A Reflection for the 2025 Silver and Golden Jubilee

Note: The following is the reflection General Superior Sister Dawn Tomaszewski offered during Saturday’s 2025 Silver and Golden Jubilee Mass.

“Do you love me?” Three times Jesus asks Peter that question in the Gospel we just heard proclaimed. “Do you love me?”

Now, when I imagined what this church might look like this Jubilee afternoon, and who would be here with Mary Ann, Jeanne, Lisa, Janice, and me, as we celebrate our golden and silver jubilees as Sisters of Providence, I thought, “If I ever doubt that God, that Jesus loves me, all I would have to do is remember this jubilee moment.”

So, I add my thanks to Jeanne’s for your presence here today and your support and love of each of us during the countless years so many of you have traveled with us.

But back to Jesus on the seashore with Peter … when I imagined that scene in light of this jubilee celebration, I thought to myself, “When did Jesus ask that question of me? Or Mary Ann? Or Jeanne, Lisa and Janice?” And I would like to ask all of you here with us today, “When did the Holy One ask you that question?” That quintessential question, “Do you love me?” And how did you/we respond?

I do remember making somewhat of a proclamation of love in Jesus’ direction at the dinner table one night at our home on Farragut Street in Chicago. I was in the eighth grade. I have no memory of what prompted my religious outburst, but I recall saying, “I am going to join the convent someday!”

My father, in his typical even voice, replied, “Well, you know, if you join the convent, you will never again be able to go to our cabins in Wisconsin.”

My response was less event, “Well, then forget it. I’m not joining.”

Good thing I wasn’t on the seashore with Jesus instead of Peter that Gospel morning. The church might never have been founded.

Obviously, I did join the convent – no doubt because of the love of a Provident God that manifested itself around the dinner table and others like it day after day, year after year.

I believe that’s what we really celebrate today as jubilarians – God’s faithfulness to us these past 70-plus years of each of our lives. God’s faithfulness to us has expressed itself in a very special way through our vocation as Sisters of Providence during the past 50 and for Janice, 25 years.

In the winters of our sorrow and struggle, in the summers of joy and peace, in every season, we have been held, nurtured, challenged, prayed for and loved by a community where we call each other sister and an extended community of associates, family, friends and ministry partners.

I would like to believe that we are a community that tries to practice what activist Valerie Kaur calls “Revolutionary Love” – the choice to leave no one outside our circle of care. It is a community whose members believe that an act of love can change everything. Kaur says this kind of love is the call of our times. This kind of love is the call of Jesus the Christ at all times.

And it is perhaps the kind of love that Jeremiah speaks of in that beautiful passage that was our first reading. In prophesying to members of his community who are exiled in Babylon, Jeremiah reminds them that God plans for their welfare, not for harm, to give them a future with hope. In essence, God loves them no matter what. God’s love changes everything.

But, Jeremiah also tells them that God asks something of them in return: “(You must) seek me with all your heart.”

Jesus, in the Gospel, also asks Peter for something in return. “You can’t just say you love me, Peter, you have to show me. Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep.” The late Pope Francis went so far as to say that we who follow in the footsteps of Jesus need to smell like sheep, so close must we be to spread God’s hope to hearts who are discouraged.

I think of the many ways my sister jubilarians have tried to do just that. We have sought to put our hearts and souls into following the mandate of our foundress that we heard in the second reading – that we do eminent good by sowing seeds for this generation and beyond.

All five of us here today, as well as our two dearly departed band members, Sisters Sue Pietrus and Wendy Workman, have spent a significant time in ministry as Sisters of Providence as teachers. We have taught in Taiwan, in California, on the East Coast, and lots of places in between. We’ve ministered in grade schools, high schools, colleges and lately, the federal prison.

I have heard my sister jubilarians’ stories and know that on some days, ministry wasn’t about teaching as much as it was about loving the students who showed up in their classrooms and in their lives – some homeless, others lonely, some abused, others grieving and most of them just typical young (and old) people – looking for acceptance and understanding. All of them needing a place in a circle of care.

All of these jubilarians have advanced degrees – some have more advanced degrees than others – the result of a community culture that believes strongly in education and in providing opportunities for its members to continue to grow in wisdom and grace. We are grateful recipients.

Mary Ann and Janice have used those degrees in faith formation and spiritual guidance work, primarily in parishes; Lisa became a master musician and liturgist, also serving various parishes and now here at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods.

Jeanne and I made our way to administration – me in institutional communications and development; Jeanne in schools and colleges, as dean, president, principal and sometimes president and principal at the same time. Jeanne answered the call of the Congregation and helped found Providence Cristo Rey High School in Indianapolis; Janice responded to the call of the Congregation and ministered as SP novice director for nine years. Lisa, Jeanne and I have all served several terms on the SP leadership team.

In each of these moments of feeding lambs and tending sheep, I hope we have shown God’s love through the gift of our lives as Sisters of Providence, a life that has called us to seek God with all our hearts.

This gift of our lives has in turn gifted us over the years.

As Jeanne said, “In these past 50 years, I have been blessed to have learned how to most fully live the life to which I have been called through the example of my sisters who have been faithful to prayer, even in the most difficult circumstances of life; who have been willing to risk much, even imprisonment, to speak for justice for the disenfranchised; and who have been faithful to live community, as our Constitutions express, ‘not only in moments of light and peace but also in the pain and darkness of human existence.”’

Mary Ann recounted that God’s gifts have come in an “amazing variety of lovely – and even funny – ways! When I was volunteering at Guerin High School, I was asked to do some work with students, and I wanted to avoid that like the plague. To be honest, teenagers sort of scare me … but one day my mind was filled with the words of Mother Theodore: ‘Love the children first, then teach them.’ It was with me day in and day out until I agreed to work with students. What a surprise … I loved it, and still really enjoy working with teens.”

Janice, too, related a surprise gift of her 25 years, “When I entered the community 25 years ago, I never expected to be able to serve as an instructor at Jing-yi University in Taiwan. … life in that community really changed me. I was living in a setting where English was not the home language and where every day experiences, such as grocery shopping and finding a place to have lunch, gave me a new insight into how different life can be for those who leave their home country. I left that ministry with a new appreciation for the gift of our Taiwanese sisters and a humbled heart for all that they did/do to support me and our whole community.”

Lisa also named as blessing, “the sisters who have taught me with their words and their actions, who have prayed with me and for me, who have befriended me and stuck with me over the years – again, a terrific blessing. So many have inspired me over the years and have made me want to be better. I haven’t always … lived up to their example, but I’ve always wanted to.”

And Lisa might be speaking for all of us when she named knowing Mother Theodore as a terrific gift in her life. “Her wisdom, her common sense, her good humor, have all sustained me in more ways than I can count. I may have come upon her writings without having been a Sister of Providence … but I feel blessed to have been able to tag along behind her for these 50 years.”

So, I offer all of us the following words of Mother Theodore to close out this reflection. They are the words we used on the front of our Jubilee invitation: “Take your heart in your hands and offer it to God.”

Jubilarians, I don’t know how many years we have left to tag along behind Mother Theodore, but let’s promise each other we will continue to put our hearts in our hands and offer them to God and to the lambs and sheep who will show up in our lives.

I invite those of you who have shown up in our lives here today to do the same. The world needs us for this. This is the call of our times – to leave no one outside our circle of care – to respond to Jesus’ question, “Do you love me? With a resounding YES!

I invite us all to stand now and to have our jubilarians come forward (except for Lisa, who is up in the organ loft) and lead us in renewing our vows as Sisters of Providence.

I ask you, family and friends, in the silence of your own heart, to renew your vows to whomever and whatever you have said yes to when the Holy One asked you, “Do you love me?”