JOHN COSMAS
Program Manager

   
 

 


Core Contributions
 
Event Management
News Coverage
News Correspondence
Digital Photography
Low-light Photography


Featured Posts & Articles:
 

  • Celebrating Corpus Christi
  • Live Joyfully for Easter Faith
  • Bishop Jugis venerates Cross
  • Epiphany and Sacred Music
  • Sparrow Mass for Epiphany
  • Mass for St. Maria Goretti
  • Orchestral Mass in Charlotte
  • Rorate Caeli BVM at St. Thomas
  • Rorate Caeli BVM at St. Ann
  • Rorate Caeli BVM by Liturgy Guy

 


Featured Albums:
 

  • National Shrine St. Rita Cascia 2017
  • Basilica St. Peter & Paul 2017
  • Carolina Opera at St. Nektarios Paul 2016
  • St. Maria Gioretti Visit 2016
  • Rorate Caeli St. Thomas 2015
  • St. Thomas Missae Solemnis 2015
  • Epiphany at St. Thomas 2015
  • Tenebrae at St. Thomas 2016
  • Easter Vigil 2016
  • Feast of St. Dominic Savio 2015
  • St. Ann, Solemnity Ascension 2015
  • St. Ann, Feast Assumption 2015
  • Guadalupe, St. Vincent de Paul 2015
  • Epiphany at Charlotte Catholic 2015
  • Rorate Caeli, St. Thomas 2014
  • Rorate Caeli, St. Ann 2014

 

 

Affiliations and interest groups...

Affiliations helps to draw interest into emerging areas of the faith, allowing for closer contact with a larger audience and nationalities of Catholicism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Featured technologies...

We employ state-of-the-art technologies in the correspondence of all our programs.  These include:


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Catholic News Herald
 

Serving as a senior photographer and correspondent, I have the oppurtunity to visit many historic sites, churches, shrines, cathedrals and basilicas throughout the world and bring these life-changing experiences back into the community at the Diocese of Charlotte.  I am routinely called to cover various events throughout the diocese and help revive the news about local parishes.  The Catholic News Herald is a long term pursuit that has helped me uncover the deep rooted history and traditions that has kept the Carolinas catholicity strong and vibrant over the centuries.

 

The communities that are served most frequently includes: St. Ann on Park Road, St. Vincent De Paul on Park Road, St. Thomas Aquinas on University Blvd, St. Matthew, St. Gabriel on Providence Road, St. John Neumann, St. Michael's in Gastonia and St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dillworth.  This important work also extends into the diocese of Charleston where I serve parishes that are not limited to: The Oratory in Rock Hill, St. Philip Neri in Fort Mill, All Saints Catholic on Lake Wylie and St. Mary's Church in Rock Hill.

 

         
 

The Herald has covered news principally through it subscription services over the course of 35 years (celebrated annniversary in 2015) and is the most reliable source for all that is Catholic in Western North Carolina, which is home to the Diocese of Charlotte.  My role as a correspondent and photographer takes me to wide reaches of the Blue Ridge mountains and through the valleys of the Charlotte Mason Dixon line.

 

 

 

The heart of what I do involves covering the news, events and happenings that touches the Catholic community at large.  However, my real passion is to help uncover the hidden secrets of the more older and smaller parishes where the penitents are more devoted to tradition and Catholic roots.  There, one gets to encounter the real Jesus in the face of the devotee who is seeking Christ, and gladly wears the promises of His grace in their own facial expressions.  One begins to experience and exhilarating sense of joy and see the depth of enduring love they receive only through a closer encounter with the risen Lord.

 


 

Every event promises something new and opens wide the heart to a joyful encounter with the Lord.  This diocese is constantly offering a wide range of sacramental events and happenings that helps maintain the spirit of its children, and an ever constant effort to drive them closer to the reality of heaven.  My involvement has lead me to nothing less than the following pursuits:

 

Eucharistic Congress
Atlanta Eucharistic Congress
First Holy Communion
Holy Confirmation
Easter Vigil Mass with Bishop Peter Jugis
Solemnities and Feast Days
Feast Day Processions & Devotions
Corpus Christi
Pontifical Masses presided by Cardinals
Retreats & Seminars
Guadium Musicae at St. Ann Catholic
Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

 

Adopting a vast array of events allows me to diversity content, information and provide the greatest visual insight to Catholics worldwide the essense of the faith celebrated throught the eyes of the contemporary practicing devotee.

 


 

My areas of interest includes:

 

Latin Rite Masses
Orchestral Masses
Rorate Caeli Mass at Dawn
Liturgical Processions
Veneration of the Saints/Relics

 

 

My work does not limit me to travels only in my diocese, but it has actually opened doors to many venue, churches, shrines and holy sites where the presence of Christ our Lord has been apparent through the ages.  I have been given the great grace to visit many noteable and some rather preserved secrets.

 

Our Lady of Victory, Buffalo, NY
Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Niagara, NY
Shrine of St. Therese Lisiuex, Canada
Cathedral of Immaculate Conception, Kansas City
Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis
Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Kansas City
Visitation Church, Kansas City
Shrine of St. Anne in Penang, Malaysia
Shrine of Our Lady of Snows, Belleville
St. Josephat in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Our Lady of Ephesus Convent, Missouri
Cathedral of St. Paul, Birmingham
Ave Maria Grotto, Cullman
Basilica of St. Lawrence, Asheville
Cathedral of St. John, Kuala Lumpur
Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Hanceville
Monastery of Angels, Irondale
St. Bernard's Abbey, Cullman
St. Benedict's Abbey, Lake Bennet
St. Benedict Church in Atlanta
St. Micheal's Chapel, Batu Arang
Divine Mercy Shrine in Kuala Lumpur
Our Lady of Vailankanni in Kuala Lumpur
Monastery of the Holy Cross, Chicago
St. Cecilia's Convent, Nashville
Sacred Heart Convent, Cullman
St. Stanislaus Oratory, Milwaukee
Sacred Heart Monastery, Milwaukee
St. Anthony Padua in Buffalo, NY
St. Patrick's Cathedral in Kansas City
Shrine of St. John Paul II in Syracuse
St. Joseph's Church in Singapore
St. Francis de Sales Seminary, Milwaukee
St. Francis Xavier in Malacca
Holy Spirit Monastery, Conyers
Cathedral of St. Patrick, Ottawa
St. Paul's Cathedral, New York
Basilica St. Peter & Paul, Philadelphia
National Shrine St. Rita of Cascia, Philadelphia
Cathedral of St. Peter, Wilmington
Monastery of Queen of Apostles, Missouri
St. Francis Xavier, Denver
Sister Servants of the Eternal Word, Birmingham

 


 

Many of these great churches and sites have helped me in my journey of faith, and I've returned those graces to countles others.

 

  

 

 

 

In later 2012, the Latin Rite mass was celebrated every Wednesday evening.  Over the course of a coupla years, the mass has included a wide range of rituals which includes the more liturgically complex rites such as the Mass of the Dead and Pontifical High Mass.  Growing interests have taken a leap due to the numerous coverages I have provided over the years with tantalizing photos and scenes. This captures the picturesque essence of the mass - not to exclude the colorful vestments, the various movements of the acolytes, the rubrics illuminated by the sub-deacons and magical atmosphere created by the endless billows of incense fire.



The Latin Mass Community has continued to promote, promulgate, and deliver a wide range of liturgical celebrations in the forms below:

 

Pontifical High Masses
Solemnities & Seasonal Masses
Orchestral Masses
Triduum High Masses
Mass of the Dead
Rorate Caeli (celebrated in candle-light)

 

My principal role during each of these beautiful masses is to commit the celebration to memory digitally and have them available on public albums.  This enables our community members to recall previous events and also use materials for publication on news and related media channels.

 

My work enables the CLMC to promote their work and interests accross the diocese in a clear demonstration that the Latin Rite is very much an everyday affair in the liturgical life of the community.  This also helps us to establish growing interest amongst neighboring counties, cities and dioceses as a means to promote the rite in their own territories.  All but not least, the Latin Rite is a visible sign of the reverence, love, grace and remains to be the highest form of liturgical form of the Eucharistic celebration that promises to turn many souls - both Catholic and christians alike to the way the sacrifice should be honored, which has lead many others before them straight into sainthood.

 



The complex nature and beauty of these mass allows me to exercise the very extremes of photography and correspondence work as it illuminates the failth in ways never seen, or encountered before.  Each mass promises a deeper sense of yearning for the Holy Sacrifice, and adds new meaning to and appreciation for the Eucharist.

 

 

This Carolina Catholic Chorale comprises of a group of highly talented and accomplished vocalists and instrumentalists who have devoted their valuable time and efforts to the sanctification of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass by illumination of liturgical music.  I have the great privilege of shooting many of their events, and performances - offering a close eye into the souls of these performers and revealing the great love they have in celebrating the mass as an accomplished choir.

Talents from throughout the city gather frequently to bring us such moving experiences and music that elevates the soul into a realm that could only be described as heaven.  Over the years, the chorale has been instrumental in offering us such great pieces and performances such as these:

 

The Office of Tenebrea (includes the Miserere Mei, Deus)
Sparrow Mass Epiphany at St. Thomas Aquinas
Missa Solemnis at St. Thomas Aquinas

 


 

I expect, that in the near future, my work will only get busier as the chorale continues to mature and deliver pieces that would make most influential groups in New York shudder with astonishment, simply because these gifted and amazing penitents offer their spirit at the liturgical celebrations with nothing less than a heartful of love.

 

 

To maintain a degree of contemporary information, I continue to maintain my relationship with these groups to ensure that I'm able to bring the best to our Catholic subscribers:

 

One Peter Five
Eternal Word Television Network
The Liturgy Guy
Fish Eaters
Catholics Come Home
Journey Home Network
Vatican News Radio