Lord

The heart of the Christian community is our Triune Lord: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Geography, history, and numbers are not the heart, but probably I will type mostly on these topics. As the internet already provides many encouraging spiritual guides and discouraging contentious forums, I intend to offer neither.
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To find a parish, enter a keyword in the search box at the top left, or look through the labels and links down the right-hand column. The posts themselves follow the Blogger format of newest items on top.
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Monday, January 20, 2014

LI Catholic Elementary Schools Guide

The Sunday home delivery of Newsday on January 19, 2014, included a twelve-page Long Island Catholic Elementary Schools Guide.  A pdf of this guide may be found as a link at  http://licatholicelementaryschools.org/
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It's an excellent presentation, though without a chart of class enrollment per school or the myriad tuition scales in the various schools.A centerfold map distinguishes between parish schools, regional schools, and private schools.  In this context, "private" means neither parochial nor diocesan, but managed by other Catholic organizations, as the De La Salle Christian Brothers, the Sisters of the Holy Child, or one province of the Society of Mary.
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Tuesday, January 7, 2014

A free ebook from 1871

Fortunately, I encountered this title during a Google search: "A brief historical Sketch of the Catholic Church on Long Island," by Patrick Mulrenan, 1871.  The link is here.
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Recall that Long Island includes Brooklyn, Queens, and everywhere to Montauk Point.  At that time, the diocese of Brooklyn included the entire island.  What is now Nassau County was part of Queens County, and Brooklyn was a City.  
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At the top left of the page at the above link, you will see a red button "Ebook Free."  Yes, because the copyright has expired, Google can give you without charge what it scanned from the Harvard University library.  Before you download, consider where you want to read this book, on your computer or on a tablet, because it will download only to the device that fetches it. 
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Mulrenan's book is a valuable snapshot of the Diocese of Brooklyn and its parishes and good works, as observed in 1871.  You may use the find tool to locate the parish, neighborhood, or person that is your particular interest.  In general, histories of dioceses focus on the bishops more than on the parishes, even when they attempt to write from the ground up.  The book, nevertheless, is a treasury of the growth of the church on our island.  Highly recommended.  I see copies for sale in the used book market also.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

A blessing

The first reading for January 1 is from the Book of Numbers:
The Lord said to Moses, "Speak to Aaron and his sons and tell them: This is how you shall bless the Israelites. Say to them:
The Lord bless you and keep you!
The Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you!
The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace!
So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them."
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(An introduction to book of Numbers may be found here.)