The annual St. Mary’s Parish Festival was held August 19th and, as usual, the council turned out to operate the Zippy Bun Booth. The volunteer turnout was the best I’ve seen in years with all the shifts completely filled. The booth ran out of both bread and beef at about 6:30PM and would have shut down at that point except for the unbridled enthusiasm of Brother Dale Edwards who, in scraping the bottom of the barrel, so to speak, was still churning out zippy buns with what was probably last years aus jus fixin’s. Anyway, the day was a success ( the take is not immediately available, but will be reported as soon as I have it) and I want to gratefully thank all the brothers who pitched in and churned out the sandwiches for hungry customers.
They are: Floyd and Maureen Wells, Dick Cutting, Matt Lucien, Darin Hunter, Rupert Ventenilla, Terry Corcoran, Dale Walton, Dominic Ielati, Bill Sheean, Alex Kachmar, Rudy Nagle, Dale Edwards, Bill Renard, Al Piccardo, Fred Struck and Frank Phillips. Special thanks goes to Fred and Matt who sat around for an extra hour and half Saturday morning waiting for the tables to show up, Darin who took three (!) shifts, Co-chair Terry who was there most of the day until his leg let him down and Dale, Bill Renard and Rudy who stayed after their shift to strike the booth.
And then there’s Brother Dave Carboni who’s in the kitchen at 6:00AM cooking up our aus jus which makes the zippy buns what they are.
If I’ve missed anybody, please let me know and I’ll make sure your names are plastered all over the Knight Letter.
THANKS to all. See you next year.
George Mills
Chairman
Zippy Bun Booth
September is Life Insurance Awareness Month.
To help educate consumers about the need for and value of adequate life insurance protection, the Life Insurance Market Research Association (LIMRA) has published the following five facts. These statistics are certainly worth considering.
Fact 1: Nearly three-fourths of North Americans agree that life insurance is the best way to protect against premature death of the primary wage earner.
Fact 2: Twenty-four million households have no life insurance protection at all. Almost one third of adults have no life insurance protection.
Fact 3: Forty-four percent of all households either don’t own life insurance and believe they should, or own life insurance and believe they need more. Among those that already own some life insurance, 40 percent believe they don’t have enough.
Fact 4: One-fourth of primary wage earners feel they do not have a plan in place to provide a decent standard of living for their family if they died tomorrow. Twelve percent of families would immediately have trouble meeting everyday living expenses and another 15 percent would have difficulty keeping up after several months.
Fact 5: People would like to discuss life insurance with a qualified professional agent. They believe that buying life insurance is an important and complex financial decision. Half find it difficult to decide how much to buy, and 43 percent worry about making the wrong decision.
I’d like to meet with you in your home, at your convenience. I’ll work with you to make sure your family is protected. As a brother Knight you can trust, I’ll take the stress and worry out of the buying decision.
To contact me with regards to any of your insurance needs, please call my offi ce at (916) 482-9044 or e-mail
me at stephen.cooper@kofc.org
By Knights … For Knights ….
Stephen Cooper
CA Lics #0H90754
STROKE: Remember the 1st Three Letters….S.T.R.
“This was discussed by the lecturer in the meeting of August 9, 2012.” Only four of the members present were aware of this.
If everyone can remember something this simple, we could save some folks.. Seriously..
STROKE IDENTIFICATION:
During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall – she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics). She said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes.
They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food. While she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening
Ingrid’s husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital – (at 6:00 pm Ingrid passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today. Some don’t die. they end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.
A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke..totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.
RECOGNIZING A STROKE
Thank God for the sense to remember the ‘3’ steps, STR. Read and Learn!
Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.
Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:
S *Ask the individual to SMILE.
T *Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently) (i.e. It is sunny out today)
R *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.
If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call emergency number immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.
New Sign of a Stroke ——– Stick out Your Tongue
NOTE: Another ‘sign’ of a stroke is this: Ask the person to ‘stick’ out his tongue.
If the tongue is ‘crooked’, if it goes to one side or the other, that is also an indication of a stroke.
Jesse Williams
Lecturer
September 14th is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Life Giving Cross
In the first centuries of Christianity, during the years of persecution, the pagans wished to destroy all evidence of the life of Jesus Christ, and the Cross on which He was crucified disappeared. With the conversion of Emperor Constantine the Great, Christians were at liberty to worship openly and build churches. The emperor’s mother, St. Helen, longed to find the True Cross of Christ. She traveled to Jerusalem and was told by a very old Jew that the Cross was buried beneath the temple of the pagan goddess Venus, built in 119 AD by the Roman Emperor Hadrian.
The temple was torn down, and digging in the earth below uncovered three wooden crosses. The small board which had hung over Christ with the inscription ‘ Jesus King of the Jews,’ had long since fallen off, and -there was no way of telling which was the True Cross and which were the crosses of the two thieves crucified on either side of Christ. A sick woman was brought and likewise a dead man who was being carried to burial. The three crosses were laid in turn one by one upon the sick woman and upon the dead man. Two of the crosses had no effect, but through contact with the third cross, the sick woman was healed of her infirmity and the dead man came to life. These miracles clearly indicated which of the three was Christ’s Cross.
Hearing of this discovery, all the faithful desired to see the Cross of the Lord and to venerate it. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, Makarios, took the Cross onto a raised platform and lifted it on high, ‘exalting’ it, for all to see. The people fell to their knees, bowing down before the Cross and crying out repeatedly: “Lord, have mercy!”
To house the relic of the True Cross, St. Helen had a church built over the Holy Sepulchre. The church was consecrated on Sept. 13, 335, an event also commemorated in the service hymns of the Feast. The finding and exaltation of the Cross was appointed to be celebrated annually on the following day.
The Life-giving Cross was kept in Jerusalem until the year 614 when the Holy City fell to the Persians who looted the Church of the Resurrection and took the True Cross back with them to Persia. Fourteen years later Emperor Heraclius concluded a peace with the Persians, and the Holy Cross was brought to the imperial capital of Constantinople. The Emperor, taking off his shoes and his imperial robes, carried the Cross into the Church of Holy Wisdom (Agia Sophia) where it was once again triumphantly exalted. It was then resolved that the Feast be celebrated by the Church in all parts of the world, for which reason it is called the Universal Exaltation.
Culture of Life Report for September 2012
It is a busy time for the pro-life community. Here in California, on 8/30, our State Senate will vote on SB 623, which would continue a pilot program sponsored by Planned Parenthood allowing non-physicians, including midwives, to perform first trimester abortions. Since 2007, about 8,000 abortions have been performed under this program. As you may recall from July’s Pro-Life Report, the Assembly Health Committee passed SB 623 along a strict, party-line vote, 13 to 6. As expected, SB 623 went to the full Assembly in August, where it was approved 46 to 24 on a mostly part-line vote. It is now before the Senate. The California Catholic Conference opposes SB 623, and provides an “Action Alert” link where we may email our legislators on SB 623:
http://capwiz.com/cacatholic/issues/alert/?alertid=61764626&PROCESS=Take+Action
On Saturday, August 25, I was privileged to attend the diocesan Respect Life Ministry reunion at St. Anthony’s on Florin Road. His Excellency Bishop Jaime Soto spoke brilliantly on religious freedom and building a Culture of Life, even quoting from de Toqueville’s famous “Democracy in America.” Speakers from the Sacramento Life Center, Rachel’s Vineyard, and the California Catholic Conference also addressed the gathering of about 200 volunteers, with some from parishes as far away as Alturas. Director of Evangelization & Catechesis for Sacramento Diocese Steve Patton moderated the event and made a DVD on Natural Family Planning available to us for a one-dollar donation. The talk given by Ashley and Lisa of the Sacramento Life Center on sexual purity was especially powerful. Bishop Soto received a standing ovation for praying with 40 Days for Life on public sidewalks outside of abortion businesses. Wynette Sills, our local 40 Days for Life leader, addressed us as well, highlighting the importance of cultivating empathy in order to make opponents our friends. In the words of Bishop Soto, legislators and their staff “are not smarter than us” and we should not be shy about talking with them in person about respect for life issues, which the Bishop strongly encouraged us to do.
Bishop Soto will celebrate the 40 Days for Life Opening Mass on Tuesday, September 25, at 6:30 pm at St. Philomene’s Parish, 2428 Bell Street, preceded by the Holy Rosary at 6 pm. This year’s 40 Days for Life vigils will again take place at the public sidewalk in front of the abortion business at 1750 Wright Street. Volunteers will pray there and offer assistance to women, Monday–Saturday, 7 am to 7 pm, from Wednesday, September 26th through Sunday, November 4th. Please keep this peaceful, life-saving ministry in your prayers, and sign-up as a volunteer at: www.40daysforlife.com/sacramento/
Fraternally in Christ,
Bill James
Culture of Life Director
K of C Council 953
Grand Knight’s Message July 2012
My Brother Knights and their families,
During his visit to Baltimore in October 1995, Pope John Paul II said: “ The challenge facing you, dear
friends, is to increase people’s awareness of the importance for society of religious freedom; to defend that
freedom against those who would take religion out of the public domain and establish secularism as America’s
official faith. And it is vitally necessary, for the very survival of the American experience, to transmit to the next
generation the precious legacy of religious freedom and the convictions which sustain it.”
How prophetic do these words ring today. We as Knights of Columbus defend our Mother Church, so much
so, that we are commonly referred to as “the strong arm of the Catholic Church”. Our strength is in our numbers. With each new Brother Knight we gain not only a servant of God for our many volunteer events but an apologist for our faith for the recruitment of Brother Knights & the sharing our good works.
The Venerable Pope John Paul II was blessed with the foresight to see the challenges facing our culture
today. Let us respond in solidarity and defend the Catholic Church yet again. Let us become a public presence
and let others know that we are Knights of Columbus. It is in that declaration that we proclaim to others that we stand for the word of God, that we are practical Catholics and that our voice will be heard. Let someone know that you are Knight of Columbus today… and they might join us tomorrow.
“GO! Make a Difference”
Father Micheal McGivney- Pray for us!
Ricardo Saldana
Grand Knight Council 953