Art Amoyo Named DECEMBER Knight of the Month

PRINCE OF PEACE CATHOLIC COMMUNITY COUNCIL # 11716

KNIGHTS OF THE MONTH

December 2023

Art Amoyo

The December 2023 Knight of the Month is SK Art Amoyo. This award honors Art’s never ending service to the Knights of Columbus Council 11716.

Art has been a member of the Knights of Columbus since 2004 and became a Fourth Degree member in 2013. He served as the Deputy Grand Knight of Council 11716 for two years and Grand Knight for a year. In September 2022, Art and his wife, Mary Lynn, were named the Knight Family of the Month.

He has a long history of involvement with fund raising activities for this Council, including time as the chair of the fundraising committee. Art is a staple at the Sunday Knights Breakfasts where he has performed a wide variety of duties in and out of the kitchen. He also enjoys participating in the Wreaths Across America program at the Dallas National Cemetery where both his parents, a brother-in-law and a former employee are buried.

Through his work at Bullet Graphics Center where he works with his brother and fellow Knight, Maco, Art supports this Knights Council with the creation of announcements, signs, posters and apparel. The graphic design, artistry and layout, printing skill and production make his handiwork easily recognized for its style, quality and professionalism, and many of the projects are donated to the Knights.

Earlier this year, Art managed the highly successful POP Golf at TopGolf charity golf tournament at The Colony TopGolf. The social event, open to all parishioners, involved 90 participants and raised $7,000 for various affinity groups affiliated with the Knights at Prince of Peace. 

On many Sundays, you can hear Art singing as a member of the adult liturgical choir. In addition, he and Mary Lynn are deeply involved in a small group program that grew out of the “Reach More” ministry. Today, the ministry has morphed into monthly gatherings of couples who meet at parishioner homes to discuss ways of evangelizing the Catholic faith.

Please join me in congratulating and celebrating the service of SK Art Amoyo, the December 2023 Knight of the Month.

🌟✨ **Wheelchair Distribution Trio in Aguascalientes, Mexico: A Heartwarming Journey** ✨🌟

Dear Prince of Peace community,

We are thrilled to share the incredible success of our recent Wheelchair Distribution Trio to Aguascalientes, Mexico, from November 14 to November 17. The impact of this mission was profound, thanks to the dedicated efforts of Father Tom Cloherty, Deacon Joe Coleman, Rusty Adams, Amy White, Dan Stoffel, and Bill and Elaine Weber.

💙 **A Gift of Mobility, A Gift of Hope** 💙

With immense pride and gratitude, we announce that Prince of Peace played a pivotal role in providing the wheelchairs that were distributed during this mission. Every wheelchair became a symbol of love, compassion, and the spirit of giving.

As we distributed wheelchairs, family after family expressed that they had been fervently praying for this essential mobility aid. Through the generosity of the Prince of Peace community, we became the answer to their prayers. Your support and kindness have touched the lives of those in need, creating a ripple effect of joy and gratitude.

To each and every one of you who contributed, whether through donations, prayers, or support in any form—THANK YOU! Your generosity has made a tangible difference in the lives of those who were previously burdened by mobility challenges. You have become the bridge between their prayers and their blessings.

May God bless you abundantly for your selfless giving and compassionate hearts. Your kindness has not only transformed the lives of individuals in Aguascalientes but has also strengthened the bonds of our global community.

Let's continue to be beacons of hope, spreading love and compassion wherever we go. The Wheelchair Distribution Trio was a testament to the power of unity, and we look forward to more opportunities to make a positive impact together.

Once again, THANK YOU for being a part of this meaningful journey.

#WheelchairsForHope #CommunityImpact #Gratitude

Article: No More Auction Block for Me: Breathing Life into the Liturgy

By: Darrell & Darnell St. Romain

Singing Negro Spirituals (referred to as Spirituals as well) during the liturgy can help foster a new sonic prayer for the congregation. A sonic prayer that includes the hopes, dreams, and laments, of enslaved Africans, not from another country, but who were enslaved in this Nation. God is a God of the marginalized. Enslaved Africans believed in a far greater Nation, the Kingdom of God, that “Great camp meeting in the Promised Land!” Most spirituals, as Sister Thea Bowman, F.S.P.A., Ph. D notes, “comes from a people who share and claim a common history, common experience, common oppression, common values, hopes, dreams, and visions.”1

Negro Spirituals are folk songs and expressions. The enslaved African community created these songs of life. Life in Negro Spirituals will be the focus of this project.

History

 In 1619, twenty Africans arrived at Jamestown, Virginia. According to surviving documents these were the first Africans to arrive in North America. However, the Transatlantic Slave trade began in 1510 with Spain and Portugal bringing an estimated 367,000 Africans to the Americas in the 1500s. Around 12 million men, women, and children had been captured and shipped from Africa to a life of enslavement by 1860.

The creation and development of the Negro Spiritual was by no accident. It was born out of necessity, so that the enslaved Africans might adjust and acclimate to the conditions and hardships of the New World. These folk songs are rooted in African traditional life and Protestant Christianity. They communicate how the enslaved sought after freedom, and reveal images of physical and spiritual landscapes, and a unique interpretation of American history.

Through the creation of Negro Spirituals, enslaved Africans were able to preserve elements of African Spirituality, retain tones and harmonies that communicated their existence in an alien land, and provide a rhythm to cope with the sufferings of bondage and captivity.

While there is ample research available on the origins of Spirituals, including a debate over the derivation of some texts, few definitive answers have been given. Some Spirituals clearly share a common vocabulary with Methodist and Baptist hymns, that does not detract from their fundamental difference in meaning and use of language. Melvin Dixon suggests that language and particularly Negro Spirituals, helped the enslaved Africans create a culture, environments, journeys, and ultimately art was created. While singing, the singer creates an aural space around him, a space that is simultaneously communal and individual. Listeners, participating usually in a call and response structure, are part of the creation and composition of the song. Language and Song come together to create a new geography; a geography where the wicked will cease from troubling, and the weary will be at rest.

In the 1860s Negro Spirituals began to be collected, written down, and published; this sparked a greater interest in this musical repertoire. The 1870s saw the rise of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, a chorus consisting of former enslaved Africans from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Embarking on an international choral tour, the Fisk Jubilee Singers gained fame and promoted Negro Spirituals and brought these Songs of Life to an international audience. The concerts gave rise to the concert hall tradition of performing Negro Spirituals. Noted arrangers of the Concertized Spiritual includes: R. Nathaniel Dett, Jester Hairston, Brazeal Dennard, Wendell Whalum, Roland Carter, and Moses Hogan. Composers began to arrange Spirituals for the solo voice. Henry T. Burleigh arranged widely performed piano-voice arrangements of Spirituals in the early twentieth century for classical singers.

Today, according to the Library of Congress in its article titled “African American Spirituals, we know of more than six thousand Spirituals, although some exist only in fragments—many Spirituals have been lost forever. These Songs of Life were formed organically. There is no author, no composer, no date, no exact provenance, nothing written down, no Urtext edition. Negro Spirituals come from the community by the community, they are a part of the Spirit of Life.

 Selected Themes found in Negro Spirituals

Spirituals tell stories, present narratives from the bible, and bring life into a world of oppression. The life of the enslaved Africans was multifaceted and thus the themes are shaped to represent this wide range of viewpoints. There is more to know about Spirituals than coded messages and songs of protest. One can trace cycles and seasons of life of the enslaved Africans through the Negro Spiritual.

For Christians baptism is the acknowledgement of life in Christ. Spirituals may refer to water imagery and baptism. In stanzas 3, 4, and 5 of Cert’nly Lord the questions are asked: “Have you been converted?” “Have you been to the water?” and “Have you been baptized?” the collective response is “Cert’nly Lord!” Take Me to the Water and Wade in the Water are other Spirituals that take on the theme of water and baptism.

Movement and journeying from one plantation to another or from one state to another is a frequent subject. Also, a journey from bondage into freedom with a life without physical hardships (whether on earth or an eternal reward in heaven) and encouragement during difficult times are expressed in Spirituals. Walk Together, Children is a song of hope and expectancy of the “great camp meeting in the promised land.” I Want Jesus to Walk with Me is a plea for Jesus to be present in this daily walk especially during trials and troubles.

Freedom of religious expression was important too. Great precautions were taken to plan secret prayer meetings “in de wilderness.” These meetings allowed enslaved Africans to worship freely with singing, shouting, and dancing and it provided them strength for the harsh endurances they may face. Spirituals like Woke Up Dis Mornin’, Glory, Glory, Hallelujah, I’ve Got Peace Like a River, and Over My Head we sung at these meetings.

Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are themes represented in numerous Spirituals. Spirituals associated with Jesus’ death are Were You There? and He Never Said a Mumblin’ Word. ‘Twas on One Sunday Morning and He ‘Rose captures Jesus’ resurrection. The birth of Christ is also the subject of a few Spirituals for example, Here’s a Pretty Little Baby, Behold the Star, and Rise up, Shepherd, and Follow.

Freedom, Freedom, Freedom! Of all the themes present in Negro Spirituals, Freedom receives the most attention. The title of this article is No More Auction Block for Me. Being sold at any moment, separation from family and children, viewed as property and not humanity, lashes from the driver, and the fact that many had been sold away are addressed in this piece. The institution of Slavery is directly addressed, unlike the other Spirituals mentioned above. If there is no more auction block, it means that one is free, or the institution of slavery is abolished, or that life has reached the ultimate freedom, namely Heaven. Heaven the place “where nobody can put me out!”

Footnotes:

1 Bowman, Sister Thea. “The Gift of African American Sacred Song” in the Preface to Lead Me, Guide Me, 1987.