Brother Knights,
On July I attended the VA State organizational meeting and the 10th National Eucharistic Congress. The organizational meeting was a great kickoff to the new fraternal year and focused on many of the practical works and programs we have planned. All of you should have an email listing council activities in August and if you have not received it, please reach out to me and/or our Financial Secretary, Brian Ripple, so we can confirm the contact information we have for you.
All our charitable works are necessary, yet we should always remain grounded in our Catholic faith. The Eucharistic Congress was an extraordinary call to renewal of our Catholic faith and many attendees, including my wife and I, witnessed this. The mission we have now is to spread this call to renewal. How does this renewal happen? To borrow the words of Fr. Mike Schmitz’s keynote speech: “you can never have revival without repentance”. This is a reminder for me and all of you to go to regular confession. What do we do next? Per Bishop Robert Barron’s closing from his keynote speech:
“Your job: bring the lumen to the gentles. Bring the light of Christ out into the secular world. This great revival will have been a failure if we don’t change our society, if we don’t stream forth from this place with the Light of Christ. Become the people you’re meant to be.
Catherine of Sienna said it: ‘become the people God wants you to be and you will set the world on fire’”.

James Valenzuela
Grand Knight