I totally agree with your last paragraph. I homeschool our children, and so our property taxes do not pay for education for our kids at all, and we can’t write off the costs incurred in homeschooling either.
Try figuring out a tithe with a home business. Especially with a daycare. It’s not so straight forward. You have to establish some imaginary line of where your kids benefit and the other kids don’t. That’s not so easy… Now consider the serious wear and tear on your home. Do you figure out loss based on someone else doing the work or you doing the work? It’s mind boggling and then you turn around a say…this is what I can give. We live simple and without a lot and give according to which we have prospered. If I could sell my house and move to a cheaper one then I have to consider safety costs. Because around our neck of the woods gangs can get bad. Ironically some of them where rosaries around their necks. It’s offensive. But we try to make up where possible with good deeds. if we can’t afford the money loss then we give whatever we have…in the name…so prayer and fasting are also good if you’re poor, like us. Actually once my wife gets a teaching job we’ll be able to pick our giving again. We shut down the daycare and that was equivalent to actuall money $25K taking care of 4 children other than our own. Then the tax write offs. But even with that an my salary it’s crazy…it just costs so much to live here.
That’s a pretty cool idea. Might have to consider presenting that to my parish council as something awesome to do for the (few) young people we’ve got at our Parish.
Do this and watch your parish grow.
I am not far behind you in years, but the fact that they have “always done it that way” does not convince me it is appropriate. The way I see it, we are partaking of the body and blood of Jesus Christ at the Mass and that is no place to ask for money. As far as I know, Jesus did not pass the basket at the last supper and we should not at Mass.
Also, in the weekly printed announcements (at least every parish I have been to) they print the money received the previous week along with the budget for that month so people can see how much money is being given and how much their parish intends to spend and on what they intend to spend it on.
We do not barter in todays world. We produce goods and services and as such that becomes the comodity that is pais back to the Lord rather than the ‘Lamb’ or ‘Grain’. By th time Jesus walked the earth money was given, hence we have the story of the widow and her mites …
. *Wow, you gave me a good laugh there!
I don’t disagree with you. My point was, that even in principle, a church cannot use the OT to justify a “mandatory” tithe, because even in the OT it wasn’t a “tithe” as we understand it today.We do not barter in todays world. We produce goods and services and as such that becomes the comodity that is pais back to the Lord rather than the ‘Lamb’ or ‘Grain’. By th time Jesus walked the earth money was given, hence we have the story of the widow and her mites …
Our parishes and other charities can obtain the “things” needed for operation better with the gifts of money. There was a time in Amercia when you coud pay for a doctors visit with a dozen eggs and some canned vegetables … try that with your doctor and let us know how it works out for you
For me, I enjoy having the lights work and the toilets flush at the parish …
As for tithing being 10% - yes I agree - the point I was trying to make is that there was more to the “giving back” than just 10% … there was the sabbatical - every 7th daya a day of rest for man, every 7th year was a year of leting fields [ground] lay fallow - a time for the earth to reat from laboring - … the jubilee year proclaimed for the forgiveness of debts and freeing of slaves … that is part and parcel of the giving to God in Thanksgiving -
Eucharist means Thanksgiving and [not you personnally - I’m sure] some of our fellow Christians come to mass like they are owed something and they do not need to participate in any way …
The biblical tithe–a literal 10% and you can play the before/after tax debate–should be the norm for all denominations. I’ve seen charts that show that mormons and evangelicals give the most to church and charities in general. Liberal Protestants need to up their giving because they are dying fast. Catholics by contrast still have the numbers, so very few tithe their money. I think very few even do the math to see how little percentage wise they actually give. And I don’t buy the “my labor counts as money” bit. Tithe AND volunteer!
How so? The bible is full of references to the tithing principle.
Christine77
You certainly can’t bleed a turnip…