At the 12:00 Noon Mass on Sunday, July 25th, Steve Ziemba, the immediate past State Deputy of the Indiana Knights of Columbus, along with a Fourth Degree Honor Guard, made a presentation of the icon of Our Lady of Charity to our parish in gratitude for the past two years that I gave to the state Knights of Columbus as their State Chaplain.The icon made the rounds of our state the past couple of years and has been presented to us to house.
The new home for this icon is in our chapel where those who attend daily Mass will have the opportunity to see it on a regular basis.
The story of Our Lady of Charity is a rather simple one. Like many other Marian apparitions, it occurred in a nameless place and involved ordinary people.
Around the year 1600, three boys were sent to gather salt needed to preserve the meat of the town’s slaughterhouse, which supplied food for the workers and inhabitants at the Spanish copper mines near Santiago, Cuba. Two of the boys were native Indians and brothers, Rodrigo and Juan de Hoyos, and the third was a 10-year-old black slave, Juan Moreno.
On their way back to Santiago del Prado (modern El Cobre) and halfway across the Bay of Nipe, they encountered a fierce storm that threatened to destroy their frail boat.
Suddenly, the waters calmed. In the distance the boys saw a white bundle floating on a piece of wood that they mistook for a sea bird. In reality, it was a small statue of Mother Mary holding the infant Jesus in her left arm and a gold cross in her right. Inscribed on the wooden board were the words, Yo soy la Virgen de la Caridad (I am the Virgin of Charity).
According to recorded testimony, despite the motion of the ocean waves and the storm, neither the image of Mary nor her white robes were wet.
As I have said so often in the past, the Knights of Columbus is a very worthwhile fraternal organization dedicated to family and church. It is an organization open to every man in our parish.
Our parish's Knights of Columbus Council is attempting to form the Squires program as well. The Squires are open to all boys aged 10 to 18. If you are interested, contact our council’s Grand Knight, Gregg Blocher, at 902-1171.
Thank you to the Indiana Knights of for their witness to the faith as well as for their gift of the icon of Our Lady of Charity.
