08/13/2025
Blessed Father McGivney's Feast Day
August 13, 2025
Worthy Brothers All,
Today we celebrate the Feast Day of our Blessed Founder, Fr. Michael McGivney. Yesterday we celebrated his earthly birthday (1852) and tomorrow is the anniversary of his death (1890), or heavenly birthday. And so, the Church has chosen August 13 to remember all the holy work Father did between those two days. In just 38 years - and only 12 as a priest! - he brought Sacraments to thousands of Catholics, inspired all who met him and founded what would become the largest and most important Catholic men's organization in the world. It makes priests like me who are well past 38 years old feel pretty unaccomplished.... Of course, we also feel very inspired to follow Fr. McGivney's example and emulate his heroic virtue and zeal for souls.
State Chaplains from around the USA came together in early June in New Haven to make a "Blessed Father McGivney Pilgrimage", during which we visited the various churches he served, and toured the small factory towns, Thomaston and Terryville, Connecticut, where his people lived and worked. It was incredible to say Mass in the same sanctuary in which Fr. McGivney did and to walk through the cemeteries where he did so many burial rites. We sat in the Terryville "Opera House" where Fr. McGivney got on stage and roused the men to join the brand new Knights of Columbus. These two towns are only a few miles apart but since he was pastor at both churches he would have ridden his horse or walked very often - and being New England it meant steamy, buggy, hot summers and freezing, icy, blustery winters.
In 1890 as a flu pandemic raged, Fr. McGivney would not think of quarantine while his people needed sacraments. So, out he went, even at the risk of his personal health. No one could stop Fr. McGivney - nor even slow him down - because everything he did was for Jesus Christ and the Church. His Knights were founded to live with the same vigor and devotion, hence our motto Vivat Jesus!
Fr. Greg Adolph, our Associate State Chaplain, Past State Chaplain and several-times recipient of Arizona's Father Michael McGivney Award, inspires me and all the other chaplains of our state to live like Fr. McGivney (and Padre Kino!) in our service of God's people. Fr. Greg gave me a book last month to read called "Death Comes to the Archbishop" by the American novelist Willa Cather. Perhaps you've read it. If not, I recommend it to you as well. The main characters are missionary priests in the American Southwest in the 19th century, braving the many difficulties and obstacles of those days. Yet, they have the constant and courageous zeal that caused the Gospel to spread far and wide - and were holy. This holiness - closeness to Jesus through prayer and mercy - is what gave credibility to their message.
So it is with Fr. McGivney and the priests in our Order. Please pray for us: your council, assembly, and state chaplains. May we have the same single-heartedness and holiness by which Our Blessed Founder lived. May you all receive special blessings today through the intercession of Father McGivney - and always, VIVAT JESUS!
Fr. David Halm
Arizona State Chaplain
