After many years as a speech therapist, a campus minister and multiple terms in Ursuline leadership, Sister Pat Lynch ventured into parish ministry for the first time in 2022 at a Kansas church known for its connection with the Ursulines.

Now, Sister Pat is serving at a different Kansas parish, but it also has a strong history with the Ursuline Sisters – Queen of the Holy Rosary Parish in the tiny farming community of Wea.

“I know the Ursulines taught here for years,” Sister Pat said. “Many people here know our Sisters. It’s kind of like coming home.”

A brick public school was built in 1921 at Wea, which is south of Kansas City and about 4 miles from the Missouri border. The Ursuline Sisters of Paola, Kansas, taught there for five decades. The school was closed in the 1960s following a consolidation, but Queen of the Holy Rosary Parish took over the school and operated it until closing in the early 1970s. As the year 2000 approached, the parish decided it wanted to operate its own school again, and the leaders chose Ursuline Sister Helen Smith as its principal. She served there until 2005. The Ursulines of Paola merged with Mount Saint Joseph in 2008.

Now for the first time in 19 years, an Ursuline Sister is serving in Wea again.

Sister Pat completed her six-year term as assistant congregational leader for the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph in 2022. That year, Father Bill Porter, the pastor at St. Agnes Parish in Roeland Park, Kan., asked Sister Pat to serve as pastoral assistant at the church. The two had served in campus ministry together 35 years earlier at the University of Kansas.

St. Agnes celebrated its 100^th anniversary in 2023, and for 63 of those years, the Ursuline Sisters of Paola taught at St. Agnes School. Father Porter retired at the end of 2023, and when the new pastor arrived at St. Agnes earlier this year, Sister Pat’s position was eliminated. Father Porter sent an email to all the priests in Johnson County, Kansas, alerting them of Sister Pat’s availability, she said.

That led to her meeting Father Jerry Arano-Ponce, the pastor of Queen of the Holy Rosary. He offered Sister Pat the position of director of Mission and Ministry, which she began Aug. 15.

“I support all of the members and ministries in the parish,” Sister Pat said. “I help the teachers plan the school Mass once a week. Father Jerry is the only priest, he has four Masses on the weekend, and on the first Saturday of the month he has a morning Mass. I’ve been trained to be the sacristan, so I work on weekends at all the Masses,” she said. “I’m also a Eucharistic minister and fill in where I’m needed.”

There are 200 students in the school, and 100 children in the School of Religion program. A larger school is needed, and perhaps a larger church, Sister Pat said.

“Every Mass is full,” Sister Pat said. “It’s a blossoming community, many families are moving here. I think people are wanting to get out of Kansas City. It’s more peaceful.”

Sister Pat also contacts people who are homebound or in the hospital, to see if they want Father Jerry to visit them. She is working more with the new director of the Ministry of Care, which reaches out to grieving families or those who need extra help.

The parish is also taking part in The Rescue Project this fall, an eight-week experience that seeks to proclaim the Gospel with a new perspective. Sister Pat said 132 parishioners are taking part on Wednesday nights, and she is involved in that as well.

She also hopes to soon be one of those people who is moving to the Wea area.

“I’m still living near St. Agnes, it takes me 45 minutes to an hour to get here,” she said. “Later this month I am moving to a rental house, it will only be 3 minutes away in Bucyrus.”

Sister Pat said she is happy to be serving at Queen of the Holy Rosary.

“The people are very involved in the parish,” she said.