VITA CONSECRATA--CONSECRATED LIFE

VITA CONSECRATA—CONSECRATED LIFE

Religious life is about serving the Church in a variety of ways.  The chapter on “Apostolic Service” in the Constitution of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother opens with a quote from Micah 6: 8: “…and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  That statement applies to so many of my senior sisters, women religious who did great things for the Lord without recognition of their efforts. Nor did they ever toot their own horns, so to speak.  These were and are humble women, women who gave their lives for the poor and oppressed, who did whatever was asked of them by their superiors.  One such woman was Sister Kiliana Jakubowski, a woman from Germany, an orphan, in  fact.  She was principal of the convent high school and president of the junior college in Milwaukee, WI,  when I entered the community back in the 50’s.  In the 60’s she was asked to lay the groundwork for our missions in the Caribbean and in Brazil, traveling to those countries and, for Brazil, learning Portuguese in her advanced years.  She was passionate about preserving the history of our community. That passion led her to writing the first community history book as well as translating five volumes of meditations given by the first spiritual director of our community, Msgr. George Jacquemin.  As an aspirant, postulant, novice and three years into temporary vows I was the one who typed and mimeographed those five books: the one history book and the four volumes of meditations.  Her motto that she passed on to me was: All for the glory and honor of God. Truly, that was the passion that drove her to say “yes” to all God asked of her. It is that motto that underlies the humility of so many of the Sisters that have gone before me. It is also the motivation that prompted their obedience to their superiors and ultimately to their God.