The new church of St. Raphael, East Meadow, has risen on a field behind other parish buildings. The parish address is 600 Newbridge Road, East Meadow NY 11554, telephone 516-785-0236. The parish website is linked here.
The lobby has a shrine of Archangel Raphael. To read the text, please click on the photo.
More than twenty-five inspiring stained-glass windows surround the pews. Unlike the famous windows of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris and those at St. William the Abbot parish, these windows still illuminate the church brightly.
I find it difficult to categorize the shape of the church. Not Gothic? Romanesque arches? Byzantine? Colonial? Six pillars appear to support arches. The dome is square, the nave and transepts T-shaped. the pews in five directions face the altar.
Weekday Masses are at 7:30 and 9 a.m.
The parish reports 5,700 registered families. Its geographic boundaries are, I believe, extensive, with St. Bernard to the east, St. Brigid to the north, and Sacred Heart to the south. Maybe the west boundary is the Meadowbrook Parkway, with St. Martha beyond. The parish website is linked here. A bulletin gave the Mass Attendance for Sunday, December 23, 2012, as 2,909.
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It seems that one of the many ethnic groups in the parish is Filipino. Ten years ago, a Filipino resident of Queens pointed out to me that, unlike some other groups that settled where their landsmen were (giving New York Irish, Italian, German enclaves, for example), Filipinos were spread throughout the parishes of our metropolis.
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About 1992, St. Raphael's elementary school was absorbed into St. Elizabeth Ann Seton regional school, supported by four parishes, and principally located at St. Barnabas, Bellmore.
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To reach the new church, one passes around the left end of the school, or one uses Pendroy Street, on the north side of the old church. This location is about one mile north of Exit 25 of the Southern State Parkway. Newbridge Road is also NY 106.
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