by Brent T. Zeringue (KEPHA founder)

A father stands in the delivery room at 2 AM cradling his newborn son. His child is purple at birth due to a lack of oxygen. Dad wraps him in a blanket and kisses him on the head and thanks God for his purple baby. Purple, the color of life. Twelve years later dad kneels next to his son at 2 AM in the Adoration chapel. They’ve awakened in the wee hours of the morning with other men and boys, all dressed in their characteristic purple shirts, to pray and sing. Dad is proud of his son and puts his arm around his shoulder. He’s glad they joined our father-son organization, Kepha. They’re tired but they’re glad to be taking part in this event called Yawns for Christ. Purple, the color of the Dynamic Orthodoxy and Infectious Joy being pursued by the men and boys of Kepha.

Kepha is the Aramaic word for "Rock", the word with which Christ renamed a smelly fisherman before entrusting him with the keys. We also call ourselves the Brotherhood of the Iron Will. Ours is a high octane Catholicism that tempts men and boys to a holy manliness and contradicts a life of spiritual laziness and moral compromise. At our family beach retreat, after a day of relay races, horse fights, volleyball, and surf dodge ball, we awoke at 2 AM, picked up our crosses, and walked along the shore for an hour in silent procession as we prayed hard. Then we returned to bed and snored hard. The next morning we awoke and prepared for more fun and games. From thirteen stories high in the condominium complex we could see a 100’ wide message that one of our spirited fathers had scribbled in the early morning sand – Kepha Rocks!

Our charism is modeled after the life of one of our three patrons, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati; the young man John Paul II calls the Man of the Eight Beatitudes. Pier Giorgio was a championship skier, a mountain climber and a practical joker. He was a boy who taught his horse to genuflect whenever it passed a church. It is fitting that one named Pier was also the leader of his peers. He formed them into a group devoted to faith and service and mountain climbing and joy. He called them the "Sinister Ones". Their motto was, "Pochi ma buoni come macaroni", which is Italian for "The Few, the Proud, the Macaroni." But Pier Giorgio was serious about living an active, chaste, and holy life. He would sneak out in the middle of the night and climb a mountain so that he could attend Mass at the mountain’s chapel. What kind of America could we have if our youth would sneak out at night because they couldn’t live without the Bread of Life? Pier Giorgio was a con-artist. He would challenge his friends to a game of pool. If they won, he’d pay them money. If he won, they had to accompany him to Adoration. Guess who almost always won? With laughter and joy the Man of the Eight Beatitudes led his rowdy friends through the streets of Turin late at night to attend Adoration. Pier Giorgio’s spirit is Kepha’s charism and is reflected in another of our mottoes, "Play Hard, Pray Hard." Only days before he died from an acute form of polio that he contracted on one of his weekly visits to the poor, Pier Giorgio wrote the words "Verso l’ alto!" on a photograph of himself climbing the side of a cliff. Verso l’ alto is Italian for "Toward the top!" Kepha is training fathers and boys to reach "Toward the top!"

Kepha is Catholic to the core. Our shirts bear the words, "Where Peter is, there is the Church." We ally ourselves with the Pope and do not apologize for our fidelity. Our shirts also bear the words, "Roma locuta, causa finita est" (that’s Latin for, "When Rome speaks the matter is settled."). Expect to find all the men and boys in purple truly believing in the Real Presence, the right to life of unborn children, the permanence of marriage, the openness to life through natural family planning, the reality of Hell, the promises of Heaven, and the efficacy of confession. We do not compromise truth to attract members and we do not embrace a posture to the Left or the Right of Rome. As you can imagine, standing with Peter invites a certain degree of ridicule. On the other hand, few people in their right minds are going to mess with 50 men and boys in purple shirts walking down a city street carrying purple crosses and singing our theme song, The Battle Hymn of the Republic! Sometimes, we find "support" in the oddest places. Recently at Mardi Gras time we ended our 10-mile walk-a-thon in New Orleans. As we turned a corner we encountered a small neighborhood parade heading our way. The men and women in this parade were, to say the least, colorful. Several of the men in the parade wore dresses and women’s breasts. As they passed us, one fellow asked if we were Catholic. We supposed he intended to mock us. Instead he lifted his thumb and said, in a fully inebriated voice, "Yea, I’m Catholic, too!" Ah, only in New Orleans. On the same walk-a-thon we answered, "God bless you" to the man on the levee that saw our pro-life signs and called us bigots. On another occasion we found ourselves on retreat in Colorado and we stumbled into a nearby parish where our boys were asked to present the offertory gifts. The entire congregation stood at the Consecration even as they sang a song with the words, "worshipping on bended knee." But in the middle of the church a few pews of purple faithfully knelt. After a full day of whitewater rafting the Brotherhood sat at the back of the bus and we prayed our Divine Mercy out loud. Halfway through the prayer a lady turned around to rebuke us for not praying to ourselves. We looked at her angry, red face and decided to do the honorable thing -- we continued praying out loud. If a public bus is a fitting place to discuss the affairs of the world then there is no reason why it is not also the proper place to pray in preparation for a better world. One person accused us of being too conservative for promoting mortification. Another accused us of being too liberal for playing hard on Sundays. No matter what they say, we are simply with the Pope -- no agendas; no nonsense. We are Catholic with a capital "C". As Pier Giorgio said, "To live without faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for truth, that is not living but merely existing."

Kepha is made of ordinary boys and dads doing together what none of us would do alone. One time, before proceeding to a day hike along a rustic trail with waterfalls, we stopped at the Missionaries of Charity Soup Kitchen. We served meals, brought 500 cans of food and mingled with the homeless. As the hungry and abandoned ate, we sang them songs. Now, let me hasten to add that a requirement of being in Kepha is that you have to be able to sing…badly. A homeless boy sat silently and sadly. We asked him to join us. A smile came across his face and he proceeded to sing with us. You could feel the chills run up your spine when he told us his name – "Trinity." But why were we surprised? Mother Teresa of Calcutta, one of our three patrons, told us we meet Christ in the distressing disguise of the poor. With hiking and waterfalls waiting, we allocated a rushed 5 minutes for prayer in the chapel. But for the next 25 minutes the boys kept offering prayer intentions.

On our recent trip to Rome we ate supper with the 75-year old sister of Pier Giorgio who showed up to meet us on her motorcycle. The next day we ate gelatti with Luciana, Pier Giorgio’s 100-year old sister. In the tiny town of Magenta we were invited to eat chocolates in the home of Pietro Molla, the 90-year old husband of Bl. Gianna Molla, the doctor and mother who sacrificed her own life so that her daughter might be born. In Vatican square we spent time with a bishop from Iraq. The day before we attended a general papal audience with several thousand others. When Kepha was introduced to the Holy Father, we broke the rules, stood on our seats, and twice cheered, "Play Hard, Pray Hard – Kepha Rocks, John Paul II." A frail, bent-over Pope looked up and smiled. His was the smile that convinced us last month, in spite of the bitter attacks on our priests, to host a Proud of the Priesthood banquet. Over 170 people attended, including over 30 priests and seminarians. The next day we walked 10 miles in support of the Priesthood. On St. Charles Avenue we lined up in a long purple line, sporting our purple shirts, and proclaimed our support for the servants of the servants of God. It seems we walk quite a bit in Kepha. Two years earlier we walked for several miles through a forest. At the end of the walk, we paused to play a few more miles of kickball and football. Then, we picked up our crosses and walked another two miles through the forest and around a crowded lake. Those in boats and those in cars drove by to see who we were. They were surprised to see that we were Catholics. No doubt they reasoned that Catholics just aren’t supposed to do these kinds of things. When the ranger passed by we wondered if we should have asked permission. What the heck, since when do we ask permission to be a Christian?

Kepha’s boys truly Play Hard and Pray Hard. They’ve had "Piggy" competitions along a stream to see who could get the dirtiest. They rode mountain bikes in Colorado and played Frisbee golf in Mississippi and threw rocks at garfish in the Buffalo River in Arkansas. At an apologetics seminar featuring Scott Hahn, the boys found themselves bored and so we went outside to play football. An hour later they saw Scott and Kimberly Hahn in the parking lot and they ran to present them with a spiritual bouquet from the Kepha families. Given the opportunity to spend a few precious moments with America’s premier apologist, the boys opted instead to spend the next 5 minutes catching passes from Dr. Hahn. They are ordinary boys – I promise you that they have now left socks and shoes in at least 7 states. But they are also extraordinary boys. On a crowded airplane we took turns praying the Divine Mercy. I will never forget the 12-year old boy who stood up at the front of the plane and waved his Rosary in the air to signal to his Kepha brothers at the back of the plane that it was their turn to pray. The ACLU may have outlawed prayer in public schools, but they can’t stop the Purple People Eaters from praying on a 727.

While collecting pledges to raise money for a retreat a person who answered the door and said that he did not give to Catholics rejected my son. I suggested to my son that he might get more pledges if he just said he was with a youth group instead of identifying himself as a Catholic. Joshua said, "Dad, I’d rather not get a pledge than hide my Faith." I’m learning. In the main terminal of an airport the boys knelt to pray our morning prayers. The shoeshine man saw them and made the sign of the cross. In the Coliseum we stepped on soil fertilized by the blood of martyrs who preferred death in a lion’s jaws to allegiance to earthly heathens. As the eyes of tourist stared at us, we knelt on that holy ground and invoked the intercession of those that bled and died two centuries before on the very same soil. The eyes of tourist have replaced the eyes of bloodthirsty spectators but the witness in favor of a poor Carpenter from a remote part of Caesar’s vast empire has not died. We knelt in solidarity with out martyred brothers because we, like them, believe in our motto: Dynamic Orthodoxy, Infectious Joy.

The third of our patrons is St. John Bosco, the friend of youth. He reminds us that the best way to keep boys sin-free is to keep them busy. So, Kepha retreats are exciting, exhilarating, and exhausting. But listen to what one of our boys from Texas who regularly drives 9 hours to join us wrote, "While at cabins on our Advent Retreat we celebrated two members’ birthdays. A few of us had not said our Rosary, so halfway through the movie we decided to go outside and pray it together. It must have been a sight as we clumped together, freezing, to stay warm. As we prayed I looked around at the others and suddenly, for the first time, I knew I was part of something much bigger. From that moment brotherhood took on new meaning for me."

Brotherhood is indeed at the center of the Brotherhood of the Iron Will. Brotherhood allows a boy who stutters to stand up before the other boys and give a report. He knows he will not be ridiculed. Once, when this boy started crying because he couldn’t finish giving a report on a saint, the other boys gathered around him, laid hands on him, and prayed for him. Four years later this boy is a leader in Kepha and a role model for the others. Another boy stood in front of our group and told us that he liked Kepha because at school everyone picked on him but in Kepha no one did. And when a Kepha family member is sick or has just had a baby, the other families invariably organize a spiritual bouquet and storm heaven. One of the boys in our Saints’ Squad, the pre- Kepha group for boys 6-8, offered this sacrifice for a spiritual bouquet: "No touching bugs for a week (even if we need to get one out of the house)."

Brotherhood is the glue that holds our charism together. Make no mistake about it; brotherhood is the one thing others see that makes them admire Kepha. They see fathers standing beside their sons. They see boys encouraging each other to grow in holiness while having a great time being Catholic. I’d like to share with you something I said to our boys about brotherhood:

"Think how hard it would be for you to do alone any of the things we do in Kepha. If you do not look forward to the day when these Purple Guys will stand in your wedding or hug you when your father lies in a casket or sing happy birthday to you when you are a 50-year old man, then you might as well be in an organization where you are a number. In Kepha you are not a number. You are part of the Rock, and a rock is solid, hard to break. Christ has placed in your path some very important people to help you understand His brotherhood and to encourage you along the way. They have a duty to you. You have a duty to them. Think of a war. Many soldiers in wars feel like great cowards. In the face of overwhelming odds they are tempted to hide in the bunker or run away from the fight. But these same soldiers tell us that the thing that keeps them courageous, the thing that glues them to their posts, is the knowledge that their buddies are depending on them. The same soldier who trembles at night in fear of being shot is the very one who runs into a mine field in Viet Nam to rescue his buddy. Brotherhood is the stuff that wins wars; the bomb that dismantles loneliness; the weapon that tears apart cowardice and gives us the courage to embrace the cross. We are in a war; a war against death; a war against hell. We face an enemy more vicious than any encountered on the darkest battlefield in history. The consequences for losing this war are eternal. We shouldn’t fight this battle alone. It is too easy to be a coward. We need someone to be a hero for. We need brotherhood."

As one admirer of Kepha said, what we offer the Church is a healthy dose of orthodox Catholic testosterone. I think you get the point.

Who are the men and boys of Kepha? We are the athletic boy from Mississippi who dives for footballs but also rushes from room to room in the nursing home to see how many old folks he can visit. This boy understands what our Charity Leader said, "A nursing home is one place where you can walk right in and be an instant hero." Kepha is the Cajun verse-slinger from Louisiana’s bayou country and the son of an Air Force pilot who takes care of his little sisters. We are the Florida brothers who ride skateboards and have broken just about every bone in their bodies but still have energy to run ahead of the group putting pro-life literature on cars. We are a boy named "Cannonball" who learned that my wife was pregnant for our ninth child and said, "Oh my gosh! Are they blessed or what?" We are the boy learning to play the violin and the boy learning that it is a bad idea to hug poison ivy. In our midst you will find, "Tiny", who, at 6’2" and 13years old listened to a spiritual reflection one night on the Buffalo River while he tossed a toad in the air. Among us you will find a boy who thinks he is an Alien, another who can walk on his toes, and still another whose weekly act of mortification was to accept the spanking due his brother. We are the master apologist with his own ministry who speaks to thousands every year and we are the 8-year old who can barely remember a verse but nevertheless goes into a nursing home cafeteria and pulls up a chair beside three old ladies and tells them -- in his Mississippi red-neck accent -- all about Kepha. We are the Hulk-like fireman from Ft. Walton Beach who is a clown and could crush you an instant but instead walks up to perfect strangers and gives them buttons with images of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We are the 51-year old physics teacher, a toothpick of a man, who wraps a page from his bible in a ziplock and swims a 500 yard butterfly, stopping after every lap to memorize a line from Jn 6. We are the priest from Oklahoma who does funny skits on the streets of Rome as cars pass by. We are the dads who put on really ugly wigs and wake up the boys early in the morning with really ugly guitar music. We are the fathers and sons who knock on the door of a run down trailer in the hills before we go hiking. When the toothless, old man answers we give him 50 bags of groceries. He blesses us by telling us that he was just sitting there wondering where he would get his next meal. We smile because we believe what Pier Giorgio said, "All around the sick and all around the poor, I see a special light which we do not have."

Have you guessed yet that Kepha is not fuzzy or cute? And though our boys come in all shapes and sizes, from the runt to the athlete, the extrovert to the introvert, the home schooled to the regular school, the gifted to the slow, every last one is challenged to pursue an iron will. You will find the Kepha fathers making a giant circle with 50 boys inside and playing a fast-paced game of dodge ball. At a time when politically correct school boards are outlawing dodge ball because losing hurts a kid’s self esteem, we are teaching our boys that to get right back up from a defeat is to be a winner. On another retreat the boys were challenged to see who could stand the longest in the freezing water below a mountain waterfall. One boy stood in tears until his purple feet matched his purple shirt. We told him he could get out of the water but he insisted on staying. And just in case you are contemplating reporting us to the PC Police, let me remind you that 99 % of our nation’s misery is a result of weak wills that refuse to see the honor in delayed gratification.

As a boy grows up he has two paths open to him. He can listen to the world and worship a life of appeasement and excuses, becoming the antithesis of the Man on the Cross and genuflecting instead to the god of the Marshmallow Will. Or, through an honest evaluation of his weakness and a courageous attempt to conquer it, he can develop the Iron Will of Christ. This is why we include Mortification as one of our 5 commitments. Mortification is the one part of our program that most youth groups do not envy. There are very few Catholic youth organizations that are even willing to suggest mortification. Some can’t even define the word. They are afraid that young people are too selfish to deprive themselves. And this is precisely why those organizations, and their young members, fail. Their leaders tell the young people to embrace the cross, then shield the cross from their eyes. But isn’t the cross 100 % mortification? Christianity has nothing to do with sitting around in circles affirming ourselves and singing "Kumbaya". Youth groups are failing because they feminize Jesus Christ. But Jesus is a tough Man, a Man of outstanding courage, a Man of unthinkable heroism. He didn’t die so that people could feel good; He died to make people good. Listen to what we tell our boys: "If you can not embrace a cold shower today, how in the world do you ever expect to embrace your enemy tomorrow? No one said you had to like the mortification; if you liked it, we wouldn’t call it mortification. If you must scream in the cold shower, then scream. There would be more grace showered down on you if you didn’t scream, but screaming is good, too."

Young men need to flex their muscles, to prove that they have guts and can overcome themselves. This is why in our more advanced Iron Will Challenges some of the boys voluntarily give up soft drinks or sweets or chips for an entire year. The Iron Will Challenges are an optional component of Kepha in which boys who meet their regular Kepha commitments take on extra challenges over three successive years. For example, one of the challenges requires the boy to pray a Rosary in the cemetery, pausing before each Hail Mary to mention the name of a person on a tombstone. Other challenges include going six consecutive days without television, writing a letter to a prisoner, spending an hour in Adoration for someone you are angry at and making the sign of the Cross every day at 3:00 for a year. In response to a challenge that requires us to learn the books of the Bible in order, one boy took the challenge further and learned them backwards! At the conclusion of the third iron will challenge the boy or father is inducted into The Sinister Ones. In the spirit of Pier Giorgio he joins his Sinister One brothers in a lifelong bond of fidelity and support, pledging to provoke others to Heaven.

Whether in meeting the ordinary Kepha commitments or tackling the tougher Iron Will Challenges, the boys and dads are finding that to give up something we like today makes it easier to give up tomorrow that particular sin that holds us hostage. Kepha means ROCK. A rock is rugged, solid, tough, and firm.

Kepha has 5 components of our charism: apologetics, brotherhood, charity, mortification and prayer. We are under the guidance and inspiration of our Big 3: St. John Bosco, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati. We have one event a month, which is usually a weekend retreat. Almost every month our members from Florida drive 5 hours to be with us while our members from Texas drive 9. They have found that the sacrifice is worth the benefit of being in a brotherhood that empowers them to live the Beatitudes. For those who can not drive such distances, we set up local chapters. Since not all Kepha members can make every monthly event we have a make-up program by which those missing an event can keep the solidarity alive by doing an act of charity, like visiting a nursing home and praying a Rosary. Roughly a third of our events are open to the entire family. Our wives and mothers have a special bond and find time to be together while we boys are off on Kepha retreats. For most of the mothers the prospect of husbands molding the lives of their sons is worth the sacrifices sometimes involved. Moms understand that next to the Saints a boy’s rightful hero is his father. Our boys enter as early as age 8 and maintain membership through adulthood. Each month the boys learn a new Bible verse to defend a Catholic doctrine (6^th year boys now know 45). As they raise money to fund their retreats, our Constitution mandates that the boys must give ½ of all money raised to charity. In 6 years the Kepha boys have donated over $25,000 to charities. Between events our commitments glue us together: daily morning prayers of about 5 minutes, daily Divine Mercy, a weekly act of mortification, monthly Adoration, frequent Confession, and daily or frequent work on the apologetics program.

We are in our sixth year and are only just beginning. Like Pier Giorgio we are on a crusade to save our souls, to infect others, to reach the top. The boys in purple are standing side by side with each other. We fathers are standing side by side with our sons

-- All for one, One for all! In closing, let me ask of you the same thing Pier Giorgio asked of his friends: "I beg you to pray for me a little, so that God may give me and iron will that does not bend and does not fail in his projects."

 Catholinks