Christmas Stories
December 20, 2021
An Epiphany
January 6, 2022
1930-2021
Sister Maria Goretti Sodd died at Rosary Care Center in Sylvania, Ohio on December 22, 2021. The daughter of Abraham and Sarah Sodd came to the convent in Sylvania in 1949 from St. Joseph Parish in Toledo, Ohio to begin preparation for becoming a Sister of St. Francis. As a teenager she wanted to be a nurse or a missionary in a foreign country but decided to do missionary work in her own country and joined the Sylvania Franciscans who she especially admired and became a teacher and principal instead.
Sister Goretti made her First Vows in 1952 and final Vows in 1955. Her professional background included a B.S. and M.A. degree from the University of Detroit in Detroit, Michigan and a M. A. in Pastoral Theology from the College of St. Mary-in-the-Woods in Terra Haute, Indiana. She taught elementary grades at Our Lady Queen of Heaven in Detroit, Michigan for the first 16 years of her religious life. She then became an elementary school principal for 21 years in Catholic schools in Sandusky, Bowling Green and Sylvania, Ohio. She worked at Lourdes College as Director of Continuing Education for nine years and as a Student Advisor for one year. She then co-directed the Sylvania Franciscan Associates for eight years and served the residents as a visitor at Rosary Care Center until she moved to Our Lady of Grace Hall, an assisted living facility for the Sisters. Sister entered her Third Age Ministry of Prayer in 2014 and served in that capacity until her death.
Sister Maria was preceded in death by her sisters Elizabeth Boger and Mildred Bland; brothers William Sodd and Ellis Sodd. She is survived by her sisters Caroline Bukovics and Joanne Rinaldi and brother Vincent Sodd and many loving nieces and nephews.
Sister Maria had many opportunities to travel in her lifetime. She visited 12 countries in Europe with three other Sisters, experienced the Franciscan Pilgrimage in Italy, and toured the Holy Land where she visited, among many sacred places, the burial sites of Abraham and Sarah, her parents’ namesakes.
To know Sister Maria Goretti was to know a relational person long before it was popular to be one. She took the First Commandment very seriously and treated everyone as a friend and as an equal with a special place in her heart for those on the margins of life. She loved life and shared her wonderful sense of humor with anyone and everyone she met. She was a “glass-half-full” kind of person who came from a large Lebanese family where she served as the matriarch in the later years. Her favorite Scripture quote was, “The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.” She also quoted Art Buchwald who once said, “The best things in life aren’t things.”
Sister will be missed by the Sisters in her Community as well as by her loving family, her caregivers, and the many people whose lives she touched in her 69 years in religious life. Memorial contributions may be made to the Sisters of St. Francis, Sylvania, Ohio.
Welcoming
1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 28, 2021
Our Lady Queen of Peace Chapel
Funeral
4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December, 28, 2021
Our Lady Queen of Peace Chapel
Because COVID is still active, the Sisters ask those in attendance to please safeguard each other through some degree of social distancing plus wearing masks, if you so choose. Live Streaming of the Funeral Mass is: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/RvdadQRjbGk Once reaching this website you will be asked for a password. The password is Sisters!!
