A Tribute to the Celebrated Life of Rita McKnight
By Valerie D. Lewis-Mosley, RN, MSJ
Master Catechist
Director of Catechetics and Youth Ministry
Christ the King Church Jersey City, New Jersey
(Page 1 of 3)
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 The life of Rita McKnight is also the
reflection of her life in Christ Jesus. Her steps were ordered in
the Word of God. Her faith walk was "Follow Me as I Follow Christ".
So walk with me as I take a short sojourn into the celebrated life
of Rita McKnight.
Christ the King parish of Jersey City,
New Jersey affectionately called her "the Deaconess". Just like
Phoebe, she was on the road with Christ; teaching supporting,
imploring, beseeching, and carrying Christ to all who would
receive Him. Rita served as the director for
Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults.
She carried Christ
to the sick and the infirmed as a Eucharistic Minister.
She prepared other lay ministers to be
Extraordinary Ministers of Communion.
She instructed couples in Pre-Cana for the
preparation of the sacrament of Matrimony,
setting the example for sacramental marriage
by the witness of her forty-one years as a
devoted and virtuous wife to Deacon Keith.
Rita studied with,
supported and stood beside her spouse Keith in
his preparation as an ordained minister of the
Permanent Deaconate of the Catholic Church.
Rita was always faithful to the ministry and
to the mission of Jesus through the Deaconate
and through her service to the
National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus.
She was authentically
Black and truly Catholic as proven by her witness
in faith and her encouragement. She challenged the
Black Catholics of the Archdiocese of Newark to get
involved in the National Black Catholic Congress.
She was the fire that set our souls ablaze and
propelled our participation not only in the
National Black Catholic Congress but as well in the
annual parishing workshops for ministry in the
African American Community. She was the impetus
in the youth participating in the Rites of Passage in
2000 and 2001. Rita was the coordinator for the
New Jersey Gathering of Black Catholic Women that was
held at Seton Hall University: A call for the women to
gather in prayer and praise.
Rita was always there for those
who were sick and in need of the Presbyter and prayer and
anointing. She was an evangelist preparing the way of the
Lord. She was an evangelist carrying the message that help
was on the way for those in need of help and that the help
was Jesus.
The calls of condolences have
come from near and from far, Europe, Mexico, all across
the United States, Canada and from Africa and Asia. A universal
response for one whose mission was universal for that is what
it means to be truly Catholic. Rita was Catholic in every
sense of her being. She was not what I call a supermarket
Catholic like those who pick and chose which teachings of
the church they will put into their shopping cart and which
teachings and beliefs they will leave on the shelf.
My sister in Christ took on the full
mantle of the One, True, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church; the
First Christian Church of Jesus Christ and she was not ashamed to
preach and teach the authentic unadulterated scripture of
Jesus Christ! It was like a fire burning in her bones! She could
not help but to believe, to preach and to teach. Her love was
Jesus and He was the center of her Life. Everything she did was
through him, with him and in him. She was a witness for
Jesus Christ!
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