Knights of Columbus Council 9665 Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish Our Lady of Established December 9, 1987 Mt. Carmel www.kofc9665.org January 2008 Grand Knight Report ~ An Unprecedented Invitation ~ Dear Brothers, Happy New Year to you and your families. As we start our last half of the Columbian year, I like to recognize those Brothers who volunteered to help with traffic control on ALL KNIGHTS OF Christmas Eve – Bros. Mike Carlin, Archie Ordonio, Joe Malabanan, Bill Betts, Chris Morales, Mark Malebranche COLUMBUS and Michael Chau. Also, a big thanks to Bro. Fred Reyes and his team who spent many hours transforming the AND THEIR WIVES Church colors from Advent to Christmas. A special thanks to all the CDEP Watchers and Bankers who through their In the dedication, make it possible for our `Council to do the good deeds and charities we do. DIOCESE OF SAN DIEGO are invited to You are reminded that the District Basketball Free Throw will be held at St. Michael’s Church in Poway on January 19, 2008. The deadline for submitting your application for A PASTORAL MORNING WITH the 4 th Degree Exemplification in Ontario will be January BISHOP ROBERT BROM 18, 2008. The event will be held on February 2nd and 3 rd . If you wish to do your 4 th Degree, please contact your Sponsor, Bro. Ron Doris (Membership Chairman) or our To address Worthy Deputy Grand Knight, Joe Santos. SEXUAL ABUSE & RELATED MATTERS The Membership Drive is typically held in mid January but our Council has adopted a one-to-one approach of SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 2008 recruiting new members. Because it takes 2 to 3 months From 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. for a prospect to be become a Knight, I urge you to start working on your prospects as soon as possible. We at already have 3 new members to date but need 4 additional THE DIOCESAN PASTORAL CENTER members to meet our quota by June 30, 2008. 3888 Paducah Drive May the New Year bring you Peace, Joy and Harmony. San Diego, California 92117 Vivat Jesus, Michael Chau, Grand` Knight This pastoral session will be the same as Bishop Brom, assisted by Monsignor Steve Callahan, is leading at many of the parishes throughout the diocese. From the California State Knights of Free Throw District Level Championship Columbus website: Saturday, January 19, 2008 St. Michael’s Parish, Poway Pope Benedict XVI to visit the United Photos from the Council-level Championship States April 15-20, 2008 held December 9 th : The Holy Father will arrive in Washington on the evening of April 15 , with a visit to the White House on April 16 and a meeting with the bishops of the United States at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception that evening. April 17 will include a public Mass at the new Nationals Stadium in Washington and a meeting with the presidents of Catholic universities and diocesan heads of education at Catholic University of America, as well as a meeting with representatives of other religions at the John Paul II Cultural Center. Pope Benedict XVI will fly to New York City on April 18 for an address to the United Nations. He will also meet with ecumenical leaders at a New York City parish that evening. On April 19 he will celebrate a Mass for priests, deacons and members of religious orders at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and will meet with young Catholics at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers. April 20 will include a visit to ground zero, the site of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and a public Mass at Yankee Stadium. Photos submitted by Bro. Bill Betts For information from: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tickler Corner: The Washington DC Archdiocese: www.adw.org/papalvisit/ People want the front of the bus, The New York City Archdiocese: the back of the church, and www.archny.org/papalvisit/ the center of attention. January 31: Feast Day of St. John Bosco bedraggled boys hanging around. And he had so little money and help that people thought he was crazy. Priests In 1867 Pope Pius IX was upset with John Bosco because who promised to help would get frustrated and leave. he wouldn't take his dreams seriously enough. Nine years Two "friends" even tried to commit him to an institution for earlier when Pope Pius IX met with the future saint who the mentally ill. They brought a carriage and were planning worked with neglected boys, he learned of the dreams that to trick him into coming with him. But instead of getting in, John had been having since the age of nine, dreams that John said, "After you" and politely let them go ahead. When had revealed God's will for John's life. So Pius IX had made his friends were in the carriage he slammed the door and a request, "Write down these dreams and everything else told the drive to take off as fast as he could go! you have told me, minutely and in their natural sense." Pius IX saw John's dreams as a legacy for those John worked Through it all he found encouragement and support through with and as an inspiration for those he ministered to. his dreams. In one dream, Mary led him into a beautiful garden. There were roses everywhere, crowding the ground Despite Scripture evidence and Church with their blooms and the air with their scent. He was told to tradition respecting dreams, John had take off his shoes and walk along a path through a rose encountered skepticism when he had arbor. Before he had walked more than a few steps, his his first dream at the age of nine. The naked feet were cut and bleeding from the thorns. When he young Bosco dreamed that he was in a said he would have to wear shoes or turn back, Mary told field with a crowd of children. The him to put on sturdy shoes. As he stepped forward a second children started cursing and time, he was followed by helpers. But the walls of the arbor misbehaving. John jumped into the closed on him, the roof sank lower and the roses crept onto crowd to try to stop them -- by fighting the path. Thorns caught at him from all around. When he and shouting. Suddenly a man with a pushed them aside he only got more cuts, until he was face filled with light appeared dressed tangled in thorns. Yet those who watched said, "How lucky in a white flowing mantle. The man Don John is! His path is forever strewn with roses! He called John over and made him leader hasn't a worry in the world. No troubles at all!" Many of the of the boys. John was stunned at being helpers, who had been expecting an easy journey, turned put in charge of these unruly gang. The back, but some stayed with him. Finally he climbed through man said, "You will have to win these the roses and thorns to find another incredible garden. A friends of yours not with blows but with gentleness and cool breeze soothed his torn skin and healed his wounds. kindness." As adults, most of us would be reluctant to take on such a mission -- and nine year old John was even less In his interpretation, the path was his mission, the roses pleased. "I'm just a boy," he argued, "how can you order me were his charity to the boys, and the thorns were the to do something that looks impossible." The man answered, distractions, the obstacles, and frustrations that would "What seems so impossible you must achieve by being stand in his way. The message of the dream was clear to obedient and acquiring knowledge." Thenthe boys turned John: he must keep going, not lose faith in God or his into the wild animals they had been acting like. The man told mission, and he would come through to the place he John that this is the field of John's life work. Once John belonged. changed and grew in humility, faithfulness, and strength, he Often John acted on his dreams simply by sharing them, would see a change in the children -- a change that the man sometimes repeating them to several different individuals or now demonstrated. The wild animals suddenly turned into groups he thought would be affected by the dream. "Let me gentle lambs. tell you about a dream that has absorbed my mind," he When John told his family about his dream, his brothers just would say. laughed at him. Everyone had a different interpretation of The groups he most often shared with were the boys he what it meant: he would become a shepherd, a priest, a helped -- because so many of the dreams involved them. For gang leader. His own grandmother echoed the sage advice example, he used several dreams to remind the boys to we have heard through the years, "You mustn't pay any keep to a good and moral life. In one dream he saw the boys attention to dreams." John said, "I felt the same way about eating bread of four kinds -- tasty rolls, ordinary bread, it, yet I could never get that dream out of my head." coarse bread, and moldy bread, which represented the state Eventually that first dream led him to minister to poor and of the boys' souls. He said he would be glad to talk to any neglected boys, to use the love and guidance that seemed boys who wanted to know which bread they were eating and so impossible at age nine to lead them to faithful and then proceeded to use the occasion to give them moral fulfilled lives.