Bishops, Priest, Deacons, State Families and Membership,
My brothers and sisters in Christ, Greetings and Blessing from the Nowak Agency,
Hello, to all of you! I am writing this newsletter during lent but before Easter, Palm Sunday to be exact. Some would say “Oh you’re working on 
Sunday? Shame on you.” However, writing to you is anything but work, as a matter of fact it is Evangelization and what a better day to do that then on Sunday.
Why do I call my newsletter or article Evangelization? Well as you know by now it is because I will tell you a story as a way to get you to think about what we do with the Knights a little differently. Two things I did this Lent was one, 33 days to Eucharistic GLORY, a dynamic catholic book that was a journey toward consecration to the Eucharist. As I walk this journey through this book, I realized many times how I take this wonderful sacrament for granted. It saddens me to say it but most of my adult life and part of my youth, I accepted the Eucharist into my body with near to none of the proper preparations. Thankfully my walk with the Knights and the challenges the Knights have put in front of me, showed me that many people who knew how to prepare and what it was to put myself in the proper state of grace. Knowing what I do now about the consecration today, I know what I am signing up for and why I believe it is important to share it with all of you.
I would be lying if I told you that no one I speak with is concerned about the crisis of Faith that we are seeing in the great country today. A Crisis in vocations, and Marriage as a vocation, and Holy Orders. Each of us has an incredible story to tell others as to why our Faith and the sacraments mean so much to us. As I was listening to a Monsignor talk a few months back on the radio with Drew Mariany, he was talking about Drew being mad at God for his Father dying. Monsignor said, “You know why you’re mad?” Drew said, “Yes I lost my father.” Monsignor said, “No it is because you are an atheist. You want your will instead of God’s will.”
I believe you can tie in this crisis to all these wonderful sports kids and the situations they are in these days. They’re traveling every week and becoming mini “demigods” themselves and when they lose, they blame it on God. God wants to build habits into your lives so when suffering happens you can give it to him to be added to his suffering and it can be used for good. Most people don’t want to suffer at all anymore and the culture says get rid of suffering any way you can. As I was traveling this week to speak with a bunch of college students getting ready to graduate. I went through a town in Michigan where I notice a drive through two lanes wrapped around the building on a Friday night. I thought to myself, that must be a good fish fry. However, when coming back through on Saturday at 2:00pm in the afternoon the same place was even busier, so I decided to find out what was so good about this place. Well, it was a dispensary for Marijuana. People were waiting and getting in line for a drive through of an “I don’t want to suffer” solution. It struck me that I should open a counselling center next door. The sad reality is that some people have so much pain that they’d rather continue masking the pain with drugs which will only make them, as a person, less whole.
Here's my second story for you. I decided to pick up a new habit during lent. Most of you already know but I go to daily mass, confession monthly, I say the rosary daily as well as St. Bridget prayers and the way of the cross. So, this Lent, I pick up daily adoration. I just take 15 minutes each day during lent, but I was not expecting to find that I needed so much time away from the world’s problems. Most problems become an emergency when we don’t deal with them right away. Have you ever prayed for God to explain the problem to you more and for him to show you the best way to handle that problem? Yeah, me neither. But I started doing the short way of the cross at adoration, and every time, when I come out of Adoration the problems are smaller and my God is Bigger. I would encourage all of you to take two things to adoration, vocations, and suffering.
Vivat Jesus, Tim Nowak
