Stewards and also Sons of God - Olivia Spanton

Olivia Spanton, a Catholic Studies graduate of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota and now young financial planner, parish volunteer, and youth volleyball coach discusses Newman’s 1870 sermon, “Stewards and also Sons of God.” Olivia finds Newman relatable in that his style calls us out as he contrasts religion with the world. She presents the sermon theme as our need to realize that all of our God given gifts are to be returned to Him. Our duty lies in this – we are only borrowing God’s gifts therefore we have a duty to return them to Him. Newman leads us to understand that when we use our God given gifts well, we co-create with Christ. Since everything is gift, we must learn to hear the voice of God in order to affect the return. Olivia discloses that the only way to know someone’s voice is to spend time with them. Newman tells us that His voice directs us to a necessary surrender to Christ. Olivia suggests that one form of surrender is to offer Him our brokenness – surrendering our worldly filter in exchange for the filter of purity in Christ. It is in this purity that God uses our individual faculties to reveal Himself. For us to advance from servants to sons and daughters of God Newman tells us that we must “dig” into our sin to reclaim our union with Christ and we then must love in the form of “begging” for forgiveness enabling us to enter fully into the Paschal Mystery. All of us have an innate sense that sin is not our true identity. When we come to know ourselves in Christ, on the other hand, we find real freedom and joy in our “true self”. We must receive the graces freely offered by the Church to be made new in our identity in Christ. An under-examined conscience “dims” this innate sense. Without the right disposition formed by conscience our service of The Lord can become a performance rather than identity based as a son or daughter of God who receives everything as pure gift. Finally, purification of the soul avoids natural decay and since the soul is eternal, we should obviously strive for purity which is our protection against decay. Newman ends by telling us that becoming good stewards of the manifold gifts of God only happens when we allow grace to untangle our minds. With His grace we become not merely servants, but sons and daughters of God. We now have a mission to live in and move with this privileged inheritance. Its only through grace that we can merit heaven. It is like God telling us “do not run away, you cannot do this by yourself.” 

To approach Newman's majestic thought it is highly recommended to download the formatted sermon at www.newmanontap.com. Comments and suggestions are appreciated on the same site.