The victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita continue to suffer. After several weeks of help, many displaced families of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama are still living in uncertainty and anxiety. Their hope is founded on the incredible generosity of the untold number of people and organizations who have rushed to their aid, including Knights of Columbus.

United under the spiritual vision of the Servant of God Father Michael J. McGivney, Knights once again are responding to others in need. In the family, the workplace or the neighborhood the hand of the Knight is always open in generosity, love and compassion. Father McGivney’s Knights will be there until the job is done. That moment, it appears, is still in the distant future.

Father McGivney saw things from God’s point of view. He believed in the power of Catholic men banded together as brothers in Christ. Such unity would unleash a great energy for change in the local community and society at large. History has proven how “on the mark” his thought and vision were and continue to be, more than a century after the founding of the Knights of Columbus.

The “spiritual exercises” of the Knight are those provided for every Catholic: the holy sacrifice of the Mass, the reception of holy Communion, frequent confession, devotion to Mary, the reading of Scripture and private prayer. Knighthood directs all of these graces toward the considerable demands of the vocation of the layman in the modern world. To become a faithful and loving spouse, to provide spiritual leadership as the head of the household, and to provide for the material support of the family are difficult tasks that are possible only with God’s help. The Knight is further called to become a conscientious worker and a ready helper to the less fortunate.

The things of God are always mysterious. He is totally other, and it is difficult to imagine what intimacy with him is all about. What does it mean to be God’s friend? How do we get beyond our broken humanity to God’s divine nature? The answer is found in the person of Jesus Christ. In Christ, God, who is pure spirit, has taken on a human nature and chosen to live as one like us in all things but sin. We do not have to “ascend” to God, for in Jesus Christ he has “descended” to us.

Because God became man, intimacy with him is now available to us by being exactly what we are, human persons so loved by him that he willingly became one among us. Our very humanity is now the way to God. The mystery of the Incarnation has elevated human nature to new possibilities. When our humanity is joined to that of Jesus Christ we have communion with him in both his human and divine natures. Human nature becomes the way to encounter the divinity of God. The sacraments of baptism and confirmation join us to Christ in his passion, death and resurrection. In the Eucharist we have “communion” with Christ’s Body and Blood and thus share in his life of intimate union with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Father McGivney’s desire that every Knight have a deep relationship with Christ was based in this understanding of the joining of the human and the divine in the one Christ.

The heart of every cause for canonization is the relationship of intimacy between the saint-to-be with God. But this does not mean that the candidate for canonization has left behind his humanity, his human nature with all of its personality traits and quirks. Rather, it is in this very human identity that the future saint has found God and learned how to accomplish his will.

For Father McGivney and his Knights, the ordinariness of human life is charged with the extraordinary presence of the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ. This new meaning and purpose impels us to open our hearts, our homes and our checkbooks to those in need.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have brought many people low. The work of the Knights is to bring the light of Christ to these situations so as to overcome the darkness and chase away fear and anxiety. Father McGivney, we ask you to lead the way.

Dominican Father Gabriel B. O’Donnell is postulator for the cause of sainthood of the Servant of God Father Michael J. McGivney.