“You never know where your ‘yes’ is going to take you,” Flores added. “And there are so many people who need our help. I’ve seen it in my community that whenever there’s a need, men are willing to rise to the occasion. Because it’s something that when somebody else relies on you, that inner instinct, your masculinity, rises to the occasion.”
Rejecting the world’s anti-masculine narrative
According to Flores, men today are in particularly desperate need of something deeper than what society is offering.
“We’re starving,” he said. “We’re starving for something deeper.”
He explores how this hunger for meaning draws men and women to God in his podcast, “Knight’s Talk.”
As a young man in today’s society, as well as the child of Mexican immigrants, Flores feels called to tell young people about the deeper sustenance and meaning that he has found in prayer, the Mass, and the Eucharist.
God is “always calling us,” Flores said, “but if our distractions are louder, we’re not going to hear it.”
Flores said that “having the ability to find time for prayer, find time for Mass” are crucial to living out authentic masculinity.
Catholic brotherhood
Flores is very hopeful for the future of the Church, in large part because of the service and brotherhood of the Knights of Columbus. Even as new forms of evil arise that threaten the dignity of human life, such attacks on true masculinity as well as femininity, new heroes will arise in the Church.
“God’s always provided saints when there’s been a need for them. He’s never abandoned his people,” he said.
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Flores is confident that many more young men will be finding hope and meaning in the Knights of Columbus for years to come.
“The current landscape that we find ourselves in right now will create soldiers for God,” he said, adding that the Knights of Columbus forms those soldiers in God.
In his own life, Flores said that becoming a Knight of Columbus “elevated my faith.” He said he would encourage any Catholic man, especially young men who are particularly impacted by the current culture, to become a Knight.
“You can join a brotherhood of men that want to better the world,” he said, “that want to leave the world better than how they found it.”
“So, I believe that although it may seem hopeless to some,” Flores said, “Our Lord promised us when he told the apostles that he will be with us until the end of time.”
Peter Pinedo is a DC Correspondent for CNA. A graduate of Franciscan University, Peter previously worked for Texas Right to Life. He is a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve.