Knights of Columbus - Our Lady of Grace Council # 5617

25/12/2018

11/11/2018

Late Upload:

Brother Knights distribute blessed Rosaries to those who recently received the Sacrament of Confirmation from Caloocan Bishop Virgilio Pablo David.

22/08/2018

August 21, 2018

Worthy Chaplains and Dear Brother Knights,
The issues that have come to light concerning sexual abuse by Archbishop Theodore McCarrick and in the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report are cause for grave concern among Catholics and Brother Knights. Many feel deeply betrayed by those whom they long held in high regard. Such concerns are shared not just in the United States, but in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere.

These sins of commission and omission have sent the Church we love, the Church we serve and the Church that Jesus Christ established into convulsions. Sadly, the disgrace not only is borne by the perpetrators, it hurts us all, as does the silence of shepherds who have ignored the cries of their flocks. There are many wonderful and faithful laborers in the vineyard of the Lord among our priests and bishops. However, it is clear that in addition to devastating criminal acts, we have seen many other moral failings by clergy that represent a crisis of commitment to the Gospel.

Too often the needs of victims have been subordinated to a distorted sense of mercy toward the perpetrators or an instinct for clerical self-preservation. The sexual acts — both criminal and non-criminal — highlight the need to recover a respect for and a renewed commitment to the priestly promises of celibacy.

The Knights of Columbus has supported the pastoral and charitable work of our bishops and priests since our founding by the Venerable Father Michael McGivney. We understand that the priest should lead the parish and the bishop should be the center of unity in a diocese. But we — like all Catholics — are painfully aware of the wreckage that ensues when elements of this leadership are abdicated by evil actions whether directly perpetrated or covered up.

Now, the Knights of Columbus — laymen, priests and chaplains together — will have an important role to play in rebuilding the Church. We must commit the Knights of Columbus to work for repentance, reform and rebuilding of the Church.

Repentance should include a full accounting of the misdeeds by those who have committed them. Archbishop McCarrick and others at fault owe us a full account of their actions, motivations and cover-ups. After years of having us confess to them, it is now time for them to come clean about what they have done and what they have failed to do.

This will also help increase the recognition that clerical sexual abuse is a global problem that must be addressed at the highest levels of the Catholic Church. Moreover, priests and bishops who refuse to live according to their promises of celibacy should be removed from public ministry, not out of retribution, but for the protection of the faithful and to prevent future variations of the scandal we now suffer.

Reform must include many good ideas that have been proposed, such as a full and complete investigation of sexual abuse led by an independent commission that includes laity; complete transparency by the Catholic hierarchy into all matters of criminal sexual misconduct past or future; an expansion of the zero tolerance policy to include sexual activity or misconduct by clerics including bishops, and by seminarians; and a call for faithfulness by all members of the clergy, including bishops. There must also be an independent ethics hotline for reporting of criminal and other conduct at odds with Catholic teaching on the clerical state of life; and there must be protections against retaliation.

Such reforms will be difficult for a Church largely unused to them, and we must support our bishops and our priests in embracing these reforms in order to rebuild.

We can help to rebuild our Church in several ways. Above all else, Knights — and our chaplains — must embrace love of God and love of neighbor. This is Christ’s great commandment and the founding mission of our Order. It is also exactly the opposite of the rejection of God and exploitation of neighbor that our Church has witnessed in these scandals.

Shortly before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger decried the “filth” in the Church “even among those, who in the priesthood, ought to belong totally” to Christ. He also provided the antidote, stating at other times that what the Church needs now more than anything else is “saints.” Pope Francis reiterated Pope Benedict’s sentiments in his letter on Aug. 20.

In the days ahead, the Knights of Columbus will help renew our Church on a national level through a Novena of Masses in reparation for these sins that have so grievously wounded the Body of Christ. I take this opportunity to ask that you offer this Novena of Masses for our Church at your earliest opportunity.

Beginning in November, the Knights of Columbus will sponsor, in cooperation with the Shrine of St. Jean Vianney in Ars, France, a national tour of the relic of the heart of this great patron saint of priests. In the coming weeks, I will share more details with you about this initiative.

We will also continue to strengthen and rebuild our Church at the level of our families and parishes through our Building the Domestic Church program. Its twin elements of imbuing families with faith and strengthening parish life are critical to providing a Catholic Church that rebuilds based on the Gospel principles of love of God and love of neighbor. Together with our recently announced “Faith In Action” initiative, we will strive to make our parishes truly become, in the words of Pope Francis, “a family of families.”

Now is the time for all brother Knights to stand steadfast in faith, as Catholics and as gentlemen. We will assist priests, bishops and our fellow Catholics in helping the Church chart a course for the future that puts Christ at the center, so that truly we may say, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

This is the moment in which Knights — including in a special way our priest members — can be part of a great renewal for good in our Church.

And as we strive to follow the Lord more closely in the days ahead, may he deliver us from every evil and in his mercy graciously grant his Church peace and unity.

In closing, know that your faithful witness and sacrifice can bring inspiration and hope to millions of your fellow Catholics. It will be needed in the days ahead more than ever before.

And to every priest and bishop whose commitment and dedication to our Order and to our Church has been faithful and exemplary, please accept my gratitude in both a personal way and on behalf of the Knights of Columbus.

Let each one of us prayerfully invoke the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that in the words of St. Maximilian Kolbe, our hearts "would be cleansed and themselves become immaculate, similar and like unto her own heart."

Fraternally,
Carl A. Anderson
Supreme Knight

http://www.kofc.org/en/resources/communications/supreme-knight-letter-to-chaplains.pdf

13/08/2018

Pray that our Founder be canonized soon!

10/08/2018

Please pray for the eternal repose of the soul of Sir Knight Eduardo Saveron, Past Grand Knight of Our Lady of Grace Council 5617 and Past Faithful Navigator of Andres Bonifacio Assembly ACN 1537. He was also a Papal Knight of the Order of St. Sylvester, a title and honor bestowed on him by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008, for his dedicated services to the Church particularly in the Diocese of Kalookan.

Necrological services in his honor were conducted by members of Council 5617 led by Worthy Grand Knight and Faithful Commander of the Color Corps SK Rico Santero, FDD and Birhen ng Lourdes Council 11322, led by Worthy Grand Knight SK Tony Balura, constituent councils of the Assembly led by Faithful Navigator SK Christopher Jolan Cabrera.

09/08/2018

The icon of Our Lady, Help of Persecuted Christians, presented during the

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At the conclusion of a Mass Aug. 8 at the 136th Supreme Convention in Baltimore, the Knights of Columbus launched its 18th Marian Prayer Program, this year featuring an icon of “Our Lady Help of Persecuted Christians,” created by Italian artist Fabrizio Diomedi.

Often called a “window to heaven,” the religious icon is a piece of artwork used in prayer. In the early Church, when many could not read, icons were a visual way to share the truth about God.

Most icons depict Christ, a saint, or another significant figure or event in a distinct, very spiritual way. In the image of Our Lady Help of Christians, for example, we see stars on her forehead and shoulders — a symbol that indicates virginity.

In the same image we see various people gathered under Our Lady’s mantle. These men, women and children died as martyrs, in different places and in different years. They are rightly pictured together, for iconography allows for a distortion of space and time. Events that happened years apart may appear as though they happened all at once, and objects are not all sized to scale. Thus, the iconographer draws attention to and connects these spiritually significant elements.

The traditional process of making an icon is also symbolic, according to Loyola Press. An icon is painted on wood, representing the Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge. Coats of glue symbolize the soul and life of the icon’s subject. Certain areas receive a thin layer of clay, representing man’s physical nature. Then the iconographer blows the clay off and paints those same areas with gold, recalling the act of creation and breath of life. He adds layers of paints, with darker colors applied last, so that light seems to come from within the image. This represents the unseen God’s glory breaking through from heaven.

Since their inception, icons have been a part of Christian worship around the world. In venerating an icon, Christians glorify God, learn Christian history and ponder sacred theology.

Today, the Knights of Columbus’s new Marian icon shares the example of Christians who so bravely and faithfully died for love of Christ. As it travels from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, it focuses the eyes of our Church on the sacrifice of so many of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

May it serve to inspire us all to stand strong in our faith and continue our efforts to protect the free practice of religion throughout the world.

Our Lady, Help of Christians, pray for us!

30/07/2018

Congratulations to Worthy K02 District Deputy SK Ric de Leon for organizing the annual Indoctrination and Training of Council Officers held yesterday, July 29, after the monthly Fraternal/Corporate Mass of the Our Lady of Grace Council 5617 led by Worthy Grand Knights SK FDD Rico Santero.

The officers were also oriented to the Faith In Action Program Model from the Supreme Council of the Knights. The officers proceeded to their annual planning of charitable activities. The resource speaker and trainer was SK Rommel Lopez, FDD, PFN

20/06/2018

The Significance of the Sword to Catholic Knighthood

The Knights of Columbus is the world's largest Catholic family fraternal service organization. It was founded by (Venerable) Fr. Michael J. McGivney of St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, CT in 1882. Today there are some 300,000 Fourth Degree Knights out of the total 1.5 million members of the Knights of Columbus, who are in more than 15,000 councils.

The Knights of Columbus were inspired by the chivalry of the knights of the medieval ages.

During the Knighting ceremony, candidates are dubbed with a sword and declared as a Sir Knight. This practice went back to the early Church. In the ceremonial of conferring knighthood the Church shared through the blessing of the sword, and by virtue of chivalry a religious character. There was a time that the Church was opposed to any possession of arms. But there came a time when chivalry, religions and profession of arms was reconciled. This change of attitude in the Church came about because of the Crusades. For the first time in history, Christian armies were dedicated to a sacred purpose. Even prior to the Crusades, however, an anticipation of this attitude is found in the custom called the “Truce of God”. It was then that the clergy seized upon the opportunity offered by these truces to exact from the rough warriors of feudal times a religious vow to use their weapons chiefly for the protection of the weak and defenseless, especially women and orphans, and of churches. Chivalry, in the new sense, rested on a vow; it was this vow which dignified the soldier, elevated him in his own esteem, and raised him almost to the level of the monk in medieval society. As if in return for this vow, the Church ordained a special blessing for the knight in the ceremony. Before the blessing of the sword on the altar, many preliminaries were required of the aspirant, such as confession, a vigil of prayer, fasting, a symbolical bath and investiture with a white robe, for the purpose of impressing on the candidate the purity of soul with which he was to enter upon such a noble career. Kneeling, the presence of the clergy, he pronounced the solemn vow of chivalry, at the same time often renewing the baptismal vow. The one chosen as godfather then struck him lightly on the neck with a sword (the dubbing) in the name of God and St. George, the patron of chivalry.

The First Degree reflects the principle of charity, the Second Degree reflects the principle of unity, the Third Degree reflects the principle of fraternity, and the Fourth Degree reflects the principle of patriotism, where the first exemplification of the Fourth Degree took place in New York City on February 22, 1900.

The primary purpose of the Fourth Degree is to foster the spirit of patriotism by promoting responsible citizenship and a love of and loyalty to the Knights' respective countries through active membership in local Fourth Degree groups called assemblies. Fourth Degree members must retain their membership as Third Degree members in the local council to remain in good standing.
Bearers of the Fourth Degree Emblem are committed to conduct themselves honorably as Christian gentlemen in their private and public lives where they act patriotically for the good of their Country and Flag. Thus the sword is purely ceremonial as it is rich in symbolism. The entire sword, including handle, measures three feet. The words “Knight of Columbus” are etched on the long blade. An image of Christopher Columbus, Catholic Navigator and patron of the Order, is at the top of the sword. On the blade guard are oak leaves and acorns, symbol of faith and endurance. The fourth-degree emblem with a dove for the Holy Spirit and peace, and a cross symbolizing Jesus Christ the redeemer of the world and the globe symbolizing God the Father, creator of the universe, complete the symbols in the sword.

The Fourth Degree has the honor and the privilege of wearing on their swords and lapels the sacred symbol of the Most Blessed Trinity, which always reminds the Knights to live a holy Christian life and through their good works they glorify our Holy Religion, our Honored Order, and our Beloved Country.

The Fourth Degree sword represents the bearer’s reverence for the Eucharist as well as his union with all the Catholic churches in communion with the Supreme Pontiff, His Holiness, Pope Francis, Bishop of Rome.

The sword is a chivalrous symbol that displays the Knight of Columbus’ willingness and duty to protect the Church and her clergy and to be always at the service of Charity.

20/06/2018

You are all cordially invited to be part of the historic and FIRST Mass of the Swords to be celebrated at our Shrine on June 24, Sunday at 9:30AM!

All Sir Knights PLEASE COME IN FULL REGALIA.

All Ceremonial Swords will be blessed during the Mass.

03/06/2018

Congratulations to our new set of elected officers for Columbian Year 2018 - 2019

Grand Knight - SK Rico Santero, FDD, PGK
Deputy Grand Knight - SK Dennis Umpacan, PGK
Chancellor - SK Rogelio Barruela
Advocate - SK Adelbert Corpus, PGK
Treasurer - SK Van Guerzon
Recorder - SK Leopoldo Osorio
Warden - SK Salvador Aragon
Inside Guard - SK James Molina
Outside Guard - Sir Icasiano Mutuc
Trustee for 3 years - SK Alexander Cortey
Trustee for 2 years - SK Christopher Jolan Cabrera
Trustee for 1 year - SK Rommel Lopez, FN, FDD, PGK

Appointees:
Financial Secretary: SK Nicasio Sedan
Lecturer: Sir Jomar Pangilinan
Chaplain: Fr. Don Garcia, OMI

Surge with service!

ng mga Totoong Katolikong Kabalyero!

01/06/2018

Council 5617 has made history once again!

Responding to the call for help from a public high school in Malabon, our Council donated a pail of paint to Tinajeros National High School.

According to Dr. Fortunato Abude, TNHS principal, Our Lady of Grace Council 5617 is the first non-Malabon City to donate and help their school. Holding back tears, he says he is very appreciative of the help the Knights of Columbus Council 5617 extended to the high school. "Charity is our first principle and you have shown it today. Thank you," he said.

Dr. Abude is a 2nd degree Knight of Immaculate Heart of Mary Council 10291.

This is the 4th school of the Council's Brigada Eskwela project.

ng mga Totoong Katolikong Kabalyero!

01/06/2018

Our service to the community never stops!

We've just concluded our Brigada Eskwela project with the Eulogio Rodriguez Elementary School (ERES). We have donated a pail of paint and cleaned the grounds and rest rooms of the school.

ng mga Totoong Katolikong Kabalyero!