When I first joined the Knights of Columbus I really wasn’t even sure what a service club was to be honest. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but from the outside I could see good men doing good things. I will admit that at that time in my life I wasn’t actually looking for something to belong to. Being a part of a club didn’t matter at all to me. I didn’t give a hoot about the core tenants of the Knights of Columbus or what any of it actually meant. But I did like the idea of meeting these guys and finding out what they were doing. It seemed like a group of Catholic men getting together to discuss and implement actions. I thought at the time that a group of men like that getting together can only result in good things. Spoiler alert, I still think that today. I just think differently about the unquestionable strength and confidence that I assumed came with that kind of gathering. It’s not that infallible of course. And it takes the work and moral fortitude of many. There are many roadblocks and doubts along the way. So it doesn’t come easily, but who better to entrust this duty to. The Bible tells us that these things are best served with a group rather than individuals. So that is a strength we have already.
I came to the initiation with an eye open for the awe of it and did my best to absorb the messaging to the fullest. If all of these men had already been instructed in this same messaging then I could not miss a word of it. Of course I did miss some of it. Most of it if I’m honest. I mean the first degree ceremony was so heavily packed with depth and meaning, it rolled on by me like a freight train spraying me with turbulence as it passed. Leaving me in reverence for what I had heard, desperately grasping at the remaining whips of what I had retained and attempting to tuck them away for safe keeping. Years later I was fortunate enough to have become a member of the first degree team and I was able to hear those words over and over again. I was able to try to impart the impact of them on dozens of new members by my participation. I was able to read and study the lines and dig into what was being presented. Lately I have been finding and noting that some of the text of the first degree is almost word for word taken from scripture. For example, James 2:9-10. When I read that I see Dan Denman as the Chancellor speaking to me as a virtual child learning this message for the first time, and then maybe a hundred times since. I truly loved those days and the group of people that also took part in that effort. It was an amazing experience for as long as it was to last. Sadly the initiation ceremony today is barely a shadow of what those great initiations used to be. I think that had been a watering down style of evolution to the initiation ceremonies that started well before I joined and continues on to this day. There is much to say about it but thats a discussion for another day.
The initiation ceremony is only a part of what kept me in my seat month after month with the council. For me it’s been a journey of self discovery in so many ways. Who am I as a Catholic. What kind of man am I vs what kind of man do I want to be. What kind of husband, brother, father, friend, neighbour do I want to be and how do I get there. Having a group of other like-minded men to hang around with, listen to, learn from, laugh and cry with, has been key to that for me. I have been blessed to find some unique value to even the smallest efforts. For example, sometimes the first time I meet someone is at their funeral. It’s heartbreaking as an opportunity lost; not have been able to been a part of that persons path but seeing how it affected others. I’ve learned the Tempus Fugit Memento Mori motto much more deeply through this exercise. That’s just one example though. Every pancake breakfast, council dinner, painted fence, lawn mowed, bingo worked (yes I also worked many bingos also), convention, chapter meeting, etc, presents me with lesson after lesson and blessing on top of blessing. God has been very good to me along the way for sure.
Recently over the past couple of years I’ve been grappling with how to get members involved and new candidates recruited to the council. Are we witnessing the death of service clubs due to the restructure of our world in this day and age? Over the years I’ve talked to more than one man who has left the Knights that has said something to the effect that “It wasn’t what I was looking for.” I’m sure I’m not the only one who has had that conversation. This comment has always left me frustrated and a little insulted maybe. In my mind I have held the opinion, incorrectly at times for sure, that this comment might be from someone who wanted to be spoon fed the worth of being a Knight. As if they may have been too lazy to put any effort in of their own to achieve that goal and deserved some sort of door prize just by showing up . But I don think that to be as true as it seemed to be. It was an easy way for me to justify my own satisfaction with being a Knight while underestimating the issues that may be facing those men. And each one may have had their own unique challenges to work though. When I look back at my own recruitment, I clearly wasn’t actually searching for something. At least I wasn’t cognizant of a goal or target I needed to work towards. So it was a very different experience for me. And I wonder if I would have stayed on with the Knights myself had I been looking for something in my life at the time. Would the Knights of Columbus have been able to scratch that itch? So is it fair for me to apply that to those who have moved on in their search for whatever they are looking for? It is also true that the Knights just aren’t for everyone. Nor should it be. We aren’t obligated to provide some sort of special experience or validation to everyone who walks through the door. We have our role to play and the only thing we can do is try to do that to the best of our ability.
I’ve been working with many questions about what the barriers might be for existing members and candidates and how to overcome them. There are many of course and some just are personal challenges that have nothing to do with the Knights. The question of if we should even try to overcome them has come up in many ways. Are we doing anything worth doing? Is this group too American? Too inwardly focused? Too much paperwork and reporting to have any real affect? Too rich? Too poor? Too old? Are we irrelevant? Does the Knights of Columbus even matter? Why not just become an Elk or Lions group? What is the difference?
There are many established programs and traditional events that we do. Every year we plug away and keep making a donation here, fundraise there, show up to support something this day, put some shovels in the ground another day… It sometimes feels routine. At times just mechanical. We do this thing just because we always have done it. This is a massive oversimplification of a tremendous amount of work that a handful of people tend to manage. And there is value in these works. But is there passion, life or meaning to it all beyond checking off a box?
This week on Friday night at the Stations of the Cross mass, we heard the Gospel of Mark 12: 28-34.
The Greatest Commandment.
28 One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?”
29 Jesus replied, “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone!
30 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
32 The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, ‘He is One and there is no other than he.’
33 And ‘to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself’ is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34 And when Jesus saw that [he] answered with understanding, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
This struck me as the answer to the question I had been wrestling with these past few years. These two commandments identified by Jesus as the greatest commandments underlay everything we do as Knights of Columbus. Or they should. We should be looking at everything we do, every meeting we have, every plan we make, every discussion we have as Knights and apply these two commandments to them as a litmus test.
- Does this allow for or promote that we are loving the Lord God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength?
- Does this thing we are doing show or help us to love our neighbour as ourselves?
I think this is the key. This is simple and true. And Jesus said it. When I think back to when I first joined, I think unconsciously this is the construct I think I expected to find with that group of Catholic men. This is the meaning I hoped to find in those meetings and votes, and budgets, and work bee’s, and pancake breakfasts. I think thats part of why I so loved the first degree. It comes through in pyroclastic flows from that old first degree. It was saturated in confidence of our faith, our love of God and love of neighbour. It’s all there. The challenge indirectly given to us at that first degree was to go out and live these two commandments with love and integrity.
When it comes to the question of if any of this is worth the effort, we must answer that through the lens of what Jesus imparted to the scribe. I can look back on everything I remember being part of with the Knights and I can usually make the argument that at least one of these questions is a YES if not both. They seem to overlap and work in a kind of symmetry so finding a separation between them is harder that it would seem. In the same way they work in unison with each other, they also intertwine with every other commandment and direction given to us. They form the foundation of all else. They are the cornerstones of all His teachings. This is the thing that separates us from just other community service clubs. God is meant to be the leader. Everything else just falls into place in proper order for us when we keep that in mind.
The conflicts and struggles, people lost along the way, I think may have been a consequence of something being outside of these guide lines from the commandments. When we take our eyes off of the meaning, we lose value and people are lost.
Does this then mean that the only things we can do or enjoy must be in service to these commandments? No. This just gives us a starting point to work from with everything that is presented to us to work on. It seems that everything else becomes subordinate to these two rules. It’s ok to not be able to directly tie a result or target to the question, does this check the box of one or both of these commandments. It’s simply a question of where we start when assessing these things. There are going to be many other questions for each project along the way for us to answer. Those are all important to consider through the lens of subsequent faith and teachings too. Nothing will all fit into one cookie cutter to asses. But our assessment, properly ordered should start right here at the greatest commandments, and continue on from there.
This is where I think we start when we think about what we need to do. God will do the rest from there.
