At Malta Investiture Mass, Knights And Dames Learn About Discipleship

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At a Mass in which 69 new Knights and Dames were invested in the Order of Malta’s American Association, Cardinal Dolan shared some important points about discipleship with them.

Even apart from religious faith, God could be known naturally through gifts such as friendship and love, art and literature, marriage and family. “These are all gifts we see around us,” the cardinal said in his homily at the Nov. 13 Solemn Mass of Investiture in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Cardinal Dolan, the association’s principal chaplain, was principal celebrant of the afternoon liturgy. He told the new Knights and Dames that the things we enjoy so much in nature have as their purpose “leading us closer to God.”

“All of these beautiful things are the means to an end,” he explained. “God is the supreme end.”

The problems begin when they turn out to distract us from God, the cardinal said.

“Everything beautiful and sacred…is intended to lead to God, never to lead us from Him,” Cardinal Dolan said.

The Order of Malta, formally known as the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and Malta, traces its origins to a hospice for pilgrims established in Jerusalem in the second half of the 11th century. It celebrates 1099 as its official establishment and is one of the oldest religious orders in the Church.

The Knights and Dames were invested with the Cross of the Order by American Association President Jack E. Pohrer and received a special blessing from Cardinal Dolan.

Those invested included 16 Knights and Dames of Magistral Grace from the archdiocese. They are Patricia G. Barbera, St. Augustine, Ossining; Dr. Theodora S. Budnik, Holy Trinity, Poughkeepsie; Dr. Joseph R. Carcione, Resurrection, Rye; Joan M. and Robert Joseph Dunn, Jeanne Jugan Residence, the Bronx; Dr. Alfred and Veronica A. Frontera, Benedictine Hospital Chapel, Kingston; Dr. Grace E. Grabowy, Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral and Most Precious Blood, Manhattan; Mariola B. Haggar, St. Vincent Ferrer, Manhattan; John C. Hettinger, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Manhattan; Peter A. Horan, Our Lady of Good Counsel and St. Thomas More, Manhattan; Bree D. Hudson, St. John the Evangelist and Our Lady of Peace, Manhattan; Dr. George V. Lombardi, St. John the Evangelist and Our Lady of Peace, Manhattan; Christopher L. Pia, Our Lady of Pompei, Manhattan; Dr. Theresa Tretter, St. Augustine, Ossining; and Dr. Stephen C. Yap, Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral and Most Precious Blood.

Five Conventual Chaplains ad honorem were invested. They are Bishop Edward Scharfenberger of the Diocese of Albany, Bishop Peter Libasci of Manchester, N.H.; Auxiliary Bishop John O’Hara of the Archdiocese of New York; Auxiliary Bishop Peter Baldacchino of the Archdiocese of Miami; and Msgr. Dennis Sheehan, Archdiocese of Boston. Four other priests were invested as Deputy Chaplains.

Nancy A. Carley, who was invested along with her husband, Brian, is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, who is no stranger to New York thanks largely to their daughter who recently attended Columbia University. She said she was very happy to be back inside the newly renovated St. Patrick’s Cathedral for the first time in three years.

“It’s very welcoming,” she said. “It’s everybody’s church.”

Many of her friends and associates in the business community alerted her to Malta’s charitable endeavors, so she will be happy to play a first-hand role herself. “Everyone kept talking about this group,” she said.

Mrs. Carley told CNY she was very interested in becoming directly involved in prison ministry.

Bernard Barone of Naples, Fla., said he was seeking to “learn more about the faith, and to serve the poor and the ill.”

Earlier this year, he had made a Malta pilgrimage to Lourdes, France, before he even was invested as a Knight. On that trip, he met a woman whose son, a Catholic priest, had been murdered for his faith, in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2010.

He showed a reporter a memorial card for the priest that he translated into English after his return from Lourdes.

“It was a moving experience,” he said.