Knights of Columbus Immaculate Heart of Mary Council # Centerville Lane, Gardnerville, NV May 2013

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1 Knights of Columbus Immaculate Heart of Mary Council # Centerville Lane, Gardnerville, NV May 2013 Homepage John Mannelly Grand Knight David Aymami Deputy Grand Knight Hello Brother Knights, April: Two steady Bingo s Founders Day Dinner Hosted a Spaghetti Dinner for the youth. Thanks to all who make these events such a success. There are quite a few to thank. You are each well appreciated by all. As we approach the end of our year we are looking at a busy month of May. Friday through Sunday May 3 rd through May 5 th : State convention in Las Vegas Our council is proud to send our two delegates Rick Marques and Ed Gunny Brysiak. District Deputy John Solt will also act as an alternate for our council. Sunday May 5 th : Father John s 80 th birthday celebration following the 10:30 Mass Our Council along with the Women s Society will host a birthday toast to

2 Father John in the Pastoral Center Marco Caldana will Chair the event Our Council is setting up and putting away the chairs serving champagne and orange juice Marco is looking for help you may reach him at or Monday May 6 th : Golf tournament at Edgewood A fun filled day for all who can participate A big thank you for our Chairman Ron Bankofier and all those who make this such a wonderful event: Church personnel, Our council volunteers, Cooks, Bartenders, and Set up/take down Due to the golf tournament our board meeting will not be held Monday night. We rescheduled the board meeting to be held at 6:00 pm Wednesday May 8 th before our normally scheduled business meeting at 7:00 pm Wed. May 8 th : 6:00 board meeting 7:00 business meeting (We will be holding elections for board positions) Friday May 10 th : Dedicated Bingo - TRIAD Douglas County Sheriffs outreach to seniors A large crowd is expected; Therefore, anyone who can pitch in please do so! Just show up and we will put you to work. Call Mike Mullins at Saturday May 11 th : Corporate Mass and dinner (all welcome) Mass: 4:00 pm at St. Ann s in Dayton Cocktails: 5:30 pm Dinner: 6:30 pm (Dress code) 4 th Degree wear attire - 3 rd Degree and others coat and tie Fun evening out for all! Contact Mike Mullins for reservations and other details Saturday/Sunday May 18 th & 19 th : Ministry Fair at St. Gall Our Council will man a table during Masses on Saturday and Sunday promoting The Knights of Columbus Dick Morisette is organizing the event and we will have a sign up

3 sheet at our next business meeting. Anyone interested in helping contact me, John Mannelly at Wed. May 22 nd : Council Annual Budget Meeting Please come and get involved. We will project our income and expenses for the coming year Wow! What a month! June: Monday June 10 th : Board Meeting 7:00 pm Wednesday June 12 th : Business Meeting 7:00 pm Friday June 14 th & June 28 th : Bingo Saturday June 15 th : Rescheduled Meet and Greet Dinner following 4:00 Mass Casual fraternal gathering Inform potential parishioners about our council and the Knights Wednesday June 26 th : 1 st Degree 7:00 pm For those of you who have a friend, relative or neighbor who may be interested in learning about the Knights please let them know about the Ministry Fair May 18 th &19 th and our Meet and Greet June 15 th The year has flown by and we are looking forward to our election and the assembling of our new board. VIVAT JESUS! John Mannelly Grand Knight

4 Knight Light #13 by Fr. Nathan Mamo, S.T.L., Chaplain Immaculate Heart of Mary Council 12845, Gardnerville, Nevada, U.S.A. We are more than half way through the Easter Season, soon to approach the solemn liturgical feasts of the Ascension of the Lord and Pentecost. These two festivals rank among the more neglected of religious feasts, possibly because they don t have much reality-based human imagery to help believers comprehend the theological mysteries they announce. The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord (a Holy Day of Obligation where it is observed on the Thursday of the 5 th Week of Easter) has been transferred from Thursday of the 6 th Week of Easter to the 7 th Sunday of Easter. This move was made to enable more Catholics to celebrate the mystery of the Risen Jesus Christ departing from his earthly mission and to resume his heavenly place in God s kingdom. The intimate unity of the Risen Jesus Christ with God, the Creator and Father, AND with the Holy Spirit of God, is one of those incomprehensible and practically indescribable articles of faith we hold. Indeed, the very Mystery of God is hard to embrace. Many of us were born into Catholic families and raised among Catholic believers, so the various mysteries of our Gospel faith are culturally imbued in our lives. We are very familiar with them and are reminded of them on the annual liturgical calendar. But, imagine how those people hear the Gospel and the Church s mysteries for the first time but who have radically different religious backgrounds OR no religious background! They have lived on a different religious planet OR in what we might call a spiritual vacuum, mostly through no fault of their own. OR imagine those who were in fact raised in a Catholic home in particular or in a generally Christian household, BUT who left their faith when they left home. Perhaps the examples of religious faith familiar to them was either very shallow, or too harsh, or not very nurturing or joyful, or perhaps even overshadowed by bad human behavior! An ever-increasingly number of American adults in modern surveys consider themselves former believers who have become agnostics or atheists or believe outside of the traditional religious groups (Catholics included!). Indeed, a survey back in the early 1970s was made of Catholics who had not practiced their faith for a year or more. When asked, Why do you not go back to church? the answer some 40 years ago was No one misses me when I m absent. Such a perception or feeling can be a powerful motivation to stay away from the Church! It may be overshadowed by the 21 st Century perception that the Catholic faith is too old fashioned or against modern ideas or irrelevant or superstitious or against a scientific world-view, especially among young adults who engage the active life with great enthusiasm. The Ascension is about being Jesus the Messiah being one with God, who s return to God s kingdom is the conclusion of his earthly mission. Admittedly, while the Mystery of the Divine Union is just that, a mystery, it does find itself expressed very effectively in how Catholics live out our Gospel faith in ways modern, intelligent, wise, gracious, loving, strong, and generous. Many who leave Church membership claim to do so because of either the bad examples of some Christians OR the failure to see the Gospel alive and active in the Church institution. The Ascension of the Lord announces that our ultimate goal is to return to God in the kingdom AND that the Holy Spirit of God is the final and greatest gift from Jesus and

5 God to us in order that we may live lives of enthusiasm and wisdom, generosity and graciousness, faith and forgiveness! The Solemnity of Pentecost was a Jewish festival which Christians early on perceived to be the theological birthday of the Church. The Jewish festival seems to have been an occasion of pilgrimage to the Jerusalem Temple in Jesus day which commemorated God s presentation of the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai in the Exodus story. By Jesus day, the Torah had evolved in some ways to a rule-based approach to religious practice. When the Holy Spirit descended upon the earliest Christian apostles and disciples, this was the very same Spirit which had given Moses the Torah and the Spirit that Moses received. The Israelite people s religious questions gradually added and encumbered the Torah with rules (613 rules by Jesus day by some counts!) intended to aid in living a holy life. Alas, eventually, people became excessively preoccupied with keeping the rules more than with asking How do we relate to the God of Salvation as wise, healthy, and intelligent grown-ups? OR From where did these rules and practices originate and why? The Christian Pentecost Event (see the Acts of the Apostles Chapter 2) was a sort of theological reset of God s gift to the Chosen People. Within 25 years of Pentecost the very definition of God s Chosen People had begun to expand to include not only the Children of Israel (i.e., the Jewish People), but also all the Gentiles (i.e., all the non-jews of the world)!!! In Matthew s Gospel account in particular, Jesus farewell speech on the occasion of his Ascension commissioned the disciples to go into the whole world,... teach... baptize...! Hence, God s Salvation was to be offered to everyone everywhere! Pentecost is meant to be the anniversary of the Church as launched in the world with the Gospel of the Risen Jesus and the power of the Spirit of God! So, the Church can never be, indeed MUST NEVER BE, dull, routine, uninteresting or otherwise boring! Young people really don t want to behave like senior citizens. That s entirely natural. So, why ought we who are elders want our young people to imitate us in our elder years? We ought not! We must not! Rather, we ought to encourage the younger ones to look to the Wisdom of the Gospel as lived in the Church through the ages. As they mine and refine and test out such Gospel Wisdom, they will have new, healthy, and holy ways to engage our increasingly complex world reality, relationships, and challenges. The original Christian Pentecost did not proclaim rules or practices. Rather, it announced the power of God which raised Jesus from the dead, and which offers the same power to us by which to live life without fear, and in tremendous hope! Anyone active in the Knights of Columbus appreciates the dynamism and enthusiasm of our order founded on faith and fraternity. Engagement is the byword of all we do. And Knights do what we do with joy and generosity. This is the true spirit of Pentecost! It embraces life in every good sense of that word. Knights are anti-dull because the Gospel of Christ is anti-dull. Let us rejoice and be glad because God has given us the faith and energy to have life and have it most abundantly (John 10:10)! A Blessed Pentecost to you all! Come, Holy Spirit! Fill the Hearts of the faithful! Enkindle in us the fire of your Divine Love! Let us renew the face of the Earth!