LIVONIA — As this year’s religious jubilarians — vowed religious women and men marking milestone anniversaries — gathered June 2, Archbishop Allen Vigneron said it was a time for them to reflect.
In his homily at the annual Celebration of Consecrated Life jubilee Mass, the archbishop urged them to “think about all the ways in which that ‘still small voice,’ the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, has sustained you in your fidelity.”
And he said their fidelity has not been a matter of obstinacy: “It is not out of self-love that you have been faithful, but rather perseverance — it is out of love for the Lord Jesus.”
Archbishop Vigneron expressed his gratitude to the religious jubilarians for their service, and added that he was also grateful for the opportunity to celebrate Mass for them.
“Thank you for your service to the Church and to the Word, and thank you for loving the One that I love,” he said.
The Mass was held this year in the chapel of the Felician Convent in Livonia, with a banquet following at nearby Madonna University.
This year’s roster of jubilarians includes one religious sister celebrating 85 years of consecrated life, two celebrating 80 years, and seven celebrating 75 years.
Thirteen sisters and one religious brother are celebrating 70 years; four sisters are marking 65 years; and 29 sisters and one religious order priest are marking their 60th anniversary in religious life.
Fifty-year jubilarians include 37 sisters and one brother, and five sisters this year are 25-year jubilarians.
Religious order priests celebrating their ordination anniversaries include one marking 60 years, four marking 50 years, and one 25-year jubilarian.
Members of religious communities celebrating milestone anniversaries were asked to share their thoughts about what their vocations have meant to their lives. Here are their responses:
85 years
Sr. Mary Justine Sabourin, RSM
“Celebrating 85 years of religious life has been a delight for me. My life has been full with 85 years of loving God, the Sisters, and those to whom I ministered. At 101 years old, I now spend my time praying for everyone and thanking God for all the graces of my life. There is a special place in my heart for my family, my Sisters, and all those whom I have known and cherished.”
80 years
Sr. Robert Mary Wipping, RSM
“Celebrating 80 years of religious life has been an adventure for me. My 80 years as a Sister of Mercy has been a wonderful gift. I am grateful for having been a nurse and helping so many people with their struggles. It has been a privilege and I am grateful to God for my vocation.”
Sr. Mary Idalia Konopka, CSSF
“Celebrating 80 years of religious life has been a gift from God. I am most grateful for the kindness of the Sisters, for many prayer opportunities and good health. This celebration is special because I have loved living in community for so many years. All of my jubilees — silver, golden, diamond — have held significant memories for me as a Felician Sister. Twelve of the students that I have taught over the years have entered religious life. I humbly pray that their lives were somehow touched by my example. Many feelings surface at this time, but the most prominent are gratitude for the call to religious life and the kindness of my fellow sisters.”
70 years
Sr. Jean Laubacher, IHM
“Celebrating 70 years of religious life has been a time of gratitude to God and my IHM congregation for my education, spiritual and medical advantages as I ministered for many years in our schools in various ways. Now in my remaining years I am showing my heartfelt appreciation by serving in many ways each day at our Motherhouse in Monroe.”
Sr. Mary Vita Pandolfo, RSM
“Celebrating 70 years of religious life has been for me a great adventure as a Sister of Mercy and continues to be so.”
Sr. Mary Bernita Ligney, RSM
“I am glad to be able to celebrate 70 years as a Sister of Mercy. I am grateful to my family, friends, and Sisters for their support over the years. I am grateful to God for everything in my life.”
Sr. Marian Mertz, RSM
“Celebrating 70 years of religious life has been a gift. I thank God for my call to Mercy and I’m grateful to family, Sisters and others who have helped me along the way. In my 70 years as a Sister of Mercy I’ve met many people in my ministries of education and health care. I am grateful for the ability to have assisted those in need. Seventy years as a Sister of Mercy has gone quickly and God has blessed me.”
Sr. Marie Gonzaga (Lucienne LeBlanc), IHM
“Celebrating 70 years of religious life has been a great gift from God. At this I am confined to a wheelchair and a bout with bronchitis. The wheelchair problem is prohibiting attendance at the glorious festivities prepared by our Archbishop. It is God’s will I am seeking.”
Sr. Mary Ursula (Genevieve) Dzienis, CSSF
“Seventy years of religious life has been an adventurous journey — a journey of challenges and blessings. My ministry in the educational field of 64 years was most gratifying. I always felt God guiding me when circumstances seemingly were beyond my control. For that reason all my gratitude goes to God as I say: God is so good and so very rich is His mercy. To my Felician community for its support and encouragement, a most sincere ‘Deo Gratias’ and God’s countless blessings.”
Sr. Lurana Sankovic, IHM
“Celebrating 70 years of religious life has been a most rewarding experience in every possible way. The valuable lessons learned teaching youth, then ministering among the needy elderly of Detroit, and now being able to be of service to our IHM sisters in health care, all have deepened my understanding of the depths of God’s love for each one of us.”
65 years
Sr. Mary Mercita Kula, CSSF
60 years
Sr. Felicia Mazzola, DC
“Celebrating 60 years of religious life has been a time to thank God for calling me to live in community and to serve Christ in persons who are poor as a Daughter of Charity.”
Sr. Christine Mihelcic, SJ
“Celebrating 60 years of religious life has been and continues to be a series of blessings and opportunities experienced in community and ministry. I am grateful to the Oxford Dominicans for my early years of formation and to the Servants of Jesus who continue to nurture and support me as I celebrate what was and anticipate the goodness of what will be.”
Sr. Celeste Schoppy, IHM
“Among the various ministries in which I have been called to serve the people of God, I am grateful for gifts of compassion, patient listening, and for involvement in education, health care, pastoral ministry, retreat and spiritual direction. The promise of Jesus to share “abundant life” has been my source of blessing.”
Sr. Noreen Tenbusch, IHM
“Celebrating 60 years of religious life has had many blessings and surprises helping me appreciate the gift of faith nurtured by my parents. As Mother Teresa said, ‘Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness.’ He has! Thanks God!”
Sr. Laura Marie Smith, OP
“Beginnings are always very special! Although my ministry as an Adrian Dominican Sister has spanned 60 years, of those enriching, rewarding and memorable years, three were spent in the Archdiocese of Detroit — one year at St. Edward School and two years at St. Clement in Romeo. Having been introduced to the Adrian Dominican Sisters in Florida, that is where my vocation took root and my ministry continued for 16 years. After a six-year term as principal in Ohio, I was called to the Golden West for 17 most fulfilling years before returning once again to Michigan. Going far or near, always, we were reminded to be of good heart and to walk solidly in the way of the Lord — wherever we were called. It has been a blessed journey.”
Sr. Martha Rabaut, IHM
“Celebrating 60 years of religious life has been a profound gift, a challenge, and a deep joy. My sense of God has broadened, so I believe God is in all that is. My appreciation of my congregation continues to deepen. This religious community nourishes and challenges my spirit. My appreciations for ministry are an enriching gift.”
Sr. Mary Finn, HVM
“Jesus is the heart of home visiting, and receives our fragile, imperfect desire to visit and hold our broken city, and with Mary pray over every neighbor ‘this neighbor is my Body … this city is my Body.’ Our Father (as in Luke 15) is ‘running down the road’ to our city Detroit … and brings us home — healed — to His Eucharistic banquet of love and joy.”
Sr. Mary Agnestine Rosinski, CSSF
“Celebrating 60 years of religious life has been a gift and a blessing. I look back and visualize the numerous and wonderful people who have shared my life and with whom I ministered to God’s people. What a privilege to have touched so many lives and be touched by them. I am grateful for the years in education as a teacher, administrator, religious ed coordinator and pastoral minister. This is a happy occasion and sad, also, for I lost two sisters in an early death who left me alone in my class. On the bright side, one of the highlights of my life was the trip to the Holy Land … a gift from my family on my 25th anniversary. I am thankful to be a Felician Sister.”
50 years
Sr. Marie Cacciatore, OSF
“Celebrating 50 years of religious life has been a gift from a loving God! These years have been like a flash, a stunning graced moment in time, for which I am most grateful. Each day as I experience God’s love within my Bernardine Franciscan community and I encounter God alive in His people, I realize that I continue to be called anew to be a witness to the Gospel of love and mercy.”
Sr. Mary Diane Masson, CSSF
“Celebrating 50 years of religious life has been a gift from God. My family of origin, my Catholic faith and upbringing, and the significant events of the past have prepared me for this jubilee. I live jubilee in the present as a Felician Sister. God’s love invites me to continue to celebrate jubilee until He calls me home.”
Sr. Patricia Rourke, IHM
“These 50 years have been full of miracles and amazing connections. I treasure all the people who have touched my life with their faith and love and allowed me to touch their life. I celebrate the blessings of this life.”
Sr. Charlotte Young, RSM
“What led me to be a Sister of Mercy? It is more Who led me. Although I was not familiar with the passage 50 years ago, Jeremiah 29:11 reveals my vocation story. God says ‘I know the plans I have in mind for you…plans for peace, not disaster, reserving a future full of hope for you.’ From the time that I was a little girl, my plan was to be a nurse and that was it. After my plan became a reality, God revealed another plan, which was to enter a religious community. Initially it was a plan that I did not embrace. Resist, though I tried, God’s plan would not go away. When I finally surrendered, Mercy was my choice because I was a nurse. My ministry has always been in some facet of health care including bedside nursing, teaching nursing, risk management, and health care governance. While I continue to be on two hospital boards — my main ministry now is being a volunteer at Mercy Education Project, the University of Detroit Mercy – College of Health Professionals and the Detroit Development Office. I am still a nurse, and as Catherine would say, the works of mercy are the business of my life. I came to Mercy because of being a nurse, and I stay because by living my vows, especially my vow of service, I am where I am supposed to be. Psalm 16:11 says it all for me. ‘You will reveal the path of life for me; give me unbounded joy in your presence.’”
Fr. A. Leo Reilly, CSB
“With God’s help, I am grateful for 25 years in the warm embrace of the Ste. Anne de Detroit Latino community, for being a volunteer at Maybury Elementary to help first-graders get better marks with handhelds, and for a continuing interest in St. Thomas and philosophy. I think the women theologians have it right that Jesus is returning us to a discipleship of equals.”
Sr. Mary Carolyn Ratkowski, CSSF
“Celebrating 50 years of religious life has been a time of heartfelt gratitude. I am most grateful for the gift of my vocation, grateful for my family, grateful for my community. I have been blessed by the wonderful people I have met in relationship to the ministries I have been involved with. I have been gifted by the number of lives that have touched me — as well as those I have had the pleasure to touch.”
Sr. Janet Schaeffler, OP
“My Dominican life of 50 years has been a gift, a gift of covenant, of community, of challenge and blessing, a gift which has intensified my baptismal call of ministry and service with and within the people of God.”
Sr. Mary Ann Wyllie, CSJ
"Celebrating 50 years of religious life has been fulfilling, challenging and a vibrant way to live out my baptismal call. I have received so much from my congregation — an excellent education, diverse and challenging ways to serve the ‘dear neighbor,’ as well as profound opportunities to grow in my relationship with God and God’s people. I am blessed to be able to say, ‘For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes.’”
Sr. Sharon Holland, IHM
"Celebrating 50 years of religious life has been pure gift. God knew what I needed. Whether in ministry near or far, the IHM congregation and the Church have been ‘home.’ For all of this I’m grateful.”
Sr. Rose Mary Sam, IHM
“Celebrating 50 years of religious life has been a time to reflect with gratitude on the richness of a life of prayer and service in the heart of our Church. Many blessings are received in the many persons who come into my life in our mutual journeying.”
Sr. Mary Margaret Foos, SND
“I am a Sister of Notre Dame. For the past five years, I have been teaching religion classes for the students in grades two and three at St. Joseph School in Erie, Michigan. During the past 50 years I have had the privilege of teaching in Catholic grade schools in Indiana, Ohio and Illinois.”
Sr. Lisa Rieman, OP
“Celebrating 50 years of religious life, I have had the blessings of a religious family, loyal friends, challenging teachers, interested students, supportive sisters, cooperative co-workers, and limitless companions on the journey.”
Sr. Janet Ryan, IHM
“Celebrating 50 years of religious life have been a wonderful time to reflect on the gift Vatican II to our religious communities and our Church. I celebrate this jubilee with joy and hope for the future.”
Sr. Gemma Legel, OSF
“Celebrating 50 years of religious life has been a journey of faith. As can be expected, it had surprises, bumps, joys, sorrows. The best part was the memorable companions I met along the way. I would never go back (and I don’t like to travel), I look forward to the rest with hope.”
Sr. Lois Marie Mitoraj, CSSF
“Celebrating 50 years of religious life has been a time of deep gratitude for my vocation, and forever experiencing the goodness and love of Jesus, and His marvelous graces. It was a privilege to serve Jesus and His people in various ministries, to build the Kingdom of God. All praise and thanksgiving to Jesus!”
Sr. Monica Stuhlreyer, IHM
“Celebrating 50 years of religious life has been a gift! I continue to thank God for the gift of my faith and my vocation. I was blessed to live during the time of Vatican II when the Church was going through a deep spiritual renewal. As a religious, I was at the heart of the Church and found it a vital time of spiritual growth and wonderful ministry to and with the adult laity.”
Sr. Bonnie Motto, OP
“Celebrating 50 years of religious life has been joyful. A recent reflection suggested writing a six-word autobiography. My response would be: God called. I answered. Faithful friendship. Thanks, too, for the loving support and friendship of my family, friends and Adrian Dominican Sisters.”
Sr. Patricia Soltesz, IHM
“Celebrating 50 years of religious life is continuously responding to the Spirit of God in the holy ordinary road of daily life, as Mary did. I desire to be a witness of God’s liberating, compassionate, faithful love. I remember overhearing a child say, ‘She is a Sister to the whole world.’”
25 years
Sr. Noel Marie (Nkem) Agba, DMMM
“For these 25 years, God has been very faithful and I am grateful. There is no better place to be than where I am, and with the always available grace of God, I am ready and will to move on. Thank you Jesus. So far so good.”
