Turning from enemies to fruits

He is risen! Truly, He is risen!

What a joy it is to step into the Easter season. We have trudged through the Lenten desert with Israel and with Jesus – leaving behind idols, wrestling temptations, facing demons, and striving to lay hold of a new way of life. 

During these past 40 days, we have tackled the “enemies of stewardship” in an effort to lay them behind us and lay hold of “the prize of God’s upward calling in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:14). These enemies – amnesia, complacency, assumption, fatigue, entitlement, and quid pro quo – if not properly overcome, can quietly erode the Stewardship Way of Life from within.

Now we move from the “season of the desert” to the “season of resurrection.” Alleluia!

If Lent helped us overcome what weakens stewardship, Easter invites us to see what stewardship produces when it is truly lived: its fruits. Jesus establishes the principle in Matthew 7:16 when he says, “By their fruits you will know them.” Over time, the Catholic Diocese of Wichita has not only articulated stewardship as a way of life – it has lived it. Because it has been lived, it has borne fruit.

Those fruits are not abstract. They are visible.

What emerges when stewardship is embraced as a grateful response to God’s gifts is not merely a well-organized parish or a more sustainable system, but a transformed way of life. A people begins to take shape, marked by worship, generosity, participation, and communion.

The life of the Church becomes more intentional, integrated, and alive. What follows next is a panorama of the great fruits of the Stewardship Way of Life. These paragraphs are pregnant with various fruits and call for more than mere reading. They deserve your prayer. I encourage you to take what follows to the chapel and allow the Spirit to let you be overawed by this great gift we share within our diocese.

First and foremost, there is a noticeable deepening in the worship of God: stronger participation in the Mass, a reverence for the Eucharist, and a widespread love for Eucharistic adoration. Prayer is not treated as an obligation, but as a response. Gratitude begins to animate the spiritual life. At the same time, a culture of self-gift begins to foster vocations – men and women who are able to hear and respond to God’s call because they have already learned how to give themselves.

It extends beyond worship. Within the parish, relationships begin to change. A greater solidarity emerges among parishioners, and especially among priests. How many times have we had visitors to our diocese ask, “What’s in the water here?” There is a true sense of belonging, shared responsibility, and mutual support. The parish is less a place people attend and more a people who live together in communion. This shift also addresses deeper forms of poverty – especially the poverty of isolation – by drawing people into meaningful relationships rooted in faith.

It goes further. Participation expands. Ministries increase. Individuals recognize they have something to offer and that their offering matters. Youth are engaged. Service is more widespread and more intentional. The Church functions more clearly as a body, with each member contributing to the good of the whole. That movement naturally extends beyond the parish itself into works of charity and outreach, as communities become more attentive and responsive to those in need.

Alongside these developments, there are also visible supports of mission: strong offertory giving, sustainable parish life, and the ability to maintain schools, ministries, and outreach efforts. In Wichita, this has taken tangible form in ministries such as Catholic Charities, Guadalupe Clinic, The Lord’s Diner, Catholic Care Center, and shelters that serve those under pressure. These material realities are not the goal of stewardship, but they are real fruits of it.

The goal of stewardship is communion and solidarity directed toward salvation. 

Nevertheless, these ministries enable what otherwise could not be sustained. They reflect a community that has embraced shared sacrifice for the sake of a shared mission.

At still a deeper level, stewardship gives rise to interior fruits that are not always immediately visible but are no less real: a spirit of humility and poverty before God, a growing trust in divine providence, a heightened respect for life, a greater appreciation for creation, and a genuine respect for the gifts present in others. Over time, a stronger sense of interdependence emerges, as we recognize we belong to  – and are responsible for – one another.

Taken together, these fruits form a coherent whole. Worship, vocations, unity, participation, service, generosity, mission, and interior conversion are not separate outcomes, but expressions of a single reality: a people living in grateful response to God’s abundant gifts.

What a blessing!

Easter is the time to reflect on all this. Lent may call us to repentance, but Easter allows us to see what self-gift actually does in a people who say yes. It reveals what becomes possible when disciples live not as owners, but as stewards who receive, return, and share God’s gifts in love.

When stewardship is lived well, its fruits speak for themselves.