September 10, 2008

Knights council, parish partner to promote prayer for vocations
By John Gleason

A Knights of Columbus council is partnering with its host parish to promote family prayer for vocations to holy orders.

Knights Council 12392 at Spirit of Christ Parish in Arvada has purchased a chalice that will travel to parishioners’ homes for a week at a time to serve as a reminder to pray for vocations to the priesthood and diaconate, much as traveling statues of the Blessed Mother remind families to pray the rosary.
Engraving on the chalice commemorates the Year of St. Paul and includes a Scripture verse.

“We took a passage from the Gospel,” said Grand Knight Tom Lyons said. “Matthew 9: 37-38: ‘The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”

Parish families will sign up to host the chalice, agreeing to say a vocations prayer at least once a day for the purpose of increasing vocations. At the end of a week, the family will return the chalice to the church where it will then be taken home by another family that will spend the next week praying for vocations.

“The council embraced it as a wonderful idea when Deacon (Richard) Baker first brought it too us,” Lyons said.

Deacon Baker, who will celebrate 25 years as a deacon next year, said he found out about the vocations chalice while attending the ordination of his nephew to the transitional diaconate as a step in his priesthood formation in the Diocese of Topeka.

“I saw a sign-up sheet in the church about the vocations chalice,” he said. “When they told me what it was and its purpose I couldn’t wait to get back to Colorado and talk about it.”

Deacon Baker said the idea of the vocations chalice resonated considering the number of vocations to the permanent diaconate that have come out of Spirit of Christ.

“I believe that we’ve had a total of 12 deacons come out of Spirit of Christ,” he said. “We currently have six and another five (men are) in formation.”
When the family takes home the chalice, they’ll also receive a copy of a prayer for vocations written by Father Steven Voss, chaplain for Council 12392. The priest said that not only the Knights were eager to support the idea of the chalice, but many in the wider parish community were, too, because the parish has been such a powerhouse of vocations to the diaconate.

In addition to invoking part of St. Matthew’s passage about the need for laborers in the field, the prayer adds, “we ask you Father to give your Church many willing and dynamic men who possess a profound love, men who will find their fulfillment in serving you in the lives of their sisters and brothers.”
The vocations chalice will be introduced at all Masses this weekend. Tom and Ginny Lyon were the first to sign up to take charge of the chalice. Those who wish to participate may sign up in the parish office.

“I want everyone to know that this is not a ministry exclusive to the Knights of Columbus,” the Grand Knight emphasized. “It’s open to all parish members and I hope that many will want to be a part of this ministry.”

The ministry will continue through next June when, at the conclusion of the Jubilee Year of St. Paul, all the families who have taken care of the chalice will be invited participate in a special Mass. The vocations chalice will be consecrated and given to a priest who might not otherwise have a chalice, according to Lyons.

“It could be a priest who is recently ordained or perhaps a missionary priest,” he said. “We really aren’t sure at this point. But our hope is once that’s done we’ll obtain another chalice for next year and continue to pray for vocations.”