At the Hour of Our Death

John has been married to his wife, Kathleen, for 35 years. Together they have five children, ranging from 22-32 in age. He has been involved in music and educational ministry for 43 years as an educator, elementary school principal, music director, liturgy director, and composer. He has taught at all levels from elementary to postgraduate.

For the past twenty-six years, John worked as a member of the Campus Ministry Team at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where he served as the Associate Director of Campus Ministry & Director of Liturgy & Music. He was recently given a full-time academic appointment to the position of Interim Director of Choral Activities and serves as the Special Assistant to the Vice-President of Mission and Ministry. He also teaches in the Center for Religion and Spirituality where he serves as the Founding Director of the Pastoral Liturgy and Pastoral Music Certification Programs. 

He has also taught in the Los Angeles Archdiocese and San Bernardino Diocese Diaconate Formation Programs. Prior to that, he served as a Catholic elementary schoolteacher, assistant principal and principal for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

John has served as the Chairperson of the Liturgy Committee and Music Director for the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress since 1991, the largest annual Catholic catechetical and liturgical gathering in the world. This conference attracts 42,000 delegates every year. He also sits on the Los Angeles Archdiocesan Liturgical Commission.

He has worked extensively with the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops including having served as the music director for the two most recent national conferences of the USCCB, Encuentro 2000 and Jubilee Justice. John has planned and directed the music for the Episcopal Ordinations of Bishops Oscar Solis and Alexander Salazar. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, Archbishop Emeritus of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, has invited John to plan and the direct the music for his funeral liturgy. For several years, John provided the music for the annual bishops retreat for Ecclesiastical Province of Los Angeles which includes the dioceses of Fresno, Monterey, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.