If stewardship means taking care of, and sharing, all God’s gifts, then stewardship of the gift of talent means nurturing, developing, and using the God-given abilities and characteristics that help to define “who we are” as individual human persons. Most of us know what it means to contribute money or to give away our precious time, but what does it mean to be a good steward of talent?

Our talents are the special blessings that each of us has received from a loving Creator who prizes the diversity and abundant variety of all creation. When we volunteer to work for our parish or diocese or to help a neighbor with a difficult chore, what we have to give is much more than our time. We also give something of ourselves, those characteristics that make each of us distinctive as human beings. We call these our “talents,” those things that we’re good at or that we especially like to do. When we volunteer to help others by sharing our talents with them, we give them something far more precious than our time or money. We give them something of ourselves, an intimate sharing of “who we are” for the good of others.

All of the parishes, schools, agencies, and institutions of the Church in the United States are blessed with thousands of volunteers who share their talents with others. The “time and talent catalogs” that many parishes publish each year describe hundreds of ways that people can and do give of themselves, from visiting the sick to frying fish, from counseling youth to serving on parish committees. These gifts of self are every bit as important as the financial contributions we make to support the Church’s ministry.

(exceprt from US Bishops pastoral letter "Stewardship: A Disciple's Repsonse)