Bishop Michael Fitzgerald last week celebrated a Mass as part of Little Flower High School’s 80th anniversary.
The Oct. 9 Mass, in the school auditorium, took place on the feast day of St. Denis. It was Dennis Cardinal Dougherty who founded Little Flower.
As Fitzgerald explained in his homily, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was growing in the late 1930s and was looking to open a Northeast Catholic High School for girls to go along with the one for boys at 1842 Torresdale Ave.
The girls school was built at 10th and Lycoming streets and opened in 1939. Dougherty, though, had a special devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux (known as “The Little Flower of Jesus”) and named the new school Little Flower.
“Remember to bring St. Therese’s example and love to everything you do,” he told the nearly 500 students.
Fitzgerald pointed to a painting of Dougherty on the auditorium wall, recalling how he used the financial gifts he received for the 50-year anniversary of him being in the priesthood to help fund Little Flower in its early years.
Fitzgerald urged the students to follow in the school’s mission statement.
“Girls, this world needs a lot more love,” he said.
Members of student government presented Fitzgerald with a Little Flower jacket and roses and promised to pray for him. He thanked the student body by giving them a day off to be determined by the administration.
Student ambassadors Kyla Booth, Emma Curran, Maddie Gillespie and Aniyah Plumer took Fitzgerald on a tour of the school and joined him for Stock’s pound cake in school president Jeane McNamara’s office.
Little Flower invites eighth-grade girls to visit the school on Thursday, Oct. 24, from 9:15 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. There will be an open house that night from 6 to 8. Anyone who registers to attend the school that day will have the fee reduced to $50 (from $125).
For more information, call 215-398-4131, email lf2024@lfchs.org or visit lfchs.org. ••
