Last Updated: Friday - 09/24/2010

A silver rose for Our Lady

Alberta Knights join N. American relay to honour Our Lady of Guadalupe

PHOTO SUPPLIED Three sculpted silver roses will transverse across North America as the Knights of Columbus honour Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The Knights of Columbus of Alberta and the Northwest Territories will participate for the first time in a North American effort to pay tribute to Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americans, through the Silver Rose program.

The program involves running a sculpted silver rose from Ontario through the United States to Monterrey, Mexico, where it will arrive on Dec. 12, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The Alberta leg of the program starts in Lloydminster June 13 and finishes in Grande Prairie July 3, said James Knapp, the Calgary grand knight in charge of the program. The rose will begin its British Columbia leg in Dawson Creek on July 4.

The rose will spend three days in Edmonton beginning June 26 and will move to Fort Saskatchewan June 29.

"It will be travelling by car from city to city but what we are going to do is in each of the major cities, there will be a procession of youth with the Knights of Columbus that will carry it into a church, where it will stay overnight," said Knapp.

PRAYER SERVICES

"There will be a special prayer service honouring Our Lady of Guadalupe at each of the churches that (the rose) stays."

Knapp, a special education assistant with the Calgary Catholic School District, is provincial Squires chairman and grand knight of Bishop Kidd Council 4749.

He said the Silver Rose Run began in 1960 as a project of the Columbian Squires - the Knights' official youth program - to honour Our Lady of Guadalupe.

James Knapp

The program has continued since then as a project of Squires circles, councils and fourth degree assemblies in several jurisdictions. In 2001 Supreme Knight Carl Anderson expanded the program by beginning the Running of the Rose from the 119th annual supreme convention in Toronto.

"The Running of the Silver Rose is a perfect program for the Knights of Columbus," said Anderson at the time. "Through it we honour not only Our Lady of Guadalupe and express the unity of the order, but we also reaffirm the order's dedication to the sanctity of human life.

"It is to the Blessed Mother that we turn in prayer as we work to end the culture of death that grips our society. As we think in terms of 'One Life, One Rose,' it is most appropriate we turn to our Lady of Guadalupe who made known her will through Juan Diego and the miracle of the roses."

The original rose was a natural rose that decomposed after a year. Since 1961, a Mexican knight has been making the rose out of silver.

THREE ROSES

Knapp said the Running of the Silver Rose program actually consists of three silver roses leaving from Ontario.

"All three roses will start in Ontario and from Ontario one goes west, one goes east and one goes south," he explained. "All three will meet up in Texas in November and then they will cross over and go to the basilica in Monterrey, Mexico."

He said the Running of the Silver Rose would become an annual program for the Alberta-Northwest Territories Knights.

"We are encouraging all of the Squires in the province as well as diocesan youth ministries to get involved with their Knights of Columbus councils and to really push that big youth component and be excited about it, because this is a first time for us and we want to make it better every year," Knapp said.

"I'm excited to have it coming. I'm excited to be in charge, although it's a daunting task to coordinate such an event."

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