Founder’s Day
Tuesday of the 4th Week of Lent
March 29, 2022
St. Mary Parish, New Haven
Introduction
On this, the 140th anniversary of the founding of the Knights of Columbus, we have gathered to celebrate a votive Mass in honor of our founder, the Blessed Michael J. McGivney. In this moment of solemn prayer, we ask Blessed Michael’s intercession for this local church, the Archdiocese of Hartford, which he served so lovingly and effectively as a parish priest, here at St. Mary’s and at St. Thomas in Thomasson.
We also ask Blessed Michael’s intercession on behalf of his Knights of Columbus which he founded as a pathway for men to grow in their faith, to become better husbands and fathers, to serve as men of charity, unity, and fraternity, and to provide financial security for their families. We ask his prayers that the Knights may experience continued growth in its mission to form men after the mind and heart of Christ and that it may continue to practice with ever-increasing effectiveness in a charity that evangelizes, a charity that strengthens the Church at every level.
The Scripture readings, chosen by the Church for this day in Lent, offer us insight into Blessed Michael’s life and ministry – the Gospel reading about the cure of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda, and the vision of Ezekiel of the holiness of the temple. These two readings, different as they are from one another, each shed light on the holiness and effectiveness of our founder. Allow me to explain, beginning with the Gospel.
The Pool at Siloam
The Gospel reading about the cure at pool of Bethesda reveals Jesus’ pastoral heart. As he entered Jerusalem, he came upon five porticoes where there were large numbers of people who were sick, including the blind, the lame, and the crippled. They lay near the pool, believing that its waters had curative powers, but more often than not, their hopes were dashed.
As Jesus encountered so much human misery, his heart was moved. Truly, these people were “like sheep without a shepherd.”
Jesus’ compassion, however, never remained an abstraction. In this Gospel episode, he fixes his attention on one man in particular, a paralytic, who had lain near the pool for thirty-eight years. Whenever he tried to get into it, others were there ahead of him. Behind the gentle words of the Gospel, one senses a hellishly hopeless cycle. On the Sabbath, with but a few words, Jesus cured the man of his physical ailment, yet this cure had not fully penetrated the spiritual paralysis of his mind and heart. Even after Jesus warned him not to sin again, the man reported the cure to the authorities who began to persecute Jesus … because he cured on the Sabbath.
Perhaps we can see the image of Father McGivney’s ministry in this Gospel episode. As a newly ordained priest, Father McGivney came to this parish, and like Jesus, he encountered the tremendous pastoral need. He encountered the sick and dying, and prisoners. Men who worked in dangerous industrial jobs and often died prematurely. Families left penniless by the death of the breadwinner. Mothers separated from their children. Men, husbands and fathers, drifting from the faith, men in need of faith-filled companionship and financial security … All this and more.
For Father McGivney, human suffering was not an abstraction to be dealt with through lofty ideas or flowery words, or as matters to be dealt with by authorities and experts. Like Jesus, he waded into the midst of human suffering, interceded for his people, and sought to bring them relief. He tended to the sick and dying, championed a man on death row, ministered to the young with a wise mixture of truth and love, … and with twelve men in the basement of this church, he founded the Knights of Columbus for the men of his parish, their families and for us. Father McGivney did not remain in the sacristy or the rectory, but made his way into the drama of his people’s lives, bringing to them the curative powers of Jesus’ mercy and compassion.
Not everyone was happy, including some of his fellow clergy. Some thought the Bishop of Hartford should clip this priest’s wings. Others thought of him as a dreamer or a schemer. Not unlike the Lord, Father McGivney experienced a measure of persecution, the persecution that those who follow the Lord closely are bound to experience, sooner or later. None of that ever slowed him down or caused him to lay aside his plans. His ministry could be characterized by a holy determination, which drew its source, not from his will power, but from the strength of the Lord’s love. This brings us to the reading from Ezekiel, our first reading.
The Mystery of the Temple
We would misunderstand Father McGivney if we saw him merely as an activist. Truly, he was very active as parish priest and as founder of the Knights of Columbus, but he was too wise and holy to rely only on his talents, considerable as they were. Rather, he prayed in the temple of the Lord, this temple, and as he prayed, the Spirit of holiness, the fount of Trinitarian love, flowed through him, just as miraculous waters flowed through the Temple in Ezekiel’s vision. As the Holy Spirit coursed through his priestly mind and heart, Father McGivney brought help and healing to those to whom he ministered, and he created the living, breathing, growing, organism we call the Knights of Columbus, which, to this very day is bearing abundant fruit for Church and world. In this temple, this Church of St. Mary, we feel especially close to Father McGivney, and we know that his ministry continues, not only to influence us, but to help us.
For just as Father McGivney interceded for the parishioners of his day and brought healing and hope to them and especially to his Knights, so now Father McGivney continues to intercede for us in heaven, and his intercession is powerful and effective. His heavenly intercession continues to touch many lives. Since his beatification, many reports of favors have been received, including a number of remarkable healings, including of COVID, favors that are documented on the Blessed Michael McGivney Guild website. Like Jesus, he is ushering many, no longer to the pool of Bethesda, but to that river of life and healing that is the Holy Spirit.
With confidence and hope, we the Knights of Columbus celebrate our 140th anniversary, looking towards that day when Blessed Michael McGivney will be canonized. In the meantime, we are grateful to the Lord for the example of our holy founder, and grateful too for his powerful intercession our behalf. Blessed Michael McGivney, pray for us! Vivat Jesus!