MESSAGE OF POPE JOHN PAUL II
TO THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS

Wednesday, 7 August 1985

Dear Friends,

I welcome this opportunity to send greetings in the peace of Christ to the Knights of Columbus gathered for the annual Assembly of the Supreme Council. To think of you, the Knights of Columbus, prompts in me grateful sentiments for your constant loyalty to the Church and for your numerous programs of charity and fraternal service. I think with deep appreciation of the significant contribution you are making to the upkeep and improvement of the Basilica of Saint Peter’s in Rome. And I know too of your dedicated involvement in your local Churches and parishes, and of all your untiring efforts on behalf of evangelization, family life, the handicapped and the unborn.

I am speaking to you in order to assure you of my encouragement and prayers. I urge you to persevere in doing good works and to remain steadfast in the Catholic faith which has been handed on to you by the Church. A passage from Saint John expresses my sentiments well when he writes: “My reason for having written you is not that you do not know the truth but that you do . . . Let what you heard from the beginning remain in your hearts. If what you heard from the beginning does remain in your hearts, then you in turn will remain in the Son and in the Father” . Perseverance is a special grace from the Lord, one of vital importance for our pilgrimage of faith. Keep on believing what you have been taught, “remain rooted in the teaching of Christ” , and continue to build up the Church in love. And then, as Saint John says, “in truth and love, . . . we shall have grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son” (1 Io. 2, 21. 24). To all of you and your families I send my Apostolic Blessing.

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