"I am the Good Shepherd -- I know Mine and Mine know Me." (Words taken from the Gospel read in the Mass for the second Sunday after Easter. St. John, chapter 10, 14th verse.) Sir Knights:
Most appropriately the celebration of the Golden jubilee of the foundation of Washington Council No. 224, Knights of Columbus, in the District of Columbia includes a Memorial Mass for the repose of the Souls of the departed members of your organization. It is most fitting that in the midst of the celebration of your Golden Jubilee you should attest your loyalty to those who have gone to their reward by the offering of this priceless testimonial for their eternal repose.
At the same time, this Prayerful glance in retrospect affords us the opportunity to appraise the causes of the success that has attended the history of Washington Council during the last fifty years. This is no idle indulgence in self-complacency. It is a humble and serious effort to discover, in the history of the past, time-tested methods for insuring the success of the future. Fashions change, but principles are eternal. Methods may vary with shocking rapidity but the policies and purposes which they implement long endure.
Rightly do we give thanks to Almighty God for the glory of the past and implore his mercy upon the Souls of those who contributed to the achievements that have implanted an indelible lustre in the history of Columbianism in the District of Columbia.
If we study carefully the history of Washington Council, the pioneer of Columbianism in the nation's capital, three characteristics seem to mark all its activities. First, it has consistently kept fidelity to high principle and the achievement of long-range goals ahead of transitory advantages of less enduring value. Secondly, it has numbered in its membership sterling leaders who sought to serve the causes of the Order, the Community and the Church before indulging any interest in personal emoluments for themselves.
And as our memory runs quickly over the long litany of these outstanding Knights, I am sure that our thoughts turn for a moment most fittingly to that saintly Patriarch of Washington Council and of Columbianism in the District of Columbia whom God in His wisdom called to his reward just last November. Oh, how he would have thrilled to have seen this day and to have had a part in this celebration! Please God, his prayers and his interecession are far more powerful and efficacious for all of us than ever were his labors while he was on this earth.
Such leadership and such a program would have been ineffectual were it not for the fact that Washington Council has enjoyed a membership that shared the convictions of its leaders, gave generous support to high-minded and useful programs of action and to the loyal efforts of outstanding leaders. The contributions of the charter members of Washington Council and of its glorious leaders have added much to the successful story of Washington Council. But, by and large, the greatest characteristics that have marked the activity of Washington Council are the devotion and fidelity of its membership to the noble ideals of Columbianism, and an abiding sense of their responsibility as Knights of Columbus.
There is a challenge in the very name Knight of Columbus. A Knight is one who is singled out--not just an ordinary citizen. He is one who is dedicated to generous deeds and the defense of noble causes. He is one who is sworn to loyalty--loyalty to the service of authority, loyalty to God. Above all else the Knight is a man who is distinguished by his characteristic of loyalty, of devotion and unswerving fidelity to principle and to a cause. He has sworn devotion to a leader. In that the Knight stands out in the modern world. Loyalty is a virtue too little encountered in the modern relations of men. It is for this reason that the Knight seems such an anachronism. He stands for an attitude and a pattern of behavior that is so different, that reveals such a contrast with the behavior and attitude of the generality of men in our present day.
Not only is there a challenge to the modern world contained in the very title of Knight, but there is a further arresting significance in the title of a Knight of Columbus�-Columbus, the liege of the King of Spain. There is a distinctive character about the Kings and the Knights of Spain. They were different from other Kings and Knights. There was a warmth of spirit that is not found among the Knights of other nations�-their fearless love of adventure, their genius for exploration, and their desire to extend the Kingdom of Christ. Witness the monuments to their discovery and their conquest on our own continent. Intone the litany of the foundations of the Spanish Knights and explorers�-San Antonio, Santa Fe, San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles and the rest. Surely there is no doubting that they were Conquistadors of Christ the King. They were Knights of a Christian King. They were Knights whose earthly vows were vows to God. Given to earthly leaders, these pledges of allegiance recognized in their earthly King, the representative of their heavenly King of Kings. That understanding, typical of Christian Knights gave force and endurance to their Knightly oaths. It gave a tone to their deeds that no less noble consideration could impart. Imbued with that, the sense of consecration and dedication to a cause, their deeds have left imprints that time has not been able to efface. The exemplar of the modern Knight of Columbus was thoroughly and at all times the Knight of Christ the King of Kings. The modern Knight of Columbus can be nothing else.
Because the knighthood of the Knight of Columbus is a dedication and a consecration to the service of the King of Kings his knighthood is timeless. It is as modern today as it was in the day of Ferdinand and Isabella. His chivalrous ritual and ceremony is as meaningful and significant as our billboards and headlines and life-size portrait displays. His status as a Knight is truly something from beyond this world. It is the symbol of his membership in that Inter-World Society and Communion, The Mystical Body of Christ.
There is a notion of consecration and dedication in the concept of Knighthood. It means the pledge to endure and to sacrifice, without stint in devotion to a principle or a cause. It is a concept that is widely lacking in the world today and yet it is this spirit that is perhaps needed as badly as any ingredient for domestic or international peace.
Knighthood means loyalty. It betokens men with loyal hearts. The story of the achievement of Washington Council is the story of exploits of the faithful cooperation of brothers. The impressive record of Washington Council is a monument to the loyalty of its members. It is this same sense of Christian loyalty Lo fellow members, both the living and the dead, that caused you to include in the program of your celebration of your Jubilee this Memorial Mass for brother Knights now dead.
More than anything else, the idea of loyalty offers the key to the diamond years that lie ahead. It is the hope and the promise of other glorious Jubilees to be celebrated by your organization in years to come.
Sir Knights, to yourselves be true--be true to your noble consecration to the most sublime of all causes, that, where God and Christ's Church and the eternal Salvation of the children of Christ are concerned, as warriors of the truth your hearts will know no fear and give no quarter.
It is of Knights of that sterling mettle that the eternal words of our Heavenly Captain are true:--"Mine know Me." And when the final battle has been won, it is these faithful Knights who will infallibly experience the eternal bliss and joy and truth implied in those words of the King of Kings:--"I Know Mine."
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