Sacred Heart Church in Tampa Florida is celebrating its 150 anniversary this year (2010).

To open Catholic Schools Week, the parish invited the Sisters of the Holy Names to be honored at th 9 a.m. Liturgy on Sunday, January 31. Sisters present who graduated from Sacred Heart Academy were in the Offertory Procession. They were Sisters: Mary Haskins, Elinor Sevingny, Lillian Schneider, Barbara Rose Arduengo, and Frankie Barber.
 
Sister Ann Regan, a former Principal of the Sacred Heart Academy Elementary School, was invited to give the homily. After Mass a reception was held at the school in the auditorium. Friends and past students of the Sisters shared stories and renewed friendships with their former teachers or classmates. For the anniversary, the 2010 parish calendar tells the history of the parish and the school.

Included in the pages of this calendar is a tribute to the Sisters of the Holy Names who, during the Yellow Fever epidemic in 1887, became the ministers of the parish as two pastors succumbed to the disease. Another page pictures both the Academy of the Holy Names and Jesuit High school and tells the story of the first Catholic Schools in Tampa.
 
The calendar posts photos of beloved teachers of the 1950's era, Sisters: Olive Denise, Annette Theresa, Francis of the Eucharist, George Edmund and Irene Marie.

At a time when we, as a community, are reflecting on our legacy, the Tampa Mission Centre enjoyed reminiscing about our roots in Tampa as well as seeing the fruits of the labor of our Sisters of the 1880s, 1930s and 1950s blooming well in 2010 Tampa, Florida.

From Sister Patricia Plumb, SNJM (Tampa)
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