'I Forget to Call Him Father Rick. He's Still Ricky to Me'

If Father Rick St. Louis Jr. looks comfortable leading the congregation at Immaculate Conception Parish, it's probably because he feels right at home.

Because he is right at home.

Two years ago he was assigned to the church where he took his First Holy Communion, and where he went through catechism classes with Valerie Leyton and Stacey LaValley Lambert, who continue to be his BFFs.

"Sometimes I forget to call him Father Rick. He's still Ricky to me," said Leyton, who explains how wonderful it is to have Father St. Louis back home as parish priest.

"We all grew up here. We all went to Fairgrounds Elementary together," said Leyton, who figures she was about 4 when her family started attending Immaculate Conception. "How old were you?" she asks Lambert.

"I was probably about the same," she said. 

Father St. Louis as also just a tot when his family moved to Nashua from Lowell, Mass. After being ordained to the priesthood in 2000, Father St. Louis spent nine years at the Parish of St. Patrick in Newport before being assigned to Immaculate Conception in February of 2011.

His parents are also his parishioners.

"It's a great feeling to be back," St. Louis said, following a recent prayer service for the Boston Marathon victims. "This is truly home for me."