2025 archive

August 3, 2025 — Pompeo Batoni’s 1767 painting of the Sacred Heart was on display at St. John Paul II Catholic Church for a short time in the beginning of August as part of the Knights of Columbus Pilgrim Icon Program. Launched in January 2025, 300 blessed icons are traveling through the Knights of Columbus jurisdictions.

This coincides with the 350th anniversary of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s vision of the Sacred Heart, which culminated in June 1675 with Christ’s request for a feast in honor of his heart.

The devotion to the Sacred Heart is ultimately about a relationship – not just a pious practice, but a spirituality rooted in the person of Jesus. This spirituality has developed over centuries and includes many expressions, but Pope Francis entrusted the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network with a specific path to help people grow in this relationship. It’s called “The Way of the Heart,” and it’s based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

The Way of the Heart is a nine-step spiritual itinerary. The first three steps focus on the heart – the heart of God who loves us; our own hearts, with all our desires and distractions; and the heart of the world, with its suffering and longing. Steps four to six focus on the heart of Christ – how he loves, how he preaches, how he calls us his friends and sends us forth. And the final three steps center on the mission – how we are called to participate in Christ’s own mission of compassion.

Excerpts above taken from Knights of Columbus monthly publication, Columbia, June 2025, pages 18-21.
Link to the online magazine

August 8, 2025 — In an effort to modernize and to expand the Knights of Columbus Council 16492’s social outreach, we are now live on Facebook.

Link to our Public Group on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/groups/kofc16492

It will take time to migrate content over to the Facebook page and this website will continue to be populated.

Please go and check it out. Please respond to posts and request to be added to the group. It has not been easy finding you all on Facebook.

Once a member of the group, you all will be able to add posts and pictures. You all can comment and share the posts with others on Facebook as well. It is a public group so anyone can visit it and see what we are doing. I believe you must be a member of the group before you can post. It will be moderated to keep the content appropriate for this group.

A mille grazie to Brother Knight, Mario Bernardone, and his entire family who hosted a night of hospitality, fellowship, and a presentation by the Benedictines of Divine Will. Multiple groups from St. John Paul II were present for this event and enjoyed delicious culinary delights at Mario’s restaurant, Trattoria di Bernadones.

Father Elijah {Superior} (pictured with Mother Gabrielle) was present with two other Brothers (Brother Joseph and Brother Augustine) who blessed this event with their sojourn from Italy to East Tennessee where they have started the Benedictines of Divine Will. Father Elijiah spoke to the gathering about his Benedictine past, his time in Italy, the founding of this group, and the many mysteries of our Catholic faith.

He introduced us to the Servant of God, Luisa Piccarreta, and her 12,000+ written pages in 36 volumes that are being reviewed along with her past by the Vatican for her Cause for Beatification. If you wish to peruse these 36 volumes, you can by visiting here and scrolling down to the part of Luisa Piccaretta and a link will take you to the PDFs that contain the 36 volumes of the Book of Heaven.

I cannot do justice to all of the topics that Father Elijah brought up during this presentation. As he said, we have only been taught the mere beginnings (the alphabet) to begin understanding the mysteries of God, Jesus, and his Divine Will.

Again, thank you to Brother Mario Bernardone for inviting these Benedictines of Divine Will to Jacksonville and for treating us all to a taste of Italy.

For more information, you can read another article about the Benedictines of Divine Will here.

To all those who volunteer, your actions and deeds are always noticed and appreciated.

July 24, 2025

FROM: Robert Billoni
TO: Grand Knight John Berry

SUBJECT: Thank You! – From all of us at Catholic Charities St. Augustine

Worthy Grand Knight,

With much gratitude we wanted to thank Council 16492 and the members that came last week to help us with unloading 9 pallets of food donated by Publix. Here are the names of each that answered the call:

James Vega (& son)
Mike Haas
Tim Creagan
Andy Tieben
Kevin Minogue

It is your council’s continued support that helps Catholic Charities St. Augustine continue its mission of serving our community’s most vulnerable.

With Warmest Regards,

ROBERT BILLONI
Marketing and Development
Catholic Charities Bureau
St. Augustine Regional Office

Many thanks to the previous officers for their hard work, leadership, and dedication. They have paved the way and handed off the reins to the Installation of the New Officers for 2025-2026.

For a listing of the new officers and their positions, please see Grand Knight Pete Falcone’s final report (page 7 of 13).

Or, in the Protected Pages, there is the 2025-2026 Officer Roster.

MISSION (IMPOSSIBLE?!?) COMPLETE: Thank you to Grand Knight Pete Falcone for a job well done!

Huzzah to our new Grand Knight, John Berry. The Knights of Council 16492 are in good hands.

Many thanks to the Country Knights, Dave Juchniewicz (left) and Joe De Blasé (right), for their musical interlude during the monthly meeting. Thank you for sharing your musical talents with the Council.

If you are interested in joining the group, they are looking for new members. They entertain for free at events and venues such as nursing homes.

Final report from our Grand Knight, Pete Falcone. Dated July 1, 2025.

The Knights of Columbus Council 16492 Color Corps participated in the Memorial Day Mass at 10 AM on Sunday, May 25. The Color Corps also led the procession at both Confirmation events on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, May 27th and 28th, at SJPII with the Bishop in attendance.

Thank you to the Color Corps members: Vince Dlugos, Ken Gault, Pete Falcone, Tim Lyons, Steve Miller, John Preli, and Gary Rotella.

The 4th Degree Color Corps participated in the 4th Degree Patriotic Rosary for the parish recently.

Pictures are courtesy of Sir Knight Tom Ballweg.

The 2025 Citizens With Disabilities Campaign kicked off on the weekend of May 17-18 at Publix in the Nocatee Center. This photo, taken by Brother Tom Costello who also manned the table, shows (from left to right) Brother Joe Revellese, Brother Tim Lyons, and Tim’s wife, Laraine. The drive continues through the end of the month at Our Lady Star of the Sea and SJPII. Money from the drive goes to agencies serving those with developmental disabilities.