Almsgiving Game, Activity for Lent

In the gospels, Jesus tells a story about a man who gave each servant a certain number of talents (money in those days). He instructed them to find ways to make his investment grow. The man wanted to see how his servants would use the money he gave them. He gave out sums of 10,000, 5,000 and 1,000 based upon his trust in each servant. The servants who were given the larger amounts each doubled theirs, but the third servant hid the money in the ground because he was angry with his master. The master was pleased with the first two and gave over to them all the money they had made. The master took the third servant's sum away and rebuked him for his vengeful spirit. The 1,000 was given to the other servants.

Each year our priest uses this passage as an object lesson. He gives out envelopes with amounts of $10 and $20. Whoever accepts the envelopes must come up with creative ways to make the money grow. As each envelope is returned, the person must tell what she did with the money. The money is donated to our sister parish of St. Simon and St. Jude at Morne Hopital in Haiti. Over the years that Fr. Bill has done this, we've heard numerous creative ideas. Here they are Almsgiving Lenten Activities