The Final Trials

For the first time in St. Michael The Archangel Circle history, we had four Knights conduct their Final Trials.  As with everything at St Michael’s Blue Knights, they had to earn the rank of Sir Knight in a final visit to the Board of Review.

Before setting foot in the chapel, each knight lead and completed a service project.  The younger fifth years lead a school interior clean up.  The older knights lead an external clean up of the church in the fall and spring.  The younger boys collaborated on a write up of their service project, while the older boys created a document to give back to the Circle.  Kalen made a traditions book and Joey made a Saints game.

One other test the Knights had was an extensive knowledge test on our traditions, prayers and ceremonies.  I conducted these over the final month.  I put each knight on the hot seat…making sure the simple things of previous years were behind them.  I needed the final trial to be one of deeper thought.  The thought of a young man who would be ready to walk out the door and evangelize his neighbor.

After performing an opening ceremony on their own before the altar, each Knight went to a predesignated seat.  On the seat was a custom made set of four questions.  I made these based on previous interviews with the boys about their Blue Knight journey, challenges, enjoyments, and challenges they faced over the past five years. Over the next hour the knights sat before the Lord and prepared their answers for the Board of Review.  Truthfully for a few knights, sitting still for an hour 15 minutes at a time was the real test!

Once the time was up…the young men walked into the chamber for a board of review one last time:

Once in the chamber the questions were the capstone of five years of preparation.  Serious and focused the Knights showed us what they learned, and how they could share their knowledge with the world as disciples of Christ.   Truthfully the three Dad’s on the board were very happy with the growth of our sons, and knew they earned their graduation rank of Sir Knight.

When it was all over for the big guys…in came the younger knights ready to step into the now vacant spaces of leadership.  Eager and ready to prove themselves…they rocked the board themselves.  With pride all earned their graduation awards, and jobs with higher levels of responsibility.  It was now time to go and serve the Lord with youth and vigor!

-ehw

On Building Teams and Men (Young and Old)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The guiding principle of the Blue Knight program is to evangelize boys and their fathers.  A successful evangelization means we moved from an ignorant status of our faith, to an internalizing and applying catechesis.  So unfocused boys should be become Godly focused young men.  Fathers should take charge of their homes, and lead their families towards God through a turbulent world with greater confidence and a support network.

In our Blue Knight Circle the young boys who needed constant direction four years ago are now leaders.  We expect the two teen knights (8th Grade) to creatively merge games from three different years to allow the entire group to participate.  We expect the “tween” knights to responsibly set up, clean up, and guide the youngest by example.  Our high school mentor expectations include filling for any adult in lesson time who may be stuck in traffic.

In all things the leadership of each Blue Knight Circle also must be constantly preparing the next generation to step up, and assume control of the group as boys and adults.  It is undeniable groups need refreshment from time to time.  New leadership can mend weaknesses of one generation, and  with humility maintain what was excellent before.

What you see in these photos is this growth in process.  Two Dads getting ready to assume leadership, boys becoming “big”, and some becoming six foot tall men in the blink of an eye.  It is wonderful, and all parts of God’s plan.

-ehw

Adding to the Ranks

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

On September 26 we added new Knight Recruit Thibault, our first international recruit!  It is always a joyous time to welcome a new boy into the Circle, but this was a great first for us!

The new Knights worked on the Helmet of Hope, and learned how this great virtue fights off despair in our daily lives.  The Third Years learned about a man who definitely needed lots of the gift of Hope, St Paul.  I think hope is mandatory when you know you were a survivor of four shipwrecks we know of!  Then the Fifth Years learned how the first three commands all reinforce each other, and order our reverence of God.

It is interesting to walk from one group to another, and see how the lessons change and grow from year to year.  The more we know, the more we can dive in and grow in our faith.  This program allows this if the Dads take the initiative to make it happen.  Discuss Hope in year one…and revisit those who live out the virtue for the next four!  It is a great way to build up the Lincoln logs of our internal faith!

-ehw

Guarding the Gate to Heaven

Regina Caeli Academy’s Atlanta campus put our a request for families to participate in a Eucharistic Adoration in the midst of the wild hurricane season where many of our fellow homeschooling families found their lives turned upside down.  I asked the knights if they would like to be honor guards for the evening, provided our Academy Chaplain Father Tran would allow it.  The boys enthusiastically leapt up to volunteer, and Father accepted our offer.  So on September 13th, our families trekked from almost an hour away to bring their boys to honor our Lord!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I am convinced these boys leapt into action resulted from a repeated emphasis by our course of study, and each father’s attention, to the central natural of Eucharist in our faith.  The boys all understood this was their biggest opportunity yet to honor our Lord in our devotional lives.  To perform their duties these first, third, fifth, six and eighth graders all had to stand still for ten minutes at a time in front of the community.  They knew they were their to enhance the reverence of, not distract from adoration.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

LT Kalen ran the evening. checked on the boys, adjusted the plan, and had young SGTs step up to take charge when charge needed taking!  The younger boys all stepped up as well, and worked as buddy teams to care for each other. Overall, these boys did what they set out to do.  When I asked them if they enjoyed it, they all said they did.  When asked if it was hard they said yes.  When asked if they would do it again they again said yes.

Sounds like a win for the Blue Knights, and a big step for them learning to love and serve our Lord.

-ehw

 

Call To Arms

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Sept 17 the St. Michael the Archangel Circle opened its year by posting the colors with a new ceremony.  Color Corporal Coltrane brought in the colors under the watchful eye of SGT James.  Then with the ceremonial area set, we welcomed a new first year Knight Recruit Bennett who joined our previously inducted Private Jax.  We preformed our usual custom of calling him into the circle from his family’s side to symbolize the fact he is being called from young childhood into a long journey towards adulthood.

Our topics covered The Shield of Faith, and why Faith is such a wonderful gift of God.  Our Third Year Knights learned about the trials and adventures of St. Peter our first Pope.  The Fifth Years discussed why we have commandments as an introduction to our year long capstone course of study.  New knights made shields, Mr. Levergood found a new way to play with fire as the third years make shields, and the big guys found out they will be journaling this year.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

And what first meeting would be complete without a little Spiritual dodgeball?  The game where you use your shields to fend off sinful vices, and use an act of contrition to get out of jail?  We enjoyed watching as SGT Kevin began showing Private Bennett how to work together and cover each other’s weaknesses.  The boys also learned of the ancient Turtle formation, designed for whole units to repel projectiles like spears and arrows.

The year is off and running, and we have some really happy fathers and sons…

-ehw

The Armory is Open

Four years ago this big boy was needing me to guide his hands to make our shields.  This past August, Kalen led the charge to make the shields for the incoming Blue Knights.  Meanwhile his brother, a teen mentor and two peer knights all worked on their assignments to set up the year’s schedule of activity.

This exemplified what we wanted of our sons when we started this program.  Someplace where they could all grow in grace and knowledge…while we prayed the gift of wisdom would be granted to them! After one meeting a few weeks ago Sergeant James had to create, instruct and run the game for the night.  It was his first real solo assignment as a fifth grader NCO.  He walked out telling his mother, he felt bigger somehow after it all went off splendidly.  The truth is, he did grow that night about a full inch in his heart.

In today’s world, most activities involve lavishing our kids with easy victories or prepared activities right through college.  Not here in our Blue Knight Circle.  Here we help boys grow up, and that men are called to lead by giving of self every day of their lives.

-ehw

Coda for the 4th Year

Ready for Mass

Just in time for the end of the year, the 4th Year Knights completed the chapel.  It will be on display for a time in the school, and available for teachers to use to explain our faith through its architectural expressions.

The model church has pews, a baptismal font, confessional, altar rail, sanctuary complete with tabernacle and candles, crucifix, stained glass windows of saints and prophets, Joseph and Mary flanking the altar, a removable roof, and St. Michael the Archangel on the door (it is his chapel).  If you follow the narrow path you can walk towards heaven through the sacraments here in our little patch of heaven.

My son Kalen and I learned a great deal about woodworking, Joey did a lot of clay work (pulpit and baptismal font), Kevin and James worked on various aspects of the altar.  Us Dad’s learned a great deal ourselves about taking a project over and above what we thought it would be….

Still it was worth it, and it did help the boys remember their lessons for the year.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The May Crowning

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

On May 18th our Blue Knights performed their annual honor guard at the May Crowning for the Regina Caeli Academy of Atlanta.  This year was very special as our Center dedicated a grotto to a founding priest, Father Joseph Peek.  As a Blue Knight parent I truly wish he could be with us, since our Blue Knights follow his manly style of evangelization.  He loved using all the tools God gave us as men to inspire others.

A major change this year was the boys lead the ceremony. Lt Wojtkun was commander of troops, The Sergeants posted guards, the Corporals moved the colors to the rally point, and even the newest private stood as tall and still as a first grader can.  It was just another step down the road of moving each child up the ladder to being a young adult in both this organization, but also our domestic churches.

The boys took this all very seriously…and if you don’t believe me…here you go!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

It was a truly fine capstone to a terrific year of Blue Knights at Regina Caeli Academy!

-ehw

Earning your Cape – Board of Review 2017

As a child grows, and indeed any of us grow, we need to raise the bar of our performance and standards.  Being stagnant casues boys to become complacent, and more vulnerable to the vices of lethargy and complacency.  For boys who are sanguine or phlagmatic in temperment, I also find relaxing the controls too early causes them to not stay on course before their minds mature with a growth of self control.  For melencholic and cholarics temperments, their built in sense of justice mandates all people should make the same grade to get equal rewards.  So as we approached the Board of Review this year we did two things, raised the expectations and increased the feedback to the boys on their preparation levels.

In February we informed the boys passing was 90% not 80%.  Since this was the second year, they had to pick up the expectation level.  We also kept checking up on the boys with their parents.  In my own family, I kept increasing the speed expectations of answers.  This way the boys earned it. While easy for the melencholic, it was painful for my sanguine…until he began to feel the pride of accomplishment.  The melencholic in my house had to learn compassion and how to lay off sarcasm for those who struggled, while embracing the natural enthusiasm of the resident sanguine.

These were good lessons for boys boys and fathers this year.  It is the epit
omy of the lesson my father taught me long ago: “Son I love you all the same, just differently.”  Sounds like he heard the echo of lessons of God the Father, and spoke them aloud to me.

It is with great pleasure to announce all Blue Knights passed and earned their official stripes and bars with performances which left last year in the dust!

-ehw

The Good Friday Quest

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This year St. Michael’s Blue Knights went on a Good Friday Quest to understand three lesson’s:

• Christ as our Servant King
• Our calling as the Body of Christ
• How to live our lives simply for Christ

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Our first visit was to the beautiful Epiphany Byzantine Catholic Church here in Roswell, Georgia.  There Deacon James Smith helped us explore the history of salvation through iconography and their beautiful sanctuary.  Each year the boys learn of the great examples from saints in all the rites of our Catholic Church.  So it was joyful to see the boys discuss with Deacon James the stories of Eastern brothers and sisters in our common faith little known in the Latin Rite.

It was also important to learn some new lessons to understand the icons.  For instance the meaning of long grey beards, or how the saints hold their hand and a cross to tell us they have a message to give us.  We also received the privilege of seeing the icon of Christ the Eternal Priest on the Bishop’s Chair.  Before the icon the boys reaffirmed their desire to accept the trials which will come with the cross of salvation.  We pledged this on the cross the second year Knights carried with them this year for each lesson.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We then marched off to St. Brigid Catholic Church a few minutes away in Johns Creek.  There we first stopped at the statue of the church’s patron.  We discussed here the lesson from Paul’s conversion that when we sin against our brothers and sisters in the church, we sin against Christ.  So since we are the body of Christ on earth, we must act as Christ’s actual body to bring graces to the people of the world.  St. Brigid did this her entire life by giving alms when she had almost nothing to give.  She also did this by building convents and monasteries where whole communities received could act as Christ’s body, and centers for sacramental graces to flow from chapels headed by a growing clerical movement.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We finished our visit by examining the stations of the cross outside the church.  There each young knight had to choose the station which meant the most to him.  After discussing the station with their father, they explained why in their own words to the whole circle.  Joseph chose taking up the cross, because we are called to join Christ with the burden.  Richard chose meeting the women of Jerusalem because he told those ladies not to weep for him, but for their children.  Kevin and James chose the moment Christ was nailed to the cross, and the burden of our sins crashed on the Lord’s body with its greatest force.  Kalen and Joey found Jesus on the cross consoling due to the forgiveness he gave, and his sacrifice complete to open the doors of heaven.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The circle mounted up and visited St. Andrew’s outdoor stations of the cross in Roswell on the Chattahoochee.  At the foot of the cross we ensured the boys understood all this talk of sin, our own crosses, participating with Christ in his burden, and living the Gospel can be overwhelming.  Yet in the expansive task before us, we learned Jesus gave us a very simple way to live out his commandments.  Blessed Cardinal John Newman taught we just had to live each moment the best we can…as close to perfection as possible…and all will be ok.  We reminded the boys how the perfect prayer, the Our Father, gives us the basics for honoring God and neighbor (who by the way is also part of the body of Christ).

 

Now tired from three hours of fasting, walking and travel we returned to our circle patron’s chapel at Regina Caeli Academy to take our journey with the stations of the cross.  Each knight and father read a station aloud, carried the cross, and took a knee in honor of our Lord.  We concluded by invoking St. Joseph to guide us on our path to heaven, and for the Holy Family to send their blessings on our children and guide them aright.

Our days were not yet done though!  Each family fortified by the quest left to serve and attend the Friday night services at their local parishes with their entire family.  For the mission of Blue Knights is not to replace, but prepare each man and boy to be a spiritual leader of the domestic and one day universal church.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

-ehw