ABOUT ST. MICHAEL’S GIVING TUESDAY
WE HOPE YOU NOTICED
When I first considered whether our parish should participate in Giving Tuesday, I thought of all the money we could raise and can use at this time, but my research of Giving Tuesday revealed that its origin was tied to something we at St. Michael’s value: YOU being a spreader of the Joy of the Gospel. Giving Tuesday was born out of a frustration over how the two shopping days, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, are the modern day Grinches that may be stealing from us the Spirit-driven seasons of Advent and Christmas. Giving Tuesday is a day to get back to the meaning for the season. Here is how CBS’s New York News described the 2012 thinking of Giving Tuesday’s founders Henry Timms and Sol Adler:
NEW YORK (CBSNEwYork) — There’s a day for giving thanks and two for getting great deals, but what about a day of giving? “During the holiday season we have two days to get deals — Black Friday and Cyber Monday,” said the 92nd Street Y Deputy Executive Director Henry Timms. “We sat there thinking, ‘What about a day for giving back?’” “It feels great to get a bargain on Friday and Monday, but nothing beats the feeling of helping someone who needs the help,” CEO Sol Adler told 1010 WINS. WCBS-TV/CBS 2, 11.27.2012
So the original purpose of Giving Tuesday was “giving back” and encouraging people to experience that “nothing beats the feeling of helping someone who needs help.”
Thanks to Timms and Adler, we now have an annual global celebration of Giving Tuesday, but is it fulfilling the function they intended, spreading the experiences of personal interaction-based giving, or is that being replaced by cyber clicks?
Entered into with the right Spirit, Giving Tuesday can be a signal to us to turn our attention back to Advent and Christmas, to add a heavy dose of connectedness to people to media driven obsession with Christmas shopping. That is what we hoped to accomplish through St. Michael’s Giving Tuesday, along with generating some sorely needed funds. From a Christian faith perspective, both the monetary donation and providing person-engaging giving opportunities for our parishioners are needed, and doing so in the globally united Giving Tuesday manner on the day after the Black Friday – Cyber Monday’s somewhat materialistic madness, provides us a way to settle into Advent and focus on the real Reason for the Season.
So we hope that you are seeing Giving Tuesday in that light. As originally intended, let your participation in Giving Tuesday make you aware of the importance of your personal interactions for your own transformation (conversions) and for the transformation of the world.
We hope an annual Giving Tuesday leads us into a more Jesus-centered Advent. That kind of a Giving Tuesday aligns with the ministry and mission of St. Michael’s and of the Church – spreading the Joy of Jesus and His Gospel.
Sister Loretta