Cash Value of Christianity

 

Appreciating our aches and pains in a new light

07/28/2025

Matthew 13:31-35 Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds. “The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.” He spoke to them another parable. “The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.” All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables, to fulfill what had been said through the prophet: I will open my mouth in parables, I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world.

Yesterday I was playing with my dog, Apollo, in the school field and Fr. Savio stopped by for a visit. You may recall he had a dog named Rinto and loves dogs, too. He casually asked me, “Do you walk a lot?” It was an odd question because he has seen how much I walk Apollo daily. So, I answered, “Oh, yes, at least 3 or 4 times daily with Apollo.”

Then he added, “Did you know there is an app that will pay you for the steps you walk every day?” Then I realized the objective of his odd question. He went on to explain as he pulled out his phone to show me: “An app called ‘Cash for Steps’ allows you to earn points that you redeem daily to exchange for gifts cards to retailers like Amazon or Walmart.”

But he also threw in a couple of caveats: “You have to redeem the points every day; they expire at midnight. And it takes a lot of steps to earn points.” He held up his phone to show his modest earnings which he turns into Amazon gift cards. You know, normally the pastor should teach the associate “the ways of the world” but here at I.C. it is invariably the inverse.

We find an intriguing parallel for this cash for steps in the Christian life. That is, sacrifices we make every day in loving God and our neighbor are a lot like spiritual steps. And if we are spiritually astute, we earn points for them in heaven. For example, doing the laundry, mowing the lawn, giving a donation to the poor, praying the rosary, attending daily Mass, studying the Bible, enduring aches and pains cheerfully, just growing old, and so forth, are the equivalent of the walks I go on with Apollo.

We can do such things while being ignorant of their spiritual value, or with full awareness we can cash in on their spiritual merits by offering them up to God. As St. Paul reminded the Romans: “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship” (Rm 12:1). In other words, there is a sort of cash value in Christianity, by which we do not redeem points, but by which Christ redeems us.

Today we celebrate a supreme example of this cash value of Christianity, namely, the feast of Blessed Stanley Rother. This feast is particularly meaningful for us in the Diocese of Little Rock because we are one of the three dioceses that form the Province of Oklahoma City. And Blessed Stanley Rother was a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. He is literally the saint next door.

Blessed Stanley Rother began to use his cash value of Christianity app when he decided to become a priest. By the way, he attended Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, which is my seminary alma mater, too. So I have a double devotion to him: as a brother priest of the same province but also a brother graduate of the Mount (as we call it).

But Stanley believed he could gain more steps by working in the archdiocesan mission in Guatemala. Even though Fr. Rother struggled with Latin in seminary, he mastered Spanish as well as the native language of Tz'utujil and even helped translate the New Testament into that native tongue. Thus the people could read the Sacred Scriptures and see how Fr. Rother was a shining example of Rm 12:1.

But when civil war erupted in Guatemala, Fr. Rother saw a golden opportunity to gain bonus steps in his daily walk with the Lord. Even though his archbishop urged him to come home to Oklahoma City – because the Church was being persecuted in Guatemala – Fr. Rother decided to remain behind. He simply repeated the words of Jesus, the Good Shepherd: “the shepherd cannot run.”

On July 28, 1981, three men entered Fr. Rother’s rectory at 1 a.m. and executed him. His death shocked the Catholic world, and no one was held responsible for his death. On December 1, 2016 Pope Francis officially recognized Blessed Stanley as a martyr for the faith. And he is buried in a 2,000-seat shrine in Oklahoma City. Although the people of Guatemala asked his heart be buried in Santiago Atitlan.

My friends, I know it sounds odd, maybe even a little mercenary, to suggest that there is a cash value in Christianity. And I admit such language makes our precious faith sound somewhat consumeristic or capitalistic. Can our faith life really be compared to making a deal with Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank? Clearly that would demean and distort the faith.

Nonetheless, Fr. Savio’s casual conversation did make me look at my walks with Apollo in a new light: that is, there is more value there than I first realized. And there is likewise more value in our daily aches and pains, our moans and groans, than we realize. And the real value of seeing our spiritual walk with the Lord in terms of “cash for steps” is that this is not how we redeem points, but how Christ redeems us.

Praised be Jesus Christ!