There is a clear link to the Gospel account of the Visitation --- the Blessed Virgin Mary's visit to her cousin Elizabeth --- at its namesake parish in Westchester. Just ask longtime parishioners (and brother and sister) Dick Laner and Toni Kerker.

"I've always heard Toni say, in regard to Mary visiting Elizabeth, and taking Mary in when she was pregnant, 'We need to live that here at Visitation and to be hospitable,'" notes Laner, who has served 30 years as a teacher and administrator (currently as vice principal) at the parish school that he once attended.

"That's one thing I've noticed when people come here," he continues. "Whether in the school community, or parish community, there is real openness and hospitality. Not only do we have it, but because we are the Parish of the Visitation we need to really dwell on it and enhance it."

His sister serves as parish DRE and Liturgy Committee chair, a unique melding of responsibilities that impacts Visitation's outreach. "As we end liturgy, we are told to go and live out the Gospel, take care of one another and love one another as Jesus has told us to do," Kerker says.

Her role serves as a bridge between the parish and the school, religious education classes, and parish organizations and outreach efforts under the supportive umbrella of Visitation's Children on the Journey. Since 2003 Children on the Journey has sponsored a Mother's Day Breakfast, a variety of food sales, Ladies Tea, book sale, car wash, wine and cheese party, Father's Day Breakfast, yard sale, lemonade stand, Cookies in a Jar Sale, Quilt Raffle, Bunco Madness and more. Proceeds from these activities have gone to a national anti-hunger non-profit organization, Share Our Strength, which is committed to ending childhood hunger in the United States.

Msgr. Timothy O'Connell, pastor, sees a strong connection between the parish liturgies and their outreach programs, especially Children on the Journey. "I want them to transfer their faith to outside events and needs," he says. "They volunteer, too. Liturgy is important to them. We have good music. We all have to be enriched by the liturgy, priests as well, and we're all enriched. That's what motivates us to give. Liturgy is powerful. It works."

Indeed, the veteran pastor --- chair of the Archdiocesan Commission for Catholic Life Issues --- says his parishioners "have a real sense of dedication to the parish. They are generous, quite generous when I have focused on a need, like St. Margaret Center and Covenant House, and collections during Holy Week and Ash Wednesday, when we are focused on the poor."

The work of alleviating children's hunger is foremost in the minds of Visitation parishioners, says Toni Kerker. "I think we all know that hunger exists," she says. "We don't always know how to help or trust the things we do hear. But here are our own parish children asking us to help."

Every other year the children speak at Mass on how important it is to help out. "They cannot stand to think of children going to bed hungry at night or children in soup lines," says Kerker. "They know how blessed they are and they can't tolerate the fact that so many children are hungry in the United States. All children can bake and all children can have a lemonade stand. They can raise money and do their part."

"If we are going to be the Church of the Visitation," adds Dick Laner, "then why not live that time in history, a very special moment when family members got together? This is what we should be about, if nothing else, at the Church of the Visitation. We should really emphasize hospitality."