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Stewards use the gifts God has given them

DE PERE -- Stewards figure out what gifts God has given them, then use them, a Waupaca storyteller said at the final Claude Allouez Forum of 2002-03.

One way we can do that is through stories, said Betty Manion, director of religious education at St. Mary Magdalene Parish, Waupaca.

"Stories are truly a gift from God that allow us to see one another as brothers and sisters. To see our triumphs and our tribulations," Manion said. "Stories show us misfortunes and misgivings, our frailties and our faults. And stories show us how we are both ordinary and extraordinary."

Our stories tell us who we are, whose we are and where God is in our lives. They help us identify our gifts, then put them to work by serving each other as children of God, said Manion, who illustrated her talk with stories about an Irish immigrant family coming to America, a simple farm girl and her own life.

God has given us numerous gifts, including the wonders of the natural world, our minds, our human spirit, our families and friends, people we need and people who need us, Manion said.

"God has blessed each of us with all the gifts we need in our lives," Manion said. "But we need to trust that we have all the gifts we need and we need to use them."

God call us to nurture our gifts, she said, because "no matter how much we say they are our gifts, that we can do what we want with them, they're really God's gifts and we have been called to use them."

One gift common to most Americans is our ancestors whose gifts of courage, bravery and determination brought them to the United States. Their lives remind us that we, too, are called to use our gifts, she said.

Manion grew up in a large Irish family on the south side of Chicago. While attending St. Norbert College, she helped teach Sunday School. She and her husband and their four children have lived in Waupaca for many years.

It was there that Manion underwent a life-shaping event when she took her children swimming one summer day. While they were gone, their house was destroyed by an explosive fire. Among the few things that was spared was a large wooden rocking chair her husband had given her after the birth of their first child.

The survival of that rocking chair symbolized for her God's grace, Manion said. "It was because of the love of our friends and our family and God that we were able to survive that fire."

Emotionally, she said, the fire took its toll, but the support of their parish made them realize their true home -- the church -- was still there.

"For days and days after the fire, whenever I felt that I couldn't do it, I would go and sit in church because I knew that my Father's arms were around me and I was home," she said.

The fire transformed her religious beliefs into faith the day she sat in church and realized "that I can't do this alone. I can't do this at all. You must. That's the leap of faith we are called to make, when we can let go of all that burdens us and troubles us and let God," Manion said.

We're all called, as stewards of our gifts, to open the gift of faith God has given us, Manion said, "and relish it and put it on and wear it."