• Celebrating The Feast of St. John the Baptist • 2021
    Celebrating The Feast of St. John the Baptist • 2021
    by Barbara Brandes
    On June 24 the Church of St. John the Baptist celebrated its patronal feast with a majestic liturgy at 5:15 p.m. In his homily Fr. Michael spoke of John the Baptizer, the last of the prophets, as one who sought to right the wrongs of his day...
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  • Passing Privations or Passion for a Lifetime
    Passing Privations or Passion for a Lifetime
    by Michael Marigliano, OFM, Cap.
    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?
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  • Retrieving the Classic Lenten Practices of Prayer, Fasting, Almsgiving
    Retrieving the Classic Lenten Practices of Prayer, Fasting, Almsgiving
    by Michael Marigliano, OFM, Cap.
    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.
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  • Holy Cross Aeolian-Skinner, Opus 908
    Holy Cross Aeolian-Skinner, Opus 908
    by Mike Foley, The American Organist
    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.
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  • 150th Anniversary of the Proclamation of St. Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church
    150th Anniversary of the Proclamation of St. Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church
    by His Holiness Pope Francis
    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.
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  • Prayer for the Inauguration of the 46th President
    Prayer for the Inauguration of the 46th President
    by Breadfortheworld
    May the Holy Spirit instill in our president the values and principles to exercise the sacred trust of administering the nation....
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  • 54th WORLD DAY OF PEACE
    54th WORLD DAY OF PEACE
    by His Holiness Pope Francis
    At the dawn of a new year, I extend cordial greetings to Heads of State and Government, leaders of International Organizations, spiritual leaders and followers of the different religions, and to men and women of good will. To all I offer my best wishes that the coming year will enable humanity to advance on the path of fraternity, justice and peace between individuals, communities, peoples and nations.
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  • Gratitude and Thanks for 2020 • Hope for 2021
    Gratitude and Thanks for 2020 • Hope for 2021
    by The Friars of Holy Cross—Saint John the Baptist Parish
    As a year unlike any other in our personal, societal, or liturgical lives comes to a close, the friars of Holy Cross—Saint John the Baptist parish extend our gratitude to...
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  • 17th Annual National Homeless Persons ’ Memorial Day
    17th Annual National Homeless Persons ’ Memorial Day
    Remembering and celebrating the lives of those in our community who died homeless. Jerrod Sanders sings Amazing Grace in their honor.
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  • In the beginning was the Word...
    In the beginning was the Word...
    by Michael Marigliano, OFM Cap
    And the Word became flesh. And pitched a tent among us. Here. In the midst of the perishing embers of the year 2020 – accosted by a venomous virus hunting and haunting an overwhelmed planet.
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  • Advent Credo
    Advent Credo
    by Daniel Berrigan, Author of Testimony: The Word Made Flesh
    It is not true that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, hunger and poverty, death and destruction— This is true: Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, his name shall be called wonderful councilor, mighty God, the Everlasting, the Prince of peace.

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  • Advent – Christmas: Some historical & liturgical background
    Advent – Christmas: Some historical & liturgical background
    by Michael Marigliano, OFM Cap.
    Preparation for Christmas is an important theme for Advent, but more is involved. Advent affords a vision for our lives and reveals profound possibilities in our lives. The vision of life that Advent bequeaths us is twofold – a glance back to the ?irst coming of Christ in Bethlehem, and a gaze forward to the future coming of Christ. Stretched between these two, we live into life’s adventure, lured by the grace of G-D.
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  • Advents Come & Gone - and Coming Again
    Advents Come & Gone - and Coming Again
    by Michael Marigliano, OFM Cap.
    A rather common question we ask of one another – sometimes spoken, others not. When you think about it, we spend a good deal of our time waiting – a fact reinforced during this season of crowded lines at checkout counters that seem to elicit all the least delightful behaviors of which we humans are capable. Those who spend their lives analyzing such things (who are these people anyway?) suggest that, over the course of a lifetime, our waiting includes...
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  • Open Wide Our Hearts
    Open Wide Our Hearts
    by United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
    The enduring call to love, a pastoral letter against racism.
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  • Ready or Not... Advent 2020... Whose Kingdom Come?
    Ready or Not... Advent 2020... Whose Kingdom Come?
    by Michael Marigliano, OFM Cap.
    The season of Advent opens for us yet another new liturgical year. An opportunity to join the community of believers gathered to search the scripturesand recline at table with the One whose light no darkness can overpower. This Advent, our Sunday assemblies welcome the towering figure of Isaiah of Jerusalem, visionary and prophet. He bears a word of hope and transformation for a people profoundly preoccupied in a tense time crowded with competing kingdoms...
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  • Pope Francis: A Crisis Reveals What Is in Our Hearts
    Pope Francis: A Crisis Reveals What Is in Our Hearts
    by Pope Francis
    "To come out of this pandemic better than we went in, we must let ourselves be touched by others’ pain."
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  • Gift Drive
    Gift Drive
    We turn to you again to help us give Christmas gifts to the less fortunate children in our community. Please take a tag from the Gift Tree, it will specify the age and gender of a child in need.
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  • World Day of the Poor
    World Day of the Poor
    by Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan
    Thanksgiving is the time of the year when we, as individuals, families, a nation, and faith communities come together to give thanks to the Lord for the many blessings He has given us. It is also the time when we look to give something back to those in need. For over a century, Catholic Charities has been serving all New Yorkers in need by providing a range of services that provide help and create hope for the most vulnerable among us, Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
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  • THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF HOLY CROSS
    THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF HOLY CROSS
    by Dr. Michael J. Pfeifer, Parishioner of Holy Cross—St. John the Baptist
    Irish-born Archbishop John Hughes created Manhattan’s Holy Cross Parish in 1852 to serve the thousands of Irish Catholics moving north of lower Manhattan into what became known as Longacre Square (later Times Square) and the developing neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen. Holy Cross maintained a strong Irish American identity into the mid twentieth century and its path charted the transformation of the disciplined folk piety created by the “devotional Revolution” in Ireland in the nineteenth century into an American Catholicism dominated by Irish-American clergy that sought to defend communalistic Catholic distinctiveness amid the rapid urban growth and burgeoning individualistic capitalism of an historically Protestant nation.
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  • Annual Child Protection Briefing
    Annual Child Protection Briefing
    by Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan
    Last September, I asked Judge Barbara Jones, a much-respected former Federal Judge and prosecutor, to review, evaluate, and recommend improvements to the Archdiocese of New York’s response to the sexual abuse crisis that has been confronting our Church. Now, after an intense year in which Judge Jones and her team have conducted an exhaustive examination of our policies, procedures, and protocols, a complete review of every priest file, and held countless hours of interviews with archdiocesan staff, including me, Judge Jones has provided me with a summary of her findings and recommendations.
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