https://uknight.org/CouncilSite/?CNO=5045

Knights of Columbus Council 5045, 654 South 86th Street, Omaha, NE (2026)

08/14/2026

AUG 14 Feast of Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Canonized in 1982 by Pope John Paul II. At Auschwitz, when N**i guards selected 10 people to starve to death, he volunteered to die in place of a stranger. While in that desert of hatred, he sowed love. "A single act of love makes the soul return to life."

When he was 12, he had a vision of the Virgin Mary that inspired his life’s work.🌹
“That night, I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me, a Child of Faith. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked me if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both.” -St. Maximilian Kolbe

08/14/2026

Prayer for the Canonization of Blessed Michael J. McGivney
God, our Father, protector of the poor and defender of the widow and orphan, you called your priest, Blessed Michael McGivney, to be an apostle of Christian family life and to lead the young to the generous service of their neighbor. Through the example of his life and virtue, may we follow your Son, Jesus Christ, more closely, fulfilling his commandment of charity and building up his Body which is the Church. Let the inspiration of your servant prompt us to greater confidence in your love so that we may continue his work of caring for the needy and the outcast. We humbly ask that you glorify Blessed Michael McGivney on earth according to the design of your holy will. Through his intercession, grant the favor I now present (here make your request). Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Happy Feast of Blessed Michael J. McGivney!

08/14/2026

Today we celebrate his Feast Day. 🙏

Blessed Michael McGivney.
Priest. Founder. Servant of families.
Born August 13, 1852. Died August 14, 1890.
38 years was all he got.

He spent those years showing up — to the sick, the dying, the imprisoned, the forgotten. He built a brotherhood from nothing because he believed Catholic men were called to do more than just attend Mass on Sunday. He believed faith had to be lived out loud, in the world, in the streets, in the moments that mattered.

He was right.

Today the Knights of Columbus has 2 million members in 80 countries. Billions donated to charity. Families protected. Seminarians supported. Lives changed. All from one priest, one church basement, one meeting in New Haven, Connecticut on October 2, 1881.

And right here at Christ the King Parish in Omaha, Council 5045 carries that same mission forward — every pancake breakfast, every fish fry, every Tootsie Roll Drive, every dollar raised, every man who walks through the door and finds a brotherhood waiting for him.

Blessed Michael McGivney, pray for us.
Pray for our council.
Pray for the men we haven’t yet met.
Pray for your canonization — we believe it is coming. 🙏

If this series introduced you to Fr. McGivney for the first time, welcome to the story. Share this post with someone who needs to hear it.

08/11/2026

Meet Father McGivney — Day 8 of 9.

When Fr. McGivney died on August 14, 1890, thousands filled the streets of Waterbury to say goodbye. But the story didn’t end there. It never does with men like Fr. McGivney.

The cause for his canonization was officially opened by the Archdiocese of Hartford in 1997. In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI declared him Venerable — confirming he had lived a life of heroic virtue. Then came the miracle.

Michael Schachle was still in his mother’s womb when doctors delivered devastating news. His survival was considered medically impossible. His family, who had a deep devotion to Fr. McGivney, began to pray — asking for his intercession and trusting God with the outcome.

The baby was born healthy. He survived. He thrived. And his recovery was submitted to the Vatican as the miracle required for beatification.

On October 31, 2020, at the Cathedral of Saint Joseph in Hartford, Connecticut — just miles from where Fr. McGivney had gathered those first men in a church basement 139 years earlier — Pope Francis declared him Blessed Michael McGivney. One step from full sainthood.

He left home at 13 to follow God’s call. He founded an organization at 29 with nothing but faith. He died at 38 never seeing the full fruit of what he planted. And 130 years later, the Church told the world what the people of New Haven had always known.

He was a holy man. He was a servant. He was exactly what he had always tried to be.

Council 5045 prays for his canonization. We believe it is coming.

Tomorrow — his legacy, alive and well, right here in Omaha.

08/11/2026

Meet Father McGivney — Day 9 of 9.

Nine days ago we made a simple promise — follow along and by August 13 you’ll know exactly who Fr. McGivney was and why his mission is alive right here in Omaha.

So here we are. And we want to make one thing clear.

This series was never really about history.

Every time a Knight shows up at 6 AM on a Sunday to set up tables for a pancake breakfast — that is Fr. McGivney’s mission, alive in Omaha.

Every time our brothers stand behind a fryer on a Friday night in Lent feeding hundreds of families — that is Fr. McGivney’s mission, alive in Omaha.

Every time a Knight stands on a corner in September shaking a bucket for people with intellectual disabilities — that is Fr. McGivney’s mission, alive in Omaha.

Every time a new member walks through the door, nervous and uncertain, and is greeted by brothers who are genuinely glad he came — that is Fr. McGivney’s mission, alive in Omaha.

He started with a problem, a prayer, and a handful of men willing to show up. One hundred and forty-four years later, that is still exactly what this is.

Council 5045 is not a club. It is a brotherhood of men who have chosen — freely, deliberately, by choice — to take Fr. McGivney’s instinct and carry it forward in this parish, in this city, in this moment in history.

Brothers by choice. Serving the parish, our priests, and Catholic education.

Tomorrow is his Feast Day. If his story moved you this week, share this post with a Catholic man in your life who you think should know the Knights exist. Not to pressure him. Just to let him know the door is open.

It always has been.

08/10/2026

Meet Father McGivney — Day 7 of 9.

By the mid-1880s, Fr. McGivney had every reason to feel hopeful. The Knights of Columbus was growing. New councils were forming across Connecticut. The organization he had built from nothing was beginning to fulfill exactly the purpose he had envisioned.

But the years of relentless work were taking a toll.

Fr. McGivney had never been physically strong, and he was the kind of man who showed up regardless — to the hospital bed, the jail cell, the parish meeting, the homes of grieving widows. Resting was not something that came naturally to him. In 1890, at just 38 years old, he contracted tuberculosis. He was transferred to Thomaston, Connecticut to rest and recover. It didn’t work.

On August 14, 1890 — one day after his 38th birthday — Fr. Michael McGivney died. He had been a priest for just 13 years. He had founded the Knights just 8 years earlier, with a few thousand members in a handful of councils across Connecticut and New York.

He never saw it grow to 2 million members. He never saw it spread to 80 countries. He never saw the billions raised for charity or the families protected across generations.

But he trusted God with the outcome. And God delivered.

He gave everything he had in 38 years. What he built has lasted 144 and counting.

Tomorrow — the moment the Church officially recognized what the people of New Haven already knew.

08/09/2026

Meet Father McGivney — Day 6 of 9.

By 1882, Fr. McGivney had founded an organization that would outlive him by more than a century. But if you had asked the people of Saint Mary’s Parish what made him special, most of them wouldn’t have mentioned the Knights first.

They would have talked about the man himself.

Fr. McGivney was known throughout New Haven not for what he had built, but for how he showed up. He visited the sick in their homes. He sat with the dying. He ministered to prisoners in the county jail. He advocated for men on death row — not because it was popular, but because he believed every human life had dignity.

He didn’t wait for people to come to him. He went to them.

That instinct was the same one that drove him to found the Knights. He saw suffering and moved toward it. He saw exclusion and built inclusion. He saw families left unprotected and created a safety net. Faith without action was no faith at all.

The Knights still operate by that same instinct today — every pancake breakfast, every fish fry, every Tootsie Roll Drive. The organization looks different. The world looks different. The instinct is exactly the same.

Go to where people are. Show up. Do the work.

Tomorrow — the hardest part of Fr. McGivney’s story.

08/08/2026

Meet Father McGivney — Day 5 of 9. 🙏

On the evening of October 2, 1881, Fr. McGivney gathered a small group of Catholic men in the basement of Saint Mary’s Church in New Haven, Connecticut. No fanfare. No grand ceremony. Just a young priest, a handful of parishioners, and a problem that needed solving.

His vision was simple. Create a Catholic fraternal organization that would keep men connected to their faith, provide financial protection for families devastated by a father’s death, and prove to a skeptical America that Catholics belonged here.

He named it the Knights of Columbus.

The Knights was officially incorporated on March 29, 1882. Fr. McGivney was 29 years old with just a few dozen men meeting in a church basement.

Today — 2 million members. 16,000 councils. 80 countries. Billions donated to charity. All from one priest, one basement, one meeting.

Including ours. Council 5045 at Christ the King is part of that same unbroken line — 144 years later and still going.

Tomorrow — who Fr. McGivney really was behind the mission.

08/07/2026

Meet Father McGivney — Day 4 of 9. 🙏

Fr. McGivney arrived at Saint Mary’s Church in New Haven, Connecticut in 1877 as a newly ordained priest, full of purpose. What he found there would shape the rest of his life.

New Haven was a city of Catholic immigrants — Irish, Italian, Eastern European — who had come looking for opportunity and found something else alongside it: a society that largely didn’t want them. Catholics were excluded from the civic organizations and fraternal societies that provided the safety nets most Americans relied on. The largest fraternal organization in the country even explicitly barred Catholics from membership.

But the discrimination wasn’t just social. It was economic. And it was devastating.

When the father of a Catholic immigrant family died, his widow and children were often left with nothing. No life insurance. No savings. No one to turn to. Families that had sacrificed everything could be wiped out overnight by a single death.

Fr. McGivney watched this happen in his own parish. He buried these men. He sat with their widows. He looked into the faces of their children. And he refused to accept that this was simply the way things had to be.

He was 25 years old with no money, no organization, and no roadmap — just a parish, a handful of men who trusted him, and an unshakeable belief that the Church was called to act.

So he decided to build something.

Tomorrow — the church basement that changed Catholic history in America. 👇

08/06/2026

Meet Father McGivney — Day 3 of 9.

Most 13-year-olds are thinking about school, friends, and what’s for dinner. Michael McGivney was thinking about God.

In 1865, Michael left his family home in Waterbury, Connecticut to begin studying for the priesthood. For a family already stretched thin — Patrick and Mary McGivney were raising 13 children on a factory worker’s wage — this was no small sacrifice. They said yes anyway. And so did Michael.

He studied at seminaries in Quebec, Niagara Falls, and Montreal, pursuing one of the most rigorous priestly formation programs in North America. But his path wasn’t without heartbreak. In 1867, his father Patrick died unexpectedly, and Michael was called home to help support his mother and younger siblings — forcing him to leave seminary entirely.

He went home. He helped his family. And when he was able, he returned.

He was ordained on December 22, 1877 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption in Baltimore — 25 years old, more than a decade of sacrifice behind him, and still no idea what he was about to build.

Tomorrow we’ll tell you what Fr. McGivney found waiting for him in his first parish — and the problem that would change everything. Follow along so you don’t miss it. 👇

Knights of Columbus Council 5045

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