CHARLOTTE — A Catholic order that supports the Holy Land welcomed new members Saturday at a Mass offered by Bishop Michael Martin.
Six new knights and dames were presented membership scrolls to the local section of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem in a celebration called a “Scroll Mass.”
The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem was founded nearly a thousand years ago by the pope during the Crusades when Jerusalem came under attack. Today, men and women of the order still sustain and aid the Christian community in the Holy Land through their charitable work.
Jane Desch, Nancy Llewellyn, Katie Matlak, Joanne Somerville, Christopher Frank and Bryan Somerville received scrolls signed by the head of the order, Cardinal Grand Master Fernando Cardinal Filoni, and presented by Dame Valencia Yvonne Camp, head of the order’s Washington, D.C.-based Middle Atlantic Lieutenancy. The six men and women had been invested in the order since 2022, but the pandemic had delayed their formal certifications.
In the special liturgy at St. Patrick Cathedral – a Votive Mass of the Holy Cross with red vestments and readings focused on penance – Bishop Martin lauded the Equestrian Order for its work and encouraged members to seek out and embrace the cross in their lives.
“We look at the cross and run,” he said. “We look at the cross and we're irritated by it. We look at the cross and we try to find ways in which we don't have to embrace it.
“And yet our celebration today reminds us that even if you think you can get out of here without the cross, you're mistaken. The cross will come and find you. So why not embrace it more? Why not find ways every single day to praise God for giving us whatever cross is ours?”
Whether it is illness, family challenges or workplace difficulties, we all have a cross to bear, he said. He encouraged Equestrian Order members “to seek the cross through penance.”
Our culture is “addicted to comfort,” he noted, “all of us fall prey to that.”
Intentionally seeking out the cross and choosing to embrace it is an “absolutely foreign” concept, he said, but that is exactly what we as Christians are called to do.
“Your order has a tremendous history of not just penitential practice, but of denying itself for the sake of a greater good for others, for the well-being of others,” he said.
Bishop Martin noted that the agreement struck recently between Israel and Hamas might bring “some small steps towards peace” in the Holy Land.
“We rejoice with our brothers and sisters in the holy places, in the sacred spaces, that maybe, maybe this can be a rebirth of peace that God certainly desires,” he said.
Likewise, he said, each of us needs to take steps to “eliminate the warfare” in our own lives and times. “The only way that we can do that … is to try each and every day to claim some mode of penance, to in some way embrace the cross.”
“May your association with one another, with so many men and women around the world who have made the same commitment that you make, may that be revitalized by the small steps that each and every one of us are willing to take, and embrace the penitential life so that we might be lifted up, raised up with Christ on the cross,” he said.
The Equestrian Order has approximately 30,000 members in 52 countries. Members, who can be seen at special Church liturgies and processions wearing distinctive chivalric garb emblazoned with the Jerusalem Cross, are encouraged to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and support Christians there with their donations and prayers. The global amount of aid is more than $10 million annually, which supports the work the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and other Catholic institutions by offsetting the running costs of the patriarchate and its 68 parishes – including support for nearly 1,600 teachers and other staff in schools, a seminary, orphanages and clinics in Israel, Palestine and Jordan, and providing social and humanitarian aid to families.
“We are grateful to God for the new knights and dames and for their dedication to the Church in the Holy Land,” said Zachariah Blankenbaker, president of the order’s Charlotte section, who also thanked Bishop Martin for his support of the order.
Learn more about the order’s work at www.midatlanticeohs.com.
— Patricia L. Guilfoyle