My Dear Brothers,
Well, here we are at a new crossroads, my tenure as Grand Knight is coming to a close and we have a wonderful crew of new officers coming aboard July 1. I am excited about this transition and with the transition that is happening with the arrival of our two new priests. I just want to thank all of you for your great work for our Lord these past few years and I look forward to continuing to journey with all of you. My energies now will be focused on improving all of our communications from the bulletin entries (hope to have one every week!), our website and possibly new ventures into social media!!!
I thought I would close things out with the talk I gave at the Founder’s Day Dinner back in May. Enjoy and thanks again!
Steve
My Dear Brothers, Sisters of the Auxiliary, Family, Friends and distinguished guests
It is good to be here with you tonight to remember our Founder, Father Mcgivney, and to reflect on the history of our council and where we are headed.
Each year I attend a 4 day retreat at a Jesuit retreat house and during the time I am there I often come across the 1st Principle and Foundation of the Jesuit order. Let me read you the beginning.
God who loves us creates us and wants to share life with us forever. Our love response takes shape in our praise and honor and service of the God of our life.
All the things in this world are also created because of God’s love and they become a context of gifts, presented to us so that we can know God more easily and make a return of love more readily.
Every morning my prayer for the Council has been for each one of us to come to know God’s great love for us more fully and to make a greater return of love. Since the beginning this council has responded to this love and I have witnessed to this these past few years as Grand Knight.
We have served our parish through Fish fries, Donut Sundays, cooking for the Fall Festival, participating in Parish Food Drives and a variety of other ministries.
Lord, help us to make a return of love and all the gifts you have given us
We have served the Special Olympics through Cookouts, carrying the torch and through financial contributions and have provided 100 winter coats to kids on the school lunch program just down the block from here and another 8 dozen that were distributed to both the Samaritan House which is run by Catholic Charities and serves those who are homeless and formerly homeless and Mount St. Vincent, a center for children who had been abused, neglected, are mentally ill or have been traumatized
Lord, help us to make a return of love and all the gifts you have given us.
We have all heard of the atrocities happening to the refugees in the middle east and through our campaign for the Refugee Christian Cross Distribution over the past two years we have raised nearly a total of $8000 which has gone towards the $17 million dollars raised by the national Knights and is being used to rebuild whole villages, provide food, clothing, housing, medical aid, education and general relief.
Finally, Our total charitable contributions for calendar year 2017 was $20,825 and since our inception in May 2003, our charitable gifts total about $345,000. These funds benefitted many charities serving many populations.
Lord, help us to make a return of love and all the gifts you have given us.
So where do we go from here. I am super excited! Do you have any idea what an awesome bunch you are? Every one of you! We need to stick together and be there for one another.
Bud Laber, our incoming Grand Knight, is a Godly man, has amazing leadership skills and has a wonderful connection with the parish which will serve us well with the incoming priests.
Robert Graham, our incredibly gifted community man and incoming Deputy Grand Knight. I expect to see things like Cigar and Steak nights happening on a regular basis. Seriously though, I wish you all had the opportunity I had of seeing the gifts of this man in action pulling upon others gifts and orchestrating amazing events.
Then we have Andy Miller our incoming chancellor. Watch out with whatever project you turn this guy loose on, he will get it done no matter what it takes!!! He is also incredibly gifted at inviting and making people feel welcomed!
Finally, we have all the energy around the arrival of the two new priests. Let’s take the opportunity to harness the energy around these changes to continue our great tradition of making a return of love and all the gifts that have been given to us.
Good night and thank you all for being here.
Steve Regnier, Grand Knight