Dear Holy Trinity Family,

As I made the financial report last week at all Masses, I hope that all of you now have a clear idea and understanding about our finance. Again, I am so grateful for your ongoing supports and love for our parish. If anyone still wants to know more about our finance outcome, please call me or visit my office for more information.

This Sunday I am taking another opportunity to address our financial matters further. I would like to talk about two things. The first topic is on “Giving” and the second one is on our upcoming Stewardship Commitment Program called Enhancing Offertory with its theme “Building Our Home, Our Parish, Our Future.” This program aims to increase our weekly giving. It is beyond the financial goals. It is all about helping our entire community grow in generous stewardship.

Having been received many blessings from God, giving what we received is our duly expression of gratitude. In the Bible, a tithe is the act of giving a tenth part of one’s income or produce to God. This is the practice that Israelites followed. For instance, both Abraham and Jacob offered tithes (Gen 14:19-20), and the practice was a foundational law for Israel (Lev 27:30; Deu 14:22-23). While the New Testament does not impose a strict 10% of our produce; however, our generosity and cheerful giving from the heart is encouraged. We give because we love God and others.

We are all called to build a Kingdom of God on earth while we await Jesus’ second coming. Our eternal home is in heaven; however, our community here on earth is our temporal home whether it is our family household or a faith-based community or even this world. Our home as a place is a nuclear family that is seen as a domestic church where we first experience the love of God through our parents and siblings. This family home must grow, and we further create our home a loving and forgiving place. When we enable to build our home strong, we build our parish community as an extended family of God. Our parish is where we not only worship and glorify God, but also a place where we continue the mission of Jesus. Furthermore, building a strong faith community is a way to securing our future with our children and children of our children by passing of our Catholic tradition and gospel value along with religious educations they would get.

I am very confident of God’s goodness and mercy. As we continuously strive to be holy and perfect as Our Heavenly Father is, there is outpour of God’s blessings on all of us. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother, always intercede for us!

In Christ,

Fr. Brian