Monsignor James S. Conlan Council #5329 – June-August 2020 Activities Summary
2020 RSVP Seminarian Ordained A Priest – The Knights of Columbus Supreme sponsors a program called RSVP (Refund Support Vocations Programs). For every $500 a Council or Assembly donates to support a seminarian, Supreme will reimburse that Council or Assembly $100 until you hit the $400 refund max (which means the seminarian received $2,000 in support). This program is one way that the Knights help foster the religious vocation and how we continue to support priest, bishops, and the Church in making sure there are future clergy to serve it and its Catholic faith community. Annually our Council participates in this program by supporting a seminarian. The Dean of Seminarians assigned us Seminarian Luis Silva last year as our candidate for the RSVP program. Our Council, again this year in April, made a $500 donation to Luis that he was able to put towards his tuition fees in Seminary for this year.
We are happy to report that Deacon Luis M. Silva Cervantes, who was our Council’s RSVP Seminarian this year, has graduated from Seminary and was ordained a priest by the Archdiocese of New York on June 26, 2020. He is officially now Father Luis M. Silva Cervante. Father Silva was recently featured in an article online in Catholic NY that can be found here. Father Silva discusses his life growing up and what lead him to the ministry. Father Silva is quoted as saying:
“I was finally able to see clearly that this is what God wants, that this is the vocation where I was going to be absolutely happy,” Father Silva said. “I knew that He would use me as an instrument to reach out to his people—to help them hear the message of salvation and love.”
Catholic NY also has an article about the June 26th ordination ceremony lead by Timothy Cardinal Dolan that can be found here. Father Silva in this article goes on to say:
As he was ordained, Father Silva thought of his late mother, Maria Guadalupe Cervantes Hernandez, who died 15 years ago. “Because of her prayers,” he said, “I’m right now a priest.” He shared that he said a “Mama, Gracias” in his prayers, thanking her for “always praying for me, always believing in me,” particularly “when I was a little bit astray from the faith.”
“Even in her last moments, when she was dying, she trusted that I would come back home to the Catholic Church. And I did. And now I’m a priest.”
Next year we will be assigned a new seminarian by the Archdiocese. We look forward to continuing to support the formation of priest through financial and spiritual support. Father Silva is the second priest we have supported through the program who has been ordained in the past four years. We look forward to supporting our new candidate next year and continuing to assist in the formation of our next generation of pastors and priests. Please keep Father Silva and all our newly ordained priests this year in your prayers as they begin their mission to shepherd their flocks with humility and love.
COVID-19 Pandemic Response – Our Council has completed its community outreach and support for those in need because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Calls were placed to all members of our Parish (the Church of the Infant Saviour). A bit over half the the calls made were successfully answered or went to voicemail. We also posted information about the outreach program in our Parish Bulletin and on the Parish web site, as well as, our web site.
As a result of this outreach effort, we received one request for help from an elderly member of our Parish who was in need of assistance with chores and odd jobs. We had three Brother Knights volunteer to assist this person with those odd jobs and chores. This person we assisted was so grateful for the help they received that they made a $40 donation to our Council as a thank you. This was an unexpected token of generosity and we are grateful for their support of our work. Their hope was this money could be used to help someone else out and that is exactly what happened shortly after.
We knew there had to be others in need and maybe we were not getting to them through the calling campaign and Church bulletin. So Brother Knight Matt Rommel reached out to the school nurses in the Pine Bush Central District elementary schools and was able to find three families that were in need of food. We purchased each family a $100 Hannaford gift card to assist them with alleviating their food challenges.
Thank you to all Brother Knights who participated in our Pandemic Response efforts and
those who helped out these people in need. We continue to pray for all those impacted by the pandemic especially those who are sick, those caring for the sick, first responders and emergency workers, medical professionals and support personnel, essential workers, those at risk of illness especially the elderly, and all those who have died because of this illness– especially those who have died alone, that they may know the everlasting loving peace of the Lord Jesus Christ in eternal rest and salvation.
2020 Annual Knights College Scholarship Essay Contest – Once again this year our Council held our Annual Essay Scholarship contest that is open to all High School Seniors within the Pine Bush Central School District. Essays had to be in by email or US Postal Service by May 22, 2020. You can read more about the contest rules and theme this year here. After review by our Council’s Scholarship Essay Committee, we are proud to announce this year’s Scholarship winner as Jessie Nicosia! Jessie is the daughter of Brother Knight David Nicosia. She graduated in June from Pine Bush High School. Congratulations Jessie on winning this year’s Scholarship prize and we wish you the best of luck with your college studies! Thank you to all the District Seniors who submitted essays this year for taking part in the Scholarship contest. This was a very good year for essay submissions and all participants really did well with their essays. It was a close vote and our Essay Committee was really amazed at how strong of an understanding of our Faith is within all those who submitted essays. Wonderful work! Please keep Jessie and all the other Seniors throughout the Pine Bush Central School District who have graduated high school this year in your prayers as they embark on this next phase of their lives!
2020 Young Parish Catholic of Year Scholarship – Our Council decided that we should be doing more to support young adult Catholics in our Church of the Infant Saviour Parish Community. So in addition to the aforementioned Annual Knights Essay Scholarship, we have decided to give a teenager/young adult in our Parish Community a $250 scholarship to support their college education. We have discussed possible candidates and made a final selection. The final candidate was selected because of their public display of faith, their private devotion to the faith, their volunteer work in our Parish, and their witness to living as a young Catholic in a world that does not often support being such. We are happy to report that our Council has chosen Devin Storch as this year’s winner! Devin has generously donated her time in our Parish of the Church of the Infant Saviour in Pine Bush, NY for over a year. Devin sings in the choir during the Sunday 11:15 am Mass. The Parish and our Council appreciate her volunteer service that goes above and beyond in its humble service to our Church and Parish community. As such, she has been selected as this year’s Young Parish Catholic scholarship winner. Devin was a high school senior this year and graduated with the Class of 2020 in June. Congratulations Devin and may God bless you as you begin your journey as college student! Again we kindly ask that you keep our young adults in our Parish in your prayers especially those who graduated high school and all those navigating their educational vocation in these challenging times of COVID-19.
Council Officers Election – The Knights of Columbus Fraternal Year runs from July through June annually. As such, it is that time of year again where local Councils hold elections and install candidates based on popular vote or appointment. Our Council Officers, Program Directors, and other leadership positions for the 2020-2021 Fraternal Year were voted upon in our June 2020 meeting. We are happy to report that this year’s leadership team can be found on our Council Officers page here. We do currently have an opening for Recorder that is vacant. Any Brother Knight in our Council in good standing with our Order who wishes to be nominated for this position should contact our Council here. Questions are welcome as well. Again feel free to contact us if you have any.
Easter Sash Taken Down – Father Rodrigo requested we assist him with taking down the Easter sash on the Church of the Infant Saviour outdoor grotto crucifix. Several Brother Knights gathered together on August 24, 2020 to complete that work. Thank you to all the Brother Knights who helped out and to Brother Knight Mike Grasso for coordinating the effort.
Monsignor James S. Conlan Council #5329 – Looking Ahead
Back to Work – We took off a few months this summer so that is why news has been slow on this web site. With the challenges of COVID-19 it made it hard to do in person meetings and virtual meetings brought their own challenges. We did get a good response to our virtual special meeting for the Pandemic Response. We have been meeting at private homes outside with social distancing and all New York State safety precautions in place to conduct business once again in person. We did not put this publicly on our site in the prior months to make sure we were able to control attendance numbers and adhere to all safety precautions. All Council members were notified in private though so everyone was aware of these meetings. One meeting was an informal test run and we have now successfully done two more formal meetings. Regardless we still managed to keep our work in the Parish and community going. Our Council is back in the swing of things (albeit with adjustments) and ready to get back to more regular meetings. You can see even with the challenges we faced because of this pandemic we have managed to continue moving forward and helping out those in need where we can. We appreciate your continued support and prayers. Together we will get through the social, economic, natural disasters, health epidemics/pandemic, and national crises we are dealing with. We must remember that our journey is one of the Cross and such challenges are expected. We can overcome though because we have Jesus Christ’s grace– what more do we need? Truly His grace is always enough. Vivat Jesus!
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