Edgewater faith community marks 50 years

Our Lady of Perpetual Help (OLPH) in Edgewater is marking a significant milestone, celebrating five decades of faith and community since it was officially established as a parish under Redemptorist leadership in 1976. Today, OLPH is part of the Pastorate of Our Lady, alongside Our Lady of Sorrows in West River.

OLPH’s roots stretch back even further, to 1939, when it began as a mission church of St. Mary in Annapolis. During the 1940s, Mass was celebrated at Cape St. Rose in Beverly Beach, except for one summer when liturgies were held in the Old Woodland Beach House. In 1950, Mass moved to Old Lou’s Woodland Beach Restaurant until the first church building opened in 1952 at 211 Mayo Road in Woodland Beach.

OLPH celebrated its first Mass at its current location on Easter Sunday in 1980. In 1996, archdiocesan priests succeeded Redemptorists in leading the faith community. In 2018, OLPH was united with Our Lady of Sorrows in West River as The Pastorate of Our Lady.

“I just try to keep things going,” Father Zachary Crowley pastor for two years, said with a chuckle. “On weekends, we have about 450 people show up between three Masses. Sometimes 500. They are wonderful people.”

A weekend Mass also is celebrated in Spanish, reflecting the church’s growing Hispanic community.

OLPH also operates a weekly food pantry and has an active Respect Life committee.

“We’re one big family,” Nancy Goff, a longtime parishioner of OLPH said. “Everyone is very, very friendly. We all get along great.”

While she now lives closer to Our Lady of Sorrows, she still attends OLPH regularly, though she and her husband attend different events hosted by Our Lady of Sorrows, too. The two churches, she said, are “working pretty well together at this point.”

The church’s “big thing,” Father Crowley said, is its Haiti ministry. In 2007, OLPH started a partnership with St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Haiti. Fundraisers are held throughout the year to help provide food and educational programs to the local children.

An active member of OLPH”s Haiti ministry, Goff said the church is “very supportive and very, very generous” not only with the Haiti ministry, but with “all of the outreaches” at OLPH, including its weekly food pantry.

Father Crowley noted that the church also has a busy Respect Life committee.

Email Katie V. Jones at kjones@CatholicReview.org

Editor’s note: This story was updated Sept. 23 at 8 p.m. to correct the attribution of the pastor’s quotes.

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