For many years I thought that we were asked to give to the Church because it needed the money to cover its expenses. While partially true, the deeper spiritual meaning of giving is lost if we view it in such a pragmatic way. What if a parish had more than enough to cover its expenses, would we still need to give? The answer is yes, because the need we are responding to is our own. We need to give in order to express concretely our gratitude to God, reparation for our sins, and our love for God and neighbor.
    We can and must express these things in many ways, through prayer, fasting, and works of mercy in the physical and spiritual realms. But along with this is the sacrificial giving of our material goods, keeping in mind how many parables Jesus uses to warn us against the dangers of loving money. “It is right to offer sacrifice to God as a sign of adoration and gratitude, supplication and communion” (Catechism, 2099). This is called almsgiving, a word rooted in a Greek word meaning pity, especially toward the poor, and is a form of penance and charity that “covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). We can look at our monetary gifts to our parishes in this way, and by giving for the right intentions grow spiritually. 
    The beginning point is that we intend to give a gift to God, which is essentially an act of gratitude, returning to Him, in a spirit of thanksgiving, a portion of the gifts that He has given to us. In addition to this is the very important and often underappreciated element of reparation. People are quite good at expecting and receiving reparation or satisfaction for harm done to them, but are not as demanding when they are on the other side, especially when the One offended is God. Every sin is an offence against God that requires our cooperation with the sacrifice of Christ, which is the source of all reparation. Through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving we are asking Christ to give us the grace of His infinitely meritorious sacrifice that we may give it back to the Father in reparation for our sins. We are to do this not only for ourselves, but in the spirit of intercession and charity, we do it for others. As we pray in the Divine Mercy chaplet, “Have mercy on us and on the whole world.” Finally we should intend our gift to be an act of love toward God and our neighbor fulfilling the great commandment to love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves (cf. Matt 22:34-39).
    The goal of all of this is to grow spiritually, that is to live in the sanctifying grace of God given to us through the sacraments in the virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. This is what unites us to other members of the Church in our parishes and throughout the world. In order to receive these we must be humble. Humility opens our minds and hearts to the truth about God, ourselves, and others, enabling us to be in the right relationship with each. Then as we recognize how generously God has given to us we in turn should be generous with those same gifts. And so whenever we give to our parishes or any charity let our prayer be: “I offer this gift to you, Dear Heavenly Father, in Gratitude for Your countless blessings, in Reparation for my sins and those of the whole world, and as an act of Love for You and my neighbor, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Fr. Michael J. Miller