February 2003
Dear Brother Knights,
February is here and over the course of the next few months we should be welcoming several new members of our parish community. That is to say that the babies are all about due to be born. Fr. Len reminded us at baptism class that Lent is a no-baptism zone and if we wouldn’t be able to schedule them in before the beginning of Lent that we would all have to wait until after Easter. Maybe the lot of us could get together and have a community baptism all at once. Would that be funny or weird; I can’t tell.
So having this massive population explosion in the early part of this year, there will likely not be a whole lot of new things to happen within the council for a while. In fact it is my intention to let you all know that we may in fact require some help with the things that have already been planned. There is a pancake breakfast, a skating party and our regional Free Throw contest upcoming in February. Aside from these things, there are only ideas and thoughts for things to do, so expect Feb and into March to be semi quiet months for us. I don’t mean to suggest that the council should come to a standstill while several of us are otherwise occupied. All I am saying is that from my point of view, it will be slow.
We are going to address several issues at the council meeting, including the situation involving our decision to share the council chambers with the CWL as a meeting room. As it currently sits, the arrangement is that they will be able to use our room for their regular meetings. We have been thanked on many occasions already for this as they have thus far not been able to nail down a regular meeting area for themselves and this act of sharing will certainly address a serious issue for them. But what I hope that it will also cultivate is a working relationship between their group and ours as the two major service clubs within our parish.
It has been said to me that the Knights of Columbus is a separate entity than the church, and while I think that this is likely not a full explanation of the context of that statement, it none-the-less bothers me. I am asking you as the membership to ask this of yourselves. Does being a Knight of Columbus make you a member of a parish and a service club, or is it more of being a member of a service club of a parish? This may be semantics, but I feel that it is important to try to identify in order to better understand our roll and how we fill it.
I guess first of all we can join the order only if we are practical Catholics. Meaning we practice Catholicism as a way of life in respect of God and the church. So to me that suggests that first and foremost we are Catholic men.
Secondly I would point out that we are a service club. To me that says that we are a group that aims at providing aid and assistance to the community. The structure within our programs is to try to provide service to five different areas within our reach. Community, Youth, Family, Council, and Church. By doing this we should be acting like a resource for these areas. If we are simply sitting back and deciding what is worth our time and effort, we then being to put up the walls between us and these five areas where we could be providing service.
I am not suggesting for a second that we don’t contribute to the five program areas to the best of our ability. What I am wondering is how much of it do we do with the basis of our order, the morals, beliefs and goals of the Catholic Church as a tool of our Lord in Heaven? This is why it bothers me to hear someone tell me that they think that we as a club are a separate entity from the church. Yes we are separate, but only to the extent that one pew is from another, or like the front doors are from the back doors. We are men of the church, and as such we are an equally important aspect of it. No more important than the doors or the pews, or the carpets or walls.
As a group we do make the effort to achieve goals that are not necessarily the goals of others in the church, but that doesn’t make them any less important either. While saying that it is even more important to realize that we are not all there is either. With or without our financial contributions, people will be here to worship God. With or without the awesome organization of our council to provide ushers, men to take up collection, people to help direct parking, kitchen supplies for the people of the church, and anything else that we deal with for our church, people will still come to worship God.
So I feel that illustrates my feelings on this. We are valuable as a group to our church. Our church is proud to have us, but not because we are Knights of Columbus. Because we are active members of the parish that contribute each a little extra to make celebrating our faith more of a community labour of love than just a common denominator for us to gather around. I strongly feel that our service club is not to be confused with a country club in that respect.
I would like to point out that exactly what I have said about us as a service club can exactly be applied to the CWL as a service club. Within our parish we are to be one family under God, and not separate groups. We should all be different muscles of the same arm of God working towards one goal.
This brings me to something else that has been on my mind over the last few years.
Addressing the Christians arguing over Christianity with other Christians.
Quote Sydney.