My dear Brothers and Sisters,
Each November, we commemorate the Founding Fathers and the founding of our Noble Order with Masses and a message from the Supreme Knight. Following this tradition, I have chosen to write about the faith which led the Founding fathers of our Order to persist in their efforts to establish the Knights of Marshall in the face of great opposition even within the Church. In so doing I hope we can draw some lessons to strengthen our own faith.
The history of our Order, tells us that the 13 Founding members were very ordinary men, most of whom had climbed no more than the standard seven educational ladder in those days. The story also goes that when they decided to form the Noble Order, they encountered great opposition from both the clergy and the laity of the Catholic community in Sekondi where they worshiped. But even in that hostile and difficult atmosphere and circumstances in which they found themselves, they remained serene, persisted in their faith, contemplated the will of God and His providence and today we are all beneficiaries of their persistence.
My brothers and sisters, in drawing lessons from our Founders, I wish to invite you to an effort to clarify our understanding of our faith in God and the way in which we are called to proclaim it first to ourselves in the Noble Order and then to others. This is in keeping with God’s will, as in the final analysis our mission is to serve both God and our neighbour. In other words the service we are called to render out of faith is not to ourselves for self-serving motives, but a common service in which we all must collaborate out of love for God who sends us forth, and out of love for our neighbour to whom we are sent. Our Founders had a very high appreciation of this fact of their faith, which was their reason for persisting in establishing a society whose members, living in unity and bound in fraternal relations, would provide charity and service to humanity. Our Founding Fathers willed that our principal mission, the frame of reference for all our activities, should consist in living and sharing the faith handed down to us through the Word of God and as defined by the Holy Catholic Church.
I was privileged to be among the 40 or so Marshallan Knights and Ladies who visited Israel and Italy last month on a mission to strengthen our faith. And what a spiritually uplifting pilgrimage it was! The pilgrimage took us to where the Annunciation took place, the place of Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth, the birth place of Jesus, the location of the wedding feast at Cana, the Jordan River in which Jesus was baptised and the mountain on which Jesus was tempted. We visited the site where Jesus performed the miracle of the five loaves and two fishes and went on a boat ride on the sea of Galilee on which He walked. We saw Zaccheus’ sycamore tree, visited the mountain of Beatitudes and saw the mountain of Transfiguration from afar. We went up the mount of Olives and descended via the “Hosanna” path to the garden of Gethsemane, continuing through the various stations of the Cross to where Jesus was crucified and buried. We saw the rock on which Jesus roasted some fish on the banks of the Sea of Galilee after his resurrection when on seeing Peter going back to his fishing career called and asked him three times whether he loved Him? Finally, we saw on the mount of olives the footprints of Jesus on the rock from which He ascended into Heaven. Most of the places mentioned above are today in Palestinian territory. That should give some idea of the everyday challenges to the faith of the Christians who live there.
An even more profound impression was made to our faith when we visited places in Italy where Sts Peter and Paul and many Christians in those early days of Christianity were martyred and buried. The visit to some of the burial sites of the Christians in the catacombs and in the Basilicas was both illuminating and awesome. The sight of the body of Saint Padre Pio, lying serene and fresh as in sleep after being dead for 40 years was enough to strengthen our belief in the God that we serve.
While all this may whet your appetite for the next pilgrimage, my point in bringing them to your notice is to get you to appreciate the difficulties and challenges that the Faith that was handed down to us has undergone. Generations have kept it alive over many centuries and through various periods of history and civilizations. It is now our turn to carry this faith as a light for ourselves and for others.
Our Founding Fathers understood this and that is why in the face of adversity and strong opposition they still managed to establish the Noble Order. Today, because of the prosperity gospel preached by many Churches, suffering in any form is abhorred by many Christians including Marshallans even though what we suffer today is nothing compared to what the early Christians, persisting in their faith experienced.
Again our Founding Fathers understood that Faith is a gift of God, a gift that enables us to know Him, to understand our mission and the meaning of our existence and to behave accordingly. I believe that it is this knowledge that led our Founding fathers to formulate the mission of the Noble Order, which is basically to bring Christ to the world and also gave us the principles of Unity, Charity and Fraternity to help the cause of the mission. The question to ask is: “does our behaviour towards one another within and outside the Noble Order, indicate that we are living these principles?”
Through faith we know that we are created in God’s image. Our dignity as human beings is therefore based on this divine resemblance. If we understand this, then why do we sometimes look down on our fellow human beings within and outside of the Noble Order because they are handicapped financially, socially or have different cultural or political identity from ours?
On reflecting on the faith of our Founding fathers, let our own faith reform us into new men and women as the words of St Paul states, “the old man is buried and a new man is born through faith” (Eph 4: 22-24). Let our faith in God bear fruit as in the parable of the talents in Mt 25: 14-30 so that others who see us may come to appreciate the beauty of our Noble Order and want to be part of us.
I wish you a happy feast, God’s abundant blessings and persistence in your faith. In conclusion, please pray with me that the Good Lord will in his endless mercy give rest to all Marshallans and family members who have gone before us. Amen.
Yours fraternally,
SIR KT BRO EDDIE PRAH
(SUPREME KNIGHT)