A SPECIAL GIFT:
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Stella Mazur next to her statue of the Blessed Mother that she donated to St. Timothy Parish in 2014.
Stella Mazur’s Blesse I
n May, the Catholic Church celebrates Mary, the Mother of God, in a special way. While this month of Marian devotion coincides with Mother’s Day in the United States, the month of Mary actually dates back several centuries in Church history. Indeed, the desire to thank and praise our heavenly mother is a natural extension of our Catholic faith. Here at St. Timothy, we have a beloved statue of Mary that was donated to the church by Stella Mazur in 2014. Though Stella passed away last summer, her devotion to her faith, her parish, and the Blessed Mother should remain a true inspiration to all of us. Stella (Raszula) Mazur was raised in a Catholic family in Elizabeth, N.J., and received all of her Sacraments of Initiation there at St. Adalbert Catholic Church. Her husband, Ed Mazur, grew up in the very same parish, though the two didn’t cross paths until they were young adults. Stella was volunteering in the ticket booth for a church fundraiser when Ed, newly returned from his service in World War II, walked up in his Navy uniform. The couple hit it off right away — and the rest, as they say, is history! Stella and Ed were married at St. Adalbert on July 13, 1946. In keeping with a parish tradition, the priest, Fr. Leon Godlewski, gifted the newlyweds a statue of Our Lady of Grace. From then on, the statue remained a fixture in the Mazur home. “We kept the statue in our family,” says Diane Mazur, the couple’s second eldest daughter. “My older sister, Michelle, and I shared a bedroom and the statue was on a table between our two beds. I remember my mother always ending the night with us kneeling in front of the statue and saying our nightly prayers.” When the Mazurs left New Jersey for Illinois in the 1960s and then moved again to Florida in 1981, the statue of the Blessed Mother traveled with them, maintaining a cherished spot on Stella’s dresser. For the Mazurs, the statue of Mary was an outward sign of their deeply held faith. Here in Lutz, Stella and Ed were among the founding members of our parish, and Stella was instrumental in helping the St. Timothy Women’s Club get up and running. Following Ed’s passing in 2003, Stella became even more immersed in church life. Something that many parishioners will remember about Stella is the enthusiasm she displayed each year in setting up her Polish table at our multicultural picnic. In 2011, the
