WHERE WILL YOU BE HAVING SUNDAY MASS?

So many people want to know where I will be having Sunday Mass that I have decided to put my schedule on my blog. You can access it over on the right hand side of this page, under my photo,  where it says:


FATHER KNOTT'S MASS SCHEDULE

I will keep it updated. 
Please feel free to join me when you can. 

BROTHERS FROM TOGO IN AFRICA

MONKS FROM AFRICA STUDYING AT SAINT MEINRAD ARCHABBEY

SAYING GOODBYE TO BROTHER DAVID, 
SOON TO BE FATHER DAVID



Brother Cajetan OSB, myself, Brother David OSB and Brother Justin OSB joined me for Mass at the Cathedral of the Assumption on June 9th. I have tried to offer them support during their years at Saint Meinrad.

Brother David wanted to say goodbye. He will be returning to his monastery in Togo very soon.
Togo is a French speaking country in west Africa.
Brother David is a deacon now and will be ordained a priest very soon after he gets home. The other two will remain as students at Saint Meinrad for a a few more years.



Brother Cajetan OSB, Brother David OSB and Brother Justin OSB



Abbott Romain, OSB
Monastery of the Incarnation
Togo, Africa
Brother David's abbott, Abbott Romain, was a student of mine at St. Meinrad a few years ago.

The monastic community in procession. 

AFRAID OF GOD? DON'T BE!

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.

His Son was not sent to condemn the world, but to

save it.

John 3

God loves the world? God does not condemn the world?  God wants to save the world? You'd never know it from the hell-fire and brimstone preaching that has come from some pulpits! If you have listened closely to the preaching that has come from those pulpits, you would have to conclude that God would like nothing better than to wipe us out and start all over! 

If I had not had a dramatic conversion experience as a young priest, I might have been one of those doomsday preachers, threatening people with eternal punishment by a get-even God. Because of that conversion experience, I am a committed preacher of the "good news." I believe with all my heart that God not only loves us, but loves us without condition - no ands, ifs and buts about it - no matter what! That love is not something we could earn no matter how good we try to be! No, it is an unexpected, unearned, free gift from an incredibly generous God! Yes, we can reject that love and turn away from it, but God does not withhold it from us because of what we do or fail to do.  That love is always there and free for the taking, so if we cut ourselves off from it, it is our fault, not God's!  

My conversion experience was about a dramatic change in my perception of God. Before my conversion, you could say that I was scared of God, that I never felt acceptable to God, that I was always anxious and guilty about something, that I held back and was shamed about one thing or another. I have always been a believer and a follower, but my relationship with God was never a totally comfortable relationship. I was a believer and I wanted to please God, but our relationship was parental. God was the demanding father and I was the screw-up child who wanted to be valued but felt I could never measure up.

At my conversion experience, I discovered the truth of God's unconditional love for me and for all people. Every day since then, I have felt that love in my bones. I live each day now with the certain knowledge that I am loved and forgiven, in spite of my sins and mistakes. I try to teach others about this free gift, this incredible love, that is available to all of us - the good and bad alike. I know I am not perfect, but I also know that that is OK, because my best is good enough for God. In spite of my many imperfections, I do not worry at all about having to face God after death. In fact, I am totally at peace as far as death goes! When the time comes, I know that something better than I can imagine awaits me.

Because of my conversion experience, I refuse to be part of the "hellfire and brimstone school of preaching," which believes that the best way to get people to shape up, and do the right thing, is to scare the hell out of them, by painting God as a just judge who is going to give us exactly what we deserve - eternal punishment as payback. As far as I am concerned, I believe that approach is not only theologically unsound, I don't believe it works! In my 47 years of ordained ministry, I have seen many more people converted by the "good news" than all that "fire and brimstone" ranting and raving.

Here are just a few of the things the scriptures teach us about God.     

·       He looked at everything he had made and declared it good.

·       Like a shepherd he feeds his flock and gathers the lambs in his arms.

·       While we were still sinners Christ died for us.

·       It was not you who chose me. It was I who chose you.

·       This man welcomes sinners and even eats with them.

·       The good and bad alike are invited to the feast

·       All received a full days pay.

·       Both sons, the prodigal and the compliant, are loved by their father.

·       I go to prepare a place for you so that where I am, you may also be.

Pietistic, arrogant, religious know-it-alls get on my nerves big time! They make me angry most of all because they attempt to horde God's love and measure it out to people in little thimbles, as if God's love was in short supply. Resembling the twisted god they believe in, they tend to project on to the real God their own self-loathing. One of the things that saddens me most is that I know that some young people think they have to be bible-thumping, body-hating religious fanatics to be serious disciples of Jesus Christ.  Since many young people can't wrap their minds around that tired old approach, many throw the baby out with the bathwater, yawning at what they hear while dismissing religion altogether.

How tragic it is, after God has bent over backwards to let us know that we are loved and that he wants us to have a full life, for so many people not to enjoy God:  not to enjoy the generous daily blessings of God, not to enjoy the daily unfolding of his marvelous creation, not to enjoy basking in his friendship and not to enjoy the marvelous array of people he sends into our lives.  A personal relationship with God is supposed to be life giving, not life draining!

Once I discovered that God loves and accepts me, sins and all, I was able to love and accept myself, sins and all. Once I learned to love and accept myself, sins and all, I have learned to love and accept others, sins and all! This insight into God's love has done more than anything to make my religion life-giving, instead of life-draining!  This insight into God's love has brought God down out of the clouds and made him a delightful companion who walks beside me as we live my life out - together!     

HELP IS ON THE WAY.....

....FINALLY

A 40' SHIPPING CONTAINER HEADED TO ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES

Valuable Surplus Medical Supplies, Laptop Computers for Kids, Catholic High School Laboratory Equipment and Chapel Furnishings.

Medical Supplies for the two orphanages, three hospitals, nursing home and mental hospital.



Laptop computers for kids and two computer camps this summer.



Our beautiful chairs for the new chapel all lined up and ready to go.



Donated lab equipment from Spalding and Bellarmine Universities here in Louisville to one of the Catholic High Schools down in the Diocese of Kingstown SVG.



Our friend, Teresa Campbell of Brown-Forman Cooperage, oversees the loading of 60 donated chairs to be used in the new Saint James Chapel in the Kingstown Pastoral Centre in SVG.



Loading in progress.



Nice hospital beds



Thanks to my seminary classmate, Paul Bluel, who helped so much with all the paper work that it takes to carry off a project like this.



Wheel chairs, crutches, scales and IV poles.



Infant warmer and EKG machines and other equipment.





Getting as much in as possible, including walkers.



Everything you can see stacked against the wall, and a whole lot more, went into the container: rubber gloves, blood pressure cuffs, bandages, needles, surgical equipment and a host of other needed equipment by the cases.




Fifteen desk office desk chairs were donated by J R ARCHITECTS of Louisville.








Several more pallets like this one were loaded.



Getting toward the end of a full container.



Local news coverage.



The team of packers.



Almost ready to roll.



Applying the seal to prevent tampering.




That's a whole lot of help going to SVG.  It will go by truck to the railroad. By railroad it will go to the port of Savannah. From Savannah it will go by ship to SVG .It should arrive in SVG the first week of June.




We could not have done it without the dedication and hard work of Tim Tomes.
He went above and beyond the call of duty.

HOLDING GRUDGES

                                            HOLDING GRUDGES

                                 

FROM THE RECORD, May 11, 2017

Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet a sinner holds them tight.

Sirach 27:30

There is something I haven’t been able to get out of my mind since Christmas and that is how many families could not get together and enjoy one another’s company because of grudge holding A grudge is a persistent feeling of ill will or resentment resulting from a past insult or injury. Maybe it’s because I am around a lot of families during the holidays, but it seems that I hear about so many situations where it wrecks the holiday peace for so many. I point out to my brothers and sisters just how lucky we are not to have that problem.

Grudge holding is one human behavior that I find very curious. Because it does more damage to the one holding it than it does to the one it is held against, grudge holding amounts to convincing oneself that you can hurt someone back by continuing to hurt yourself. “I’ll show you! I’ll hurt me!” It’s like killing yourself because your girlfriend left you to get even with her. Holding onto a grudge is like holding a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else: you are the one who gets burned.

In carrying a grudge, the degree of resentment is usually out of proportion to the insult or injury. It is often something very small that has been nursed and cuddled till it becomes larger than life! At the core of a grudge, you will probably find a fear that is unowned. It could be a fear of not being good enough, a fear of not being secure enough or a fear of not being all that one appears to be that the original slight exposed.

I have always found that the best way to head off grudges is to lower one’s expectations of loved ones and let them be who they are! Yes, we may need to let them be outrageous, inconsistent and even inconsiderate at times in hopes that they will return the favor someday.

When we “expect” those we love to do what we want, act like we want, say what we want – and they don’t - we set ourselves up for disappointment that can lead to grudge-holding. Thomas Merton was right. “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise, we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”

Carrying a grudge is a choice, a self-righteous, self-defeating, pride-filled choice between simply being “right” and having a sister, brother, mother, father or friend as part of one’s life. Instead of choosing to have a whole family, a grudge-carrier choose to have a family with a hole in it! Choosing a response that is so “wrong” is a high price to pay for that need to be “right.”

SAYING GOODBYE TO A FRIEND

A couple of weeks ago, Dua Nguyen (left), a seminarian from Saint Meinrad stopped by my place to say goodbye. He has been a student at Saint Meinrad for the last several years. I have tried to support him a bit since he was here studying for the Archdiocese of Hanoi in Vietnam.

He graduated from Saint Meinrad this spring and is now returning to Vietnam to be ordained and to serve as a priest in Vietnam. 

Dua is a very kind, patient and grateful young man. It was a honor to get to know him and encourage him on his path to the priesthood. I wish him all the best. I will miss seeing him.