St. Luke’s Parish History
Belmont, Waltham and Watertown
In the archives of the Archdiocese of Boston, it is noted in 1837, by Daniel O'Callaghan, President of the Charitable Irish Society of Boston, that St. Joseph's Parish in Waltham was one of thirteen parishes within the Archdiocese of Boston.
In 1915, St. Luke's Parish became a mission of St. Joseph's with Rev. James Baxter as Pastor. The small wooden church was located on Beech Street in Belmont. During the course of the first seven years, the mission flourished under the direction of Father Baxter and Rev. Peter J. Foley who was appointed Pastor in 1919.
In 1926, the small mission church was replaced with a yellow brick church erected on Lexington Street. Rev. Richard H. Splaine was appointed Pastor of the new church. On August 1,1926, the cornerstone was laid by William Cardinal O'Connell and on Christmas Day, 1926, the First Mass was celebrated by the Cardinal in the lower church.
Eight years later, in 1934, the upper church was completed. The actual construction of the church took place under the direction of Rev. Msgr. Dennis F. Sullivan who became Pastor in 1929. It was under Msgr. Sullivan ' s direction, also, that a Parochial School, staffed by the Dominican Sisters, was established in 1940, and a convent in 1951 on Beech Street adjacent to the Church and Rectory.
Thus began the early years of St. Luke's Parish. From the little wooden chapel to a beautiful and devotional edifice, St. Luke's Church with its classic design presents a majestic presence at the top of Lexington Street hill. And from its spires, high in the sky, the sound of pealing bells summons its parishioners to worship to the daily Angelus and to a final summons as the bodies of the deceased are borne to the church for the Funeral Mass.
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