It’s that time of year when those of us in the Roman Catholic tradition reacquaint ourselves with the taste of tuna fish, haul out the family recipe for macaroni and cheese or spread a couple of slices of bread with some good old-fashioned peanut-butter and jelly. Perhaps we have made yet another commitment to trim back our eating habits or to dig a bit more deeply into our pockets to offer aid to another. Some of us have probably shown up for Mass more often, if not daily. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving – why do we do these things? Why now? Why Lent?

Prayer, yes. But decidedly not a multiplication of words. Rather our prayer begins and ends with listening. We pray so as to listen through all of the raucous voices of our day seeking to hear the word that took flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. After a season of distorted, manipulative words, a time of deceitful speech, our prayer is meant to help us salvage the truthfulness of our shared speech. To cherish the divine gift that is our human capacity for communication. By divine grace, a people devoted to dwelling in the Word made flesh.

In over 50 years in the organ business, I have learned that few organs were as heavily used as those in Catholic churches during the mid-20th century. I recall working in Waterbury, Connecticut, in the mid 1970's, releathering the organ at just such a church, where there were often 100 masses a week, plus a very active funeral and wedding schedule. Fast-forward to 2010, when we were called to Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church on West 42nd Street in Manhattan.

We know that Joseph was a lowly carpenter, betrothed to Mary. He was a “just man,” ever ready to carry out God’s will as revealed to him in the Law and through four dreams. After a long and tiring journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, he beheld the birth of the Messiah in a stable, since “there was no place for them” elsewhere. He witnessed the adoration of the shepherds and the Magi, who represented respectively the people of Israel and the pagan peoples.

May the Holy Spirit instill in our president the values and principles to exercise the sacred trust of administering the nation....

One of the oldest churches in Manhattan, Saint John the Baptist is the second Catholic Church built by German immigrants.  The first, St. Nicholas Church, had been erected in 1836 to serve the Lower East Side. Those living farther north on the West Side were eager to have their own church, where Mass would be said in their native language. In 1840, a small wooden church was constructed on 30th street near Seventh Avenue and was known as the German Roman Catholic Church of St. John.