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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Sunday, June 29, 2025

DRVC assignments 6.24.2025

The new or modified assignments of the priests and deacons of the diocese of Rockville Centre effective 6.24.2025 are on eight pdf pages. Please note that this is not a complete list of  personnel, as it lists changes. I have been unable to write a link, so go to the drvc.org website and search for assignments.

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I am also having difficulty printing all eight pages from Adobe Acrobat.

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St. Joseph's parish in Garden City gained a bishop for its new pastor, namely auxiliary bishop Andrzej Zglejszewski, who will remain Episcopal Vicar for the Western Vicariate and Vicar for Worship. 

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In the City of Glen Cove and nearby Glen Head, Dom Gabriel Roch is pastor of three parishes, St. Patrick, Glen Cove, where he and his community reside, St. Rocco, Glen Cove, and (apparently recently without a resident priest), St. Hyacinth, Glen Head. The newest church structure is St. Hyacinth, the Latin version of the Polish name Jacek. On weekends, St. Patrick's has five Masses, including one in Spanish. St. Rocco has five Masses, including one in Italian and one lingua latina, usus antiquior. At St. Hyacinth, there are no weekday Masses, but there are three weekend Masses, including one in Polish. That seems to add up to thirteen weekend Masses offered by Canons Regular from Klosterneuburg, lower Austria. 

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St. Bernard's, Levittown, has a new pastor, Rev. John D. McCarthy. See video HERE.

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Two Polish churches in Nassau County will share a priest of the Archdiocse of Lublin, Poland. The Rev. Jerzy Bres will live at St. Ladislaus, Hempstead, but also attend to St. Hedwig, Floral Park. There are six weekend Masses at St. Hedwig and other priests on the staff.  At St. Ladislaus, two weekend Masses are in English, one in Spanish, and one in Polish. The given name Jerzy has roots in Latin and Greek Georgios, farmer.

Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Baptismal Statistics

 I must praise the Catholic World Report for its extensive article on 2024 baptismal statistics. The author has mined the data from the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae. I suspect that the data are mostly reliable, but a few years back I encountered an incredible statistic submitted by a Suffolk County parish school, declaring that for three years in a row the school's enrollment was 300. The school soon closed.

Sunday, May 11, 2025

The King of Love My Shepherd Is

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday because of its Gospel. Our offertory hymn at St. William's was "The King of Love My Shepherd Is," composed in 1868 by Sir Henry Williams Baker, 1821-1877.

Sunday, March 9, 2025

Eastern Rite parishes in Nassau County


Several Catholic parishes in Nassau County, Long Island, have their own Eastern Rite exarch or bishop rather than the Latin Rite bishop of Rockville Centre. Two are Ukrainian.

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At 275 Ellison Avenue, Westbury, is the church of St. Andrew Apostle, a Byzantine Catholic Church belonging to the Ukrainian Exarchy (diocese) of Passaic, New Jersey. The parish website is linked HERE. The pastor is Fr. Nicholas Daddona. The Byzantine-Rite church in Smithtown belongs to the same exarchy.

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At 718 Front Street, Hempstead, is the church of St. Vladimir, belonging to the Ukrainian Exarchy of Stamford, Connecticut. An old article in the Long Island Herald offers a photo of the iconostasis and much information. 

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At 1500 De Paul Street, Elmont, is located a cathedral of the Syro-Malankara Eastern Rite. It is the former parish church of the Roman Rite parish of St. Vincent de Paul. Its center is in Kerala, India. Please see Wikipedia at this link. 

Sunday, March 2, 2025

Bishop Barres visits Seaford

Bishop John Oliver Barres offered the 9 a.m. Mass at St. William the Abbot, Seaford, March 2, 2025. He thanked Father Joseph Fitzgerald for his work and extended his role as pastor for a second six-year term. The bishop also said that Fr. Fitzgerald will be a chaplain at the Olympic Games that open in Los Angeles July 14, 2028.

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Today's selection of readings and the responsorial psalm exemplifies the rich introduction of the three-year cycle effective Palm Sunday, 1970.  Psalm 92: Lord it is good to give thanks to you.

Sunday, November 24, 2024

Hymn, Crown Him with Many Crowns

Today, the Feast of Christ the King, the pre-recorded Mass from the Passionist Fathers, had as recessional the hymn "Crown Him with Many Crowns, the Lamb upon his Throne." The hymnist is Matthew Bridges, 1800-1894, who penned this hymn after he embraced the Roman Catholic church around 1846.

Monday, November 11, 2024

Hymn, We Gather Together

On Sunday, November 10, 2024, the entrance hymn was "We Gather Together to Ask the Lord's Blessings," strong in purpose and of fascinating history. Our translation may have been done by Theodore Baker, 1851 - 1934.

In the Spanish-ruled Netherlands of 1597, Adrianus Valerius, Dutch Protestant, wrote it to celebrate a military victory. Spain forbade Protestant religious celebrations. Careful! The various English translations are inexact. The Dutch hymn begins, "Wilt heden nu treden, perhaps "Will you now take steps..."


Please see the Wikipedia article linked HERE.