Lent could be described as Catholic spring training, an annual period of more than forty days in which we renew our commitment to key fundamentals in the Christian life—specifically prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. My focus today is on almsgiving and the larger topic of tithing and stewardship.
Tithing is rooted in antiquity across religious faiths. For example, in the Old Testament, Abram gives a tenth of everything he gained from defeating several kings to Melchizedek, priest of God Most High (Gen. 14:18-20). We see similar prescriptions for the ancient Israelites in Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, with the Lord using some of the tithes he received to support the livelihood of his priests and their Levitical collaborators:
And all the tithe of herds and flocks, every tenth animal of all that pass under the herdsman’s staff, shall be holy to the Lord (Exod. 27:32).
To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service which they serve, their service in the tent of meeting (Num. 18:21).
You shall tithe all the yield of your seed, which comes forth from the field year by year (Deut. 14:22).
Nevertheless, God desires the gift of ourselves more than simply the fruit of our labors. We see this in Genesis 4 in the story of Cain and Abel. In my naïveté as a young child, I thought it was self-evident that God preferred Abel’s lamb to Cain’s produce because meat trumps vegetables every time . . . especially if Cain were offering lima beans! But actually, Abel sought God and his kingdom first (see Matt. 6:33), giving the Lord “of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions,” whereas Cain gave “an offering of the fruit of the ground (Gen. 4:3-4). Cain held back from the Lord, and then killed his brother in a fit of murderous envy.
Tithing and Stewardship in the Life of Christ
In fulfilling the law in the New Covenant (Matt. 5:17-18), Jesus relaxes various Old Covenant disciplines, including the many dietary restrictions that had bound the Israelites (Mark 7:18-19, Acts 10:9-16). In addition, contrary to what many Protestant Christians claim, the strict obligation to tithe specifically ten percent is not continued in the New Covenant—and, being a type of discipline, which is by nature changeable, is one regarding which Catholic Church leaders have the divinely given power to bind and loose (see Matt. 16:19, 18:15-18). Jesus doesn’t extend it to his disciples, and nowhere do the apostles and their early successors institute it, whether as recorded in the New Testament or otherwise in the early Church (see St. Justin Martyr, First Apology, 67). Also, even though the Pharisees rigorously tithed in fulfillment of Old Covenant law, Jesus admonishes them for failing to meet the greater demands of that law:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! (Matt. 23:23-24).
In a similar scenario, Ananias and Sapphira are punished because they deceptively withheld in giving to the Church, whereas others gave in a joyously free manner (Acts 5:1-11, 4:32-37).
Later, in the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX, a collection of canon law published in 1234, although the required amount of giving is changeable, the pope reaffirms that giving to God and his Church is a non-negotiable—i.e., “of divine law, since tithes were instituted not by man but by the Lord himself” (ch. 14, de decim. [On Tithes] book III, title 30).
At other times in Church history, the Church has required ten-percent tithes—e.g., at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 (canon 53) and the Council of Trent in the 1500s, including to support New Covenant priests in advancing the mission of the Church:
Those who refuse to pay tithes… shall be compelled to do so by ecclesiastical censures and other remedies according to law (Session XXV, Decree Concerning Reform, ch. 12).
This conforms with what St. Paul preaches:
Do you not realize that those who work in the temple are supported by the temple and those who minister at the altar share the offerings of the altar? Likewise, the Lord Himself ordered that those who preach the gospel should live by the gospel (1 Cor. 9:1).
Time, Talent, and Treasure: A Catholic Approach to Stewardship
In recent centuries, the Church has not required a strict financial percentage, although it continues to encourage the faithful to give joyfully and generously, according to their means, remembering that everything we have is a gift from God:
The fifth precept (“You shall help to provide for the needs of the Church”) means that the faithful are obliged to assist with the material needs of the Church, each according to his own ability (CCC 2043; see Code of Canon Law [CIC], canon 222, §1).
What have you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift? (1 Cor. 4:7)
So tithing ten percent is encouraged if at all possible. The Diocese of Wichita, Kansas shows what’s possible when all of the diocesan faithful view one another as one family in the body of Christ, making it possible for all children to attend diocesan schools (see 1 Cor. 12:12-26).
The Church today focuses on stewardship, on a holistic giving of our time, talent, and treasure, so that we don’t transgress, like the Pharisees of old, who were not motivated by love of God and neighbor. If one is thinking of strictly tithing, a suggested guideline is five percent to his parish and five percent to other Church giving, including apostolates like Catholic Answers.
The U.S. bishops have an excellent Letter on Stewardship, which provides basic principles in living out discipleship:
- Time, including our prayer, worship, participation in parish life
- Talent, our skills and abilities used to advance the kingdom
- Treasure, financial resources given according to our ability
In this light, almsgiving is traditionally understood as giving financially or materially to the poor, including to widows and orphans. Lent is an excellent time to engage in almsgiving more, and which is traditionally characterized as going beyond our normal giving and motivated by charity. In addition, almsgiving can encompass our time and talents in other “works of fraternal charity,” such as the spiritual and corporal works of mercy:
The works of mercy are charitable actions by which we come to the aid of our neighbor in his spiritual and bodily necessities. Instructing, advising, consoling, comforting are spiritual works of mercy, as are forgiving and bearing wrongs patiently. The corporal works of mercy consist especially in feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and burying the dead. Among all these, giving alms to the poor is one of the chief witnesses to fraternal charity: it is also a work of justice pleasing to God (CCC 2447).
When we Catholics embrace a holistic approach to our life in Christ, we fulfill the mandate that Jesus says in indispensable to advancing the Great Commission: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35; see Matt. 28:18-20).