The former Our Lady of Sorrows, St. Mary Magdalen and St. Joan of Arc combined, selected new female patron
St. Lucy is the name given to a new parish that brings together the former Our Lady of Sorrows, St. Mary Magdalen and St. Joan of Arc parishes in south St. Louis.
Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski issued a decree announcing the name, which goes into effect Dec. 1.
Over the past several months, parishioners suggested dozens of possible new names. They voted on a top 10, then top three to be submitted to Archbishop Rozanski, who approved the name St. Lucy.
According to tradition, St. Lucy was born in Sicily in the late third century and was raised in the Christian faith. Her father died when she was young and she was raised by her mother. Her mother arranged for her marriage to a young man of a wealthy pagan family. When the young man learned that Lucy has consecrated her virginity to God and hoped to give her dowry to the poor, he denounced her as a Christian to the prefect, and Lucy was put to death for her faith.
In a 2014 message on St. Lucy’s feast day, Pope Francis said, “Lucy tells us that life is made to be given. She lived this out in the supreme form of martyrdom, but the value of the gift of self is universal; it is the secret to true happiness…This can also be understood as the secret of the name ‘Lucy’: a person is ‘full of light’ to the extent that he or she is a gift to others.”
St. Lucy, whose name means “light,” can serve as a reminder of the hope we have in Christ, even in dark times, pastor Father Brad Modde said. “Hearing our baptismal call to be Christ bearers, light bearers in the world, is a great image for us to have,” he said.
The parish is forming a transition team to help guide the mission of the new parish. “We’ll start talking, first, about living out the archbishop’s letter, ‘Disciples Make Disciples,’ and how can we live that out here? What would that look like?” Father Modde said.
Then, decisions about parish facilities, ministries and more will be guided by how they will serve that mission, he added. He expects a decision about a main worship space will be made in early 2025.
South City Catholic Academy, a partnership-model school located at the St. Joan of Arc campus supported by the archdiocese and St. Lucy Parish, will retain its current name, Father Modde said.
The parish is planning a “Be the Light” celebration Dec. 13-15 in honor of St. Lucy’s feast day. Events include an all-school Mass, evening prayer, parish potluck tailgate and a parish lunch after Father Modde is installed as pastor.
Soon after the All Things New announcement in May 2023, the St. Vincent de Paul conferences of the three parishes started to discuss merging. As the Vincentians pooled their resources, St. Mary Magdalen volunteers turned over their cases to the Our Lady of Sorrows and St. Joan of Arc members while continuing to operate the Magdalen food pantry.
The collaboration has been a good way to get to know some new fellow parishioners and start working together in service, said Joe Purk, president of the St. Mary Magdalen conference.
“It’s a bigger community, for sure,” he said. “Magdalen is a small parish, and I’m looking forward to meeting even more of the new parishioners.”
In November, the St. Vincent de Paul conference at St. Joan of Arc hosted an appreciation dinner for the Vincentians of all three former parishes. For Colette Book, a parishioner at St. Joan of Arc for 46 years, “it was an amazing thing to witness all of these people who very generously give of their time to help our neighbors in need in the south city area,” she said. “That’s one of the cool parts of the merger, that instead of working separately, we’re joining together to pool our resources to better help these neighbors.”
At the same time, there’s sadness as the faith community she’s called home for so many years undergoes this big change, Book said. She hopes that the new parish will be shaped with input of parishioners from all walks of life and perspectives.
“It’s going to be a lot of work. And we’ve been praying for a long time,” she said. “We’re just going to ask for that Holy Spirit guidance to point us in the right direction.”
Brad Trower has been an Our Lady of Sorrows parishioner since birth. He and his wife, Mallory, also a lifelong parishioner, have two children at South City Catholic Academy and another at home.
He sees the opportunity for the new parish to bring fresh energy to the neighborhood, welcoming not just the established parishioners of the three former parishes but also neighbors who haven’t been engaged before. “Everything’s changing, and this isn’t going to be the way it’s been for the past 100 years, 50 years,” he said.
As the new parish comes together, “I’m happy to finally work with more of the school families. It was always kind of a downside, trying to keep your home parish alive and then do all the school activities. Everybody would come together for that, then split back to their parishes,” he said. “So now that we’re all one, I’m really looking forward to when we do an event and it’s all of us together, not Sorrows people or Joan of Arc people or Magdalen people or SCCA people — we’re all one now.”
>> St. Lucy
According to tradition, St. Lucy was born in Syracuse in Sicily in the late third century and was raised in the Christian faith during a time of persecution. Her father died when she was young, and she was raised by her mother, who arranged for her marriage to a young man of a wealthy pagan family. When the young man learned that Lucy has consecrated her virginity to God and planned to give her dowry to the poor, he denounced her as a Christian to the prefect, and Lucy was put to death for her faith.
In some accounts of her life, the prefect’s guards gouged out Lucy’s eyes before her death. In another account, Lucy removed her own eyes to discourage a persistent suitor. She is often depicted carrying her eyes on a small plate and is the patron saint of blindness and other eye ailments. St. Lucy’s feast day is Dec. 13.
