Idaho State Chaplain
Idaho Knights of Columbus
State Chaplain Message
Bringing Hope
My Brother Knights,
I hope this message finds you well. Just recently I was with the delegates who were supposed to go to the Supreme Convention in Washington D.C.. However, with the CoronaVirus, it was a virtual Convention this year and we met up at a hotel in Pocatello. The last day we had a small retreat where we watched a few videos from the series on Formed.org called “Kapaun’s Men Virtue Series.” It is based on the life of Fr. Emil Kapaun, a Catholic Priest and U.S. Army Chaplain who was captured while giving aid to wounded soldiers during the Korean War and died in a Prisoner of War Camp in 1951. What an incredible man! Even though many of the soldiers knew they were going to die, Fr. Kapaun inspired them to keep going. Many soldiers who survived said, “He gave us a will to live.” “Even in the darkest hours when he would offer a prayer service, he could make a mud hut seem like a grand cathedral.” Even in these hard times Fr. Kapaun lived his faith and brought these men hope, a hope that came from his relationship and faith in Jesus Christ. Even after Fr. Kapaun died in the camp, he told the men to keep on fighting the good fight, and they did to the best of their ability, many of them actually surviving the camp.
As we continue to live our lives in these difficult times, may we the Knights of Columbus bring hope to those who have lost the will to live. May we like Fr. Kapaun, allow the divine heartbeat of the Risen Jesus to beat again anew in our own lives, that we can share this hope with others. To borrow the words of Pope Francis, “In all those places where the grave seems to have the final word, where death seems the only way out. Let us proclaim, to share and reveal: Vivat Jesus! Jesus lives! He is living and wants to rise again in all those faces that have buried hope, buried dreams, buried dignity…. May we the Knights of Columbus allow His tenderness and His love to guide our own steps and may we allow the beating of His heart to animate everything that we do“ (Excerpt from Homily from the Mass of the Easter Vigil 2017 in the Vatican Basilica, Rome).
God Bless and Vivat Jesus,
Fr. John
Idaho State Chaplain

Video Messages from Father John Kucera
Select date
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Book of Ezekiel 37,12-14.
Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people!
I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land; thus you shall know that I am the LORD. I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.
Psalms 130(129),1-2.3-4.5-6.7-8.
LORD, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to my voice in supplication.
If you, O LORD, mark iniquities,
LORD, who can stand?
But with you is forgiveness,
that you may be revered.
I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in his word.
My soul waits for the Lord
more than sentinels for dawn.
For with the LORD is kindness
and with him is plenteous redemption;
and he will redeem Israel
from all their iniquities.
Letter to the Romans 8,8-11.
But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 11,1-45.
Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill.
So the sisters sent word to him, saying, "Master, the one you love is ill."
When Jesus heard this he said, "This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it."
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was.
Then after this he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."
The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?"
Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours in a day? If one walks during the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.
But if one walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him."
He said this, and then told them, "Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him."
So the disciples said to him, "Master, if he is asleep, he will be saved."
But Jesus was talking about his death, while they thought that he meant ordinary sleep.
So then Jesus said to them clearly, "Lazarus has died.
And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe. Let us go to him."
So Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go to die with him."
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.
Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away.
And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother.
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home.
Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you."
Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise."
Martha said to him, "I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day."
Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
She said to him, "Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world."
When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, "The teacher is here and is asking for you."
As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him.
For Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still where Martha had met him.
So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her saw Mary get up quickly and go out, they followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled,
and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Sir, come and see."
And Jesus wept.
So the Jews said, "See how he loved him."
But some of them said, "Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?"
So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it.
Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, "Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days."
Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?"
So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you for hearing me.
I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me."
And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"
The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, "Untie him and let him go."
Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him.
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
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