Organ music and singing voices rang out from St. Joseph Catholic Church on Tuesday during “A Gift from St. Nicholas Organ and Choral Concert,” the first installment of the St. Joseph Stained Glass Music Series. 

St. Joseph Catholic Church member Lynn O’Keefe loves organ music. That’s why in August she told the Rev. Andrew Garner she wanted an organ concert for her birthday and he simply told her to organize it. 

“I just kept meeting with people and putting it together,” O’Keefe said. “The idea (of the series) is to do organ music with other genres so it will be organ and gospel, organ and brass, organ and pop, organ and strings.”

Holy Apostles Orthodox Church choir shared its talents with the congregation Tuesday with several selections of hymns. O’Keefe said it’s a big deal that the church came to participate, which makes the event really special. 

In the beginning of the program the Rev. William Thompson of St. Joe’s said a few words about the two churches coming together and celebrating the Christian faith. 

“We come here tonight in a very particular way to celebrate two unique positions, two of the ancient traditions of the church gathering together to celebrate the Christian faith,” Thompson said. “Tonight we come to join forces … . Both churches have a wonderful tradition of drawing people closer to Christ.”

Holy Apostles’ the Rev. Jason Blais gave a mini-sermon on how life is a journey of preparations. Particularly, he discussed advent, the traditional time leading up to Christmas of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas. 

Jason Boyle sang in the Holy Apostles Choir and said it was neat sharing musical traditions.

“I thought it was neat to share our two traditions together at the same time because we rarely get to do that,” Boyle said. 

St. Joseph members Patty Reynolds, Mary Anne Beard and Margaret Baker heard about the event in the church bulletin and thought it sounded very interesting. 

“Their choir was unbelievable,” Beard said.

“They were spectacular,” Baker said.

“They were well-trained,” Reynolds said. 

O’Keefe said the next installment of the series has not yet been set and that it depends on the church’s calendar.