Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to another edition of our diocesan podcast, Big City Catholics, with Bishop Robert Brennan, the diocesan bishop of Brooklyn, and myself, Father Christopher Henyu. Today's podcast really revolves around the great fraternal organization of the Knights of Columbus that the co cathedral will be hosting on the day of this recording, this Tuesday, August 13. I thought to begin our podcast, we could pray the prayer for the canonization of Blessed Michael McGivney in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. God our Father, protector of the poor, and defender of the widow and orphan. You called your priest, Blessed Michael McGivney, to be an apostle of christian family life and to lead the young to the generous service of their neighbor through the example of his life and virtue. May we follow your son, Jesus Christ more closely, fulfilling his commandment of charity and building up his body, which is the church. Let the inspiration of your servant prompt us to greater confidence in your love so that we may continue his work of caring for the needy and the outcast. We humbly ask that you glorify blessed Michael McGivney on earth according to the design of your holy will. Through his intercession. Grant the favors we present to you. We ask this through Christ our Lord.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: In the name of the Father, son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. So we both are knights of Columbus, right, bishop?
[00:01:31] Speaker B: I've been a knight since I was 20 years old. Actually, my brother was the one who kind of brought me along. It was a reversal of fortunes, you might say. The younger brother dragged the older brother along, but he wanted to play softball. They had a softball league in Lindenhurst, and we were both working at the parish at the time. So as soon as he turned 18, he wanted to join the knights of Columbus. Really prevailed upon me. Let's do this together. And we did it together. So this was long before I was in the seminary, long before I had made anything known about a vocation. It was really just that. Local council of the Knights of Columbus, 794. I'm still a member. And you realize now that's one of the older councils, because the council numbers increase with the year. So one would be the first council, and then each year, as a new council is formed, and I can imagine how many tens of thousands there are today. But I began the first degree right there when I was 20 years old, and I went through three degrees right away. And then when I was secretary to Bishop McGahn, I took the fourth degree. So, yes.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Fourth degree night. And I remain a member, as I was starting to say. Of council 794, Lady Perpetual help my home council. They were very good to me personally. Wherever I've been, the knights have been a great partner. They helped in my years of going through the seminary and even the celebration of my ordination. The knights were a key, key part of that. When I was in Smithtown, I had a lot of work to do with the youth community, and the knights stepped up and really did a lot of work for our young people, and I would not have been able to do the things that I would have done without them. They were the ones who did the real heavy lifting and made things happen. And then the same was in Long beach. We had a spanish speaking council again. Fellows were just to get together at night, and whatever project had to be done, we were in sync with one another. So wherever I've been, the knights have always stepped up in a very powerful way.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: I've had similar experiences. I mean, even the Knights of Columbus have a young group called the Squires. And when I was at Cathedral Prep High School, as a high school student, I did some work with the Squires. It was a way of kind of recruiting us into the organization, ways in which we could give back in service to our community things that you're mentioning. You know, I echo the same support that you received I received when I was a seminarian. Certainly their prayerful support, their generous support as well in supporting our book costs. When I was in college, they often would give a few dollars to help us with buying our books that we needed for college classes and continued all through my seminary and into my priesthood. And then, as you say, working with different councils throughout the diocese, even as a seminarian and as a priest now, has been a great gift.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: You know, nationally and even internationally, I would say three very important focus is that the knights of Columbus are very, very strong. They have a leadership role in bearing witness to the pro life value, the dignity of every human person created in the image and likeness of God. The pro life movement would be much weaker if we didn't have the knights banding together and giving that witness. Secondly, as we both kind of hinted, they're great promoters of vocations, and we're so glad for that. And thirdly, religious liberty. We were talking before we recorded about the different degrees, and one of them is patriotism. And, you know, patriotism and faith are not necessarily at odds with one another, because one of the values that we cherish in this nation is religious freedom, and that's something that is under attack. So we're so glad for the witness of the knights of Columbus in terms of religious freedom, not only here but around the world. I mean, we just saw earlier this week a horrendous attack of antisemitism. We see vandalism on a lot of our churches. It's not uncommon for things to be done and in hateful kinds of ways. But, you know, the anti semitism that's rampant in this city is truly disturbing. So an antidote to that is a fraternal organization that bears witness to the value and dignity of human life, to vocations in, to religious freedom. And then, of course, that's all done in the context of the family. The whole point of the knights of Columbus is to build up the family.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: To build up the family and to support the family. Right. As Michael McGivney blessed. Michael McGivney created this fraternal organization. It was meant to support widows, those who were trying to provide for their children, in a way to kind of bring the community together around that. Bishop, we're coming up to the anniversary, right? The 60th anniversary of lumen gentium.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Right. In November. In November, yep. Which is the Second Vatican Council's decree on the church, the dogmatic constitution on the church. And it's worth reading and rereading, and we'll probably come back to it a lot now in the next couple of months. But, you know, it really helps us to understand the church. The Vatican Council, the second Vatican Council put out two different documents. Lumen Gentian, the church as the light to the nations, but also then the church in the modern world, which takes up some of the social issues. But to focus in on the church as the church, what is the deeper meaning and some beautiful, beautiful insights. One of those is the universal call to holiness, chapter five. And Father McGivney, in my view, is way ahead of his time in the late 18 hundreds founding this fraternal organization calling lay men and women. I mean, it was a men's organization, but he was calling lay people to that universal call to holiness. Last week we spoke about him a little bit as a model for priests, but he really was one who, to use a modern term, empowered people to recognize their dignity, their call in baptism, and to live lives of holiness. Holiness is not reserved for priests and religious, but that it's something that is part of every state in human life.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Living out your vocation, living out each vocation to its fullest and being sure to always be mindful of the needs of the poor, the most vulnerable. And that's what you say. I mean, you know, those three aspects, the pro life, the support of priests and of country. Certainly the most vulnerable are those who are in the womb, those who are going against the countercultural. It's very difficult to certainly to follow this vocation to the priesthood, especially for young men nowadays in this society, in our western society, love of country and being supportive of that religious freedom, especially, as you mentioned, as it's under attack, these are ways in which that organization continues that has been so.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: The Catholic Christian, any Catholic Christian, we all have a responsibility, not just, you know, a nice thing to do, but we have a responsibility to transform the world with the message of Christ, to let that message of Christ shine forth as a light in the world. And we do that by the way we live our lives. And that's the essence of holiness. You know, each of us has created. Bishop Baron Orphan talks about the imaggio dei, the image of God that's been planted within us through our creation and through our baptism. That image of God is created within us. And then, you know, there's always that egotistical self that tries to kind of come to the fore. But if we allow ourselves to discover who we are created in the image and likeness of God and let that inform our lives, our decisions, that has a transformative effect. The powerful, bold living of the gospel will have an effect in the world. It can have an effect in our families and our society and in the world. You know, when I talk about that document, Lumingensium, in that fifth chapter, it talks about the universal call to holiness in the church. It talks about the holiness of people in general. It talks about, yes, the holiness that we're called to live as priests and bishops, the call to holiness that's given in different states. But I want to read just a little bit about that call to holiness lived in the family. It says, furthermore, married couples and christian parents should follow their own proper path to holiness. By faithful love, they should sustain in one another the grace throughout the entire length of their lives.
They should imbue their offspring lovingly welcomed as God's gifts with christian doctrine and evangelical virtues. In this manner, they offer all men the example of unwearying, generous love. In this way, they build up the brotherhood of charity, and in doing, they stand as witnesses and cooperators of the fruitfulness of Holy Mother Church. By such lives, they are a sign and a participation in the very love with which Christ loved his bride and for which he delivered himself up for her. It goes on to talk about the role of family life. And then even there, too, it talks about the single life, the holiness of single life. There are two ways. First of all, as we live our lives faithfully in families, the family is powerful. Powerful sign of christian love. The document looming talks about how married couples, when they're living faithfully and generously, reflect that love that God has for us. And, you know, we've seen it. We thank God we've grown up in stable families. And I know that that's something that so many people have not had the privilege of experiencing. But when you see faithful love at work, it can be a powerful sign. You know, in my mother's last years, I just saw the very humble care that my father had to give to her. It was all encompassing, but it really was to use the gospel image of kneeling down and washing one's feet. You realize 60 years later, he was living the I do he made on the day of their wedding. And one of the things he would always say, because to kind of put it back in perspective, is I never realized how much your mother did for this family. And he said, it was only when I had to do things for two people that I realized what she did while working for seven people.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: And so there was this mutual appreciation and this mutual generosity. And sometimes, you know, the needs were there. But that's holiness. That's holiness. And we see it in the family. We see it parents with children. We see children with parents. So one level of that holiness, universal call to holiness, the holiness of the faithful, is the living in the family. The other is living out our professional lives. Again, I'll quote Bishop Barron, the world needs really good catholic christian doctors, catholic christian lawyers, catholic christian transit workers, catholic christian farmers, catholic christian factory workers. The world needs really good people living in these professions, contributing to the welfare of society, but doing so, carrying that holiness of that image of God always at work, trying to conform ourselves more and more to that image of God. That, again, the way we do our jobs, the way we interact in the marketplace, that's living, the universal call to holiness. And that can have a very powerful transformative effect.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: It certainly does. And I see it, as you mentioned, in my own family, we see it what a great gift it is as a priest, to see it lived by our parishioners, those who have been married for so long, certainly our deacons of the diocese. There's an article in this week's tablet about the diaconate and its diversity here in the diocese of Brooklyn. And they interview a few of our deacons, but certainly the ones that, that they interview and I can think of many more deacons who live this life, this married life, well, with their wives, who are also as supportive of their vocations together to help support the local parish. And what you mentioned in that quote from looming Gentian was also the word charity. And that's at the center of this whole thing. It's really at the center of the Knights of Columbus's mission is charity, where charity and love there is God. And I think that's an incredible aspect of this as well.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: So in terms of charity, the other part of that transformation, formative effect of holiness in our lives is taking care to recognize the needs of other people and to show generosity, charity, mercy. Again, the image of God trying to conform ourselves to the image of God living generously, not for ourselves alone, but for God and for others. So, yes, charity is a big part in the holiness of all people, but as a mark of the knights of.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Columbus, there's the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Right? And, you know, that's not just for, as you mentioned earlier, it's not just for others to do. It's for all of us to live out. And I think that's a great gift of the knights as well.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: You know, one of the things we can identify with Father McGivney is that he was in the late 19th century serving an immigrant church, and he was reaching out to people who were in a new reality. In the biography of Michael McGivney, as a parish priest, the plight of that immigrant church was described very, very well. So you had people coming from a place where maybe they had farmed their own land. They did not necessarily work for somebody else, but they would work the land, and then they would do the best that they could with it. And, you know, that had a certain reward to it, but it also had a certain instability. You were at the mercy of the weather and all kinds of things here, people coming to this country for new opportunities. But those new opportunities often were in industrialization, and so many people were working in factories and not always under the easiest of conditions. And there was the secular move toward the union movement, which was very important, providing the dignity of the worker. But he knew there was a need for more. He knew there was a need for more, that it came from recognizing who we were. It came from recognizing what we're called to be talking about all the things that were maybe helping situations. The book parish priest says this still left the new american man with an even greater problem himself. As anyone could see, big business took a crucial sense of identity away from the individual worker trading it for the enticement of stability and stores of consumer goods. However it came about that whatever its value in the long term, big business also took the power away from the individual worker. For men of the late 1870s weaned on the idea that power was the very prerogative of manhood. The present was hardly less confusing than the future. No longer defined by their daily choices, they could feel just as empty as the pay envelopes that piled up to show that life was passing by. We weren't meant just to work for work's sake, but really to contribute to something, and that our identity lie in something deeper. And Father McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus to help discover that something deeper, to help cultivate it in the lives of the workers, so that that fraternal organization of men could support one another. I bet that especially as immigrants in a new society, there was a sense of being isolated, being taken away from family, a sense of prejudice.
By gathering the people together, the men could be a mutual support to one another, help each other. As you mentioned earlier, the industrial accidents, families were left fatherless very often, very early on. So they banded together in such a way so that they could provide for the widows and the families, so that, again, this fraternal organization, rooted in their faith, could also look after one another and provide for the needs and a certain sense of security.
[00:17:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I will say too, bishop, I think that in being a part of the knights of Columbus and being present at their meetings, what a great gift fraternal organization is for the life of the church. So often when we run events here at our local parish, especially here at the co cathedral, an event open for the young at heart, those who are over 50 years old, anyone who wants to come for socialization, prayer, 98% of those who come are women. We have the Rosary Altar Society that's still active in many churches, which is for women. And so you see, the life of the church, especially the support groups generally do revolve around women, and they're just more active, they're more present in the life of the church in so many ways. So this gives men a chance to be together, to support one another, to grow in holiness together, and I think to spend that essential time with one another that is very, very beneficial in the life of the church.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: And, you know, one of the gifts, if you will, as we recognize now that we celebrate the beatification of Father McGivney, is to be able to get back to our roots, to remember what it is all about, because any fraternal organization can also easily become just a social organization, and that's not what we're about. So in 2020, the beatification of Michael McGivney was a chance to go back to our roots, to remember who we are, why we were founded, and really that it's deeply rooted in the faith. I see it as a real rejuvenation in the organization.
[00:19:02] Speaker A: Just recently in Quebec, there was a gathering of all the Knights of Columbus, which seemed to be, again, another aspect of that rejuvenation. There were some great speakers, some great presence there. One of the things that struck me was you mentioned earlier, I found the international aspect of the Knights of Columbus quite moving. You know, the fact that there's a chapter established in Cuba, even predating their establishment in the Dominican Republic, that they're starting in Spain, they're parts of Europe. This idea of this fraternal organization spreading again, leading men and families to holiness rooted in charity and care, for support, for life, for priests, for freedom, what a great blessing that is to see.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: And you mentioned the fraternal aspect of it. And now in the knights itself, you have the ladies auxiliary, you have the Columbia, the Columbia, you have the squires, the youth and the younger people. And then there were other fraternal organizations that have kind of grown up alongside of it, such as like the Catholic Daughters of the Americas and christian mothers. So some of these associations grew up alongside of it. It's great that we have these things. Now today in the church, you see all kinds of movements that bring people together for the very same purpose. So that's a good thing, but it's a good opportunity for us, all of us, whether you're in the knights of Columbus or part of a movement or not, whether you just go to church on Sunday and come home and maybe you listen to a podcast, but you're living the life of holiness as well. Just by being faithful, desiring to deepen your faith, desiring to know Christ and to live according to the gospel. Christ gives his church so many different gifts, and we talk about the Holy Spirit working through all of us in different ways, but that all the gifts that the Holy Spirit bestows upon individuals come together in a beautiful way to build up the body of Christ here on earth. So as we celebrate an organization, and we remember blessed Michael McGivney, an american priest, we also take this as a chance just to contemplate that universal call to holiness. We're all called to live holiness of life, to live vocations, and then to live those out in our various occupations and responsibilities so as to have that power to transform the world.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: Amen. Bishop I think that sums it all up. I think perhaps if you end with a prayer and your blessing, the Lord be with you and with your spirit.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: May the Lord bless you and keep you.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: May he make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: May look upon you with kindness and grant you his peace.
[00:21:40] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: And may the blessing of almighty God, the Father and the Son, and the holy spirit descend upon you and remain with you forever and ever.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: Amen. Thank you again, bishop, and thank you for all those who join us each and every week listening to big city Catholics. We hope that you'll join us again next week. God blessed.
