THE KNIGHT TIMES Bishop John C. Reiss Council No. 15964 Knights of Columbus May 2018 Grand Knight’s Message Well, we’re in the home stretch of the fraternal year and continue to push towards our recruiting quota for the Star Council award. To that end, we held a recruiting drive the weekend th of April 7 .​ We didn’t get a ton of prospects but those we did get were very interested in ​ joining. At our special council meeting held on Tuesday, April 17th we read in new candidates ​ Ben Lagua and John Vitale, transfer Mark Montecalvo, and Bill Degnan who is a readmission. I was able to attend the Admission Degree ceremony in Freehold on April 24th where Ben Lagua ​ joined our order. Let’s welcome Ben and all our new Brothers aboard! Ben couldn’t make the meeting, as he’s back in Freehold to make his Formation Degree. For those keeping score at home our count currently stands at 11, with two awaiting their Admission Degree. We’re getting very close but so is the end of the fraternal year so I urge everyone to “think recruiting”. It’s as easy as asking a few men, “Has anyone talked to you about becoming a member of the Knights of Columbus?” on the way out of Mass each week. I had a nice conversation with Father Roberts on the way to and back from the Pride In th Our Priests dinner on April 12 .​ As always, he thanked our Council for all of the great work we ​ do and thanked him for all of his support. He’s definitely behind us and in our corner. His pulpit announcement during the recruiting drive was very persuasive. I’ll let the Program Directors provide the details but we’ve got a ton of great events happening in May. The Baby Bottle Boomerang rolled out in April and will wrap up this month, we’ve got the Blue Mass this weekend, the annual carnival and hopefully we can find a rescheduled date for medical equipment collections for MedShare. As always, please consider pitching in and lending a hand. Finally, as this fraternal year winds down and we prepare the next fraternal year we’ll be presenting the slate of 2018/2019 Officers for nomination tonight. It’s a very strong slate, filled with Brothers who are passionate and committed to furthering our Council. --- 1 Chaplain’s Message My Dear Brother Knights, How appropriate that we enter into the spring of our life in the month of May, it is a month that is filled with colorful flowers, warm breezes and a beauty that only a loving God could create for each of us. It is the month dedicated to Our Blessed Mother and we ask Mary’s guidance and protection in our prayers that we come close to the Lord’s real presence in the Holy Eucharist. May we as spring believers of the Lord be filled with the same prayerfulness and commitment to serve the Lord, Jesus Christ in our commitment to our families, our workplace and wherever the Lord guides us and directs us to be. Through the prayers of the Blessed Mother may this be a month in your homes and your families that is blessed with good health and peace in the coming days. Sincerely yours in Christ, Rev. Eugene J. Roberts, Chaplain Pastor, St. Gabriel’s Church --- Religious and Civil Rights －SK Richard Bilon Religious & Civil Rights Program 24 · The Monitor says the Judge blocks Mississippi’s new 15-week ABORTION ban ​ ​ ​ In Jackson, Mississippi, the Governor, Phil Bryant signed this into law on March 19th. This is the ​ most restrictive state abortion bill in the nation. It bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, as reported in the Monitor. However, the owner of the states only abortion clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, immediately filed suit claiming it is unconstitutional. At a th morning hearing on March 20 ,​ the very next day, a federal judge blocked the law with a ​ ​ temporary restraining order.“We Catholic bishops of Mississippi wish to reaffirm the sacredness of human life from conception until natural death,” said Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz of Jackson and Bishop Louis F. Kihneman III of Biloxi. “With Pope St. John Paul II, we recognize abortion as ’a most serious wound inflicted on society and its culture by the very people who ought to be society’s promoters and defenders.’”The Susan B. Anthony List, a national pro-life organization, praised Bryant and state lawmakers “for their commitment to making Mississippi ‘the safest place in America’ for unborn children and their mothers.” The organization’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, described Mississippi as being “at the vanguard of the growing momentum to bring our laws back into line with basic human decency. It is one of 20 states that have passed popular, compassionate legislation to stop cruel late-term abortions after five months.” Dannenfelser called the status quo on abortion “unjust” and “untenable.” “It is in states like Mississippi where the greatest progress toward correcting it 2 is being made,” she added. “It is about time the courts caught up.” And to that, we proudly agree and to Jesus, we say AMEN! ​ --- Community – Paul Lorenz We had to reschedule our Church wide collection of household medical equipment to be donated to the MedShare Program – We will discuss a new date during our May Knights Business Meeting. Please keep locating any old wheelchairs, canes, walkers that you may have and are no longer using or your friends and family are no longer using. The Marlboro Township 10th Annual Memorial Day Parade will be on Sunday May 20th ​ ​ @ 1400 hours starting from the parking lot of the Marlboro Post Office and continuing down School Road West to the main Township Office Complex and the Veterans Memorial. Refreshments will be served after in the Town Hall. --- Membership Report-Mike Mahon Congratulation to the following brother who has completed Admission (First Degree) Formation exemplification Benjamin Lagua Degree Opportunities Thursday, May 10, 2018 St. Cecilia Council #7024 10 Kingston Lane, Monmouth Junction, N.J. 08852 Sign in at 7:30PM Admission Degree to commence at 8:00PM followed by Formation Degree exemplification 3 Please be advised that Prince of Peace Council will be hosting an Admission (First) Degree exemplification ceremonies on Monday, May 21, 2018 Prince of Peace Council #5903 3 La Satta Ave, Englishtown N.J. 07726 Sign in at 7:30PM Please be advised that St. Bernadette Council will be hosting an Admission (First) Degree & Formation (Second) Degree exemplifications ceremonies on Tuesday, June 12, 2018 St. Bernadette Council #8478 20 Villanove Rd, Parlin N.J. 08859 Sign in at 7:30PM Admission Degree to commence at 8:00PM followed by Formation Degree exemplification Degree Attire It is the responsibility of the Councils to ensure that all candidates wear a jacket and tie to their exemplification. Officers, sponsors and escorts should also be appropriately dressed. --- Inside the Conversion Tactics of the Early Christian Church BY BART D. EHRMAN // MARCH 29, 2018 ​ ​ The triumph of Christianity over the pagan religions of ancient Rome led to the greatest ​ historical transformation the West has ever seen: a transformation that was not only religious, but also social, political and cultural. Just in terms of “high culture,” Western art, music, literature and philosophy would have been incalculably different had the masses continued to worship the gods of the Roman pantheon instead of the one God of Jesus—if paganism, rather than Christianity, had inspired their imaginations and guided their thoughts. The Middle Ages, the Renaissance and modernity as we know them would also have been unimaginably different. But how did it happen? According to our earliest records, the first “Christians” to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus were 11 male disciples and a handful of women—say 20 4 people altogether. These were lower-class, uneducated day laborers from a remote corner of the Roman Empire. And yet, within three centuries, the Christian church could count some 3 million ​ adherents. By the end of the 4th century, it was the official religion of Rome, numbering 30 million followers—or half the Empire. A century after that, there were very few pagans left. Christians today might claim that their faith triumphed over the other Roman religions because it was (and is) true, right and good. That may be so. But one still needs to consider the historical contingencies that led to the Christian conquest, and in particular the brilliant strategy the Christian evangelistic campaign used in winning converts. These are five aspects of that strategy: The Christian Church Created a Need. Strangely enough, Christianity did not succeed in taking over the ancient world simply by addressing deeply sensed needs of its target audience, the pagan adherents of traditional polytheistic religions. On the contrary, it actually created a need that almost no one knew they had. Everyone in the ancient world, except for Jews, was “pagan”—that is, they believed in many gods. These gods—whether the state gods of Rome, the local municipal gods, the family gods, the gods of forests, mountains, streams and meadows—were active in the world, involved with humans on every level. They ensured that crops would grow and livestock would reproduce; they brought rain and protected against storms; they warded off disease and restored the sick to health; they maintained social stability; and provided military victories for the troops. The gods would do such things in exchange for proper worship, which at all times and everywhere involved saying the right prayers and performing the appropriate sacrifices.