an all-day funeral for a Lummi parishioner. This week, I had to spend two days in Seattle for an overnight meeting about the new responsibility of Deans (I am the Dean of the Northern Deanery) and Presbyteral Council representatives.
All of these are super important. I made a commitment when I was named Pastor of Whatcom to prioritize the school and Lummi as essential mission fields, and therefore specific responsibilities of the Pastor. And I believe I have a responsibility to tithe my time to the Archdiocese as well as my money, so I always say yes to one ongoing Archdiocesan commitment. But, yikes, I am still learning how to absorb 20 – 40% losses to my office time in a week. I am sorry if I have fallen behind on something that you need from me! (Maybe next week I’ll finally publish a Christmas Mass schedule…)
December 09
The Vatican recently made clear that December 09 is a Holy Day of Obligation this year (another schedule I need to set and publish…), even though it had previously been classified as optional by the USCCB. Please plan to attend Mass on Monday, Dec. 09.
You can read about this saga here: https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/vatican-letter-settles-and-raises
Fr. Moore 