by Katie Vasquez
For as long as Theodora Pyle could remember, faith had always come first.
“I don’t want to miss a Sunday as long as I can do it and anything involving the church I was always there,” said Pyle, a parishioner at St. Clare Church.
As a child growing up in Guyana she attended Mass regularly.
“We went to church. We had novenas for, before Christmas nine days and we had to go to those, wake up in the morning, 5:00.”
And even when she moved away from home, and developed other passions.
“I worked at this designer on Sixth Avenue and we made all the evening gowns,”
When she finally settled in New York in 1975, she found a permanent home in the church, specifically at St. Clare church in Rosedale.
“It reminded me a lot about home and the things that we did there,” Pyle said.
Since then she has been a staple at St. Clare.
“I look forward to it every Sunday because we had a beautiful choir and the singing and so it was nice,” Pyle said.
And when the church celebrated a milestone anniversary, she realized they had something in common.
“I never thought of the hundred years until this came up really, the hundred years of the church so everything came together and I realized wow 100 years is a long time,” Pyle said.
Theodora has been recognized previously for reaching her 100th birthday, even getting a proclamation from New York City.
But something that especially touched the centenarian was when she was given a special shout-out at St. Clare’s anniversary Mass with Brooklyn Bishop Robert Brennan.
And just like St. Clare has always been there for Theodora, she wants to be there for her parish family.
“They always see me with my rosary and praying and I say I pray for everybody and you gotta pray for others too and you pray for the world,” Pyle said.