By Sister Maryann Seton Lopiccolo, S.C.
I am very happy to welcome our religious sisters and brothers who are jubilarians and their guests as we jointly celebrate this festive day.
As always, it is a joy for me to offer each of you Jubilee blessings and congratulations in the name of all the women and men in consecrated life in the Diocese of Brooklyn.
Today is a day of great celebration for each of you as you take account of the 25, 50, 60, 65, 70 and yes, 75 years of religious profession!
For the 92 sisters and brothers celebrating this year there is a total of 5,220 years of service given to the Church and the people of God. It is a great day for all of us as we gather to be a part of this happy day for you.
‘A Focused Year’
This is a memorable year for you to be celebrating your jubilee as the universal Church celebrates the Jubilee Year of Mercy. It is a focused year to think about our vocation to serve in our Church and Diocese; and for all of us in the Church to reflect on what we do with our lives – and most importantly – HOW we do it.
The Year of Mercy is, in part, about doors, especially the Holy Doors designated as sacred thresholds of God’s mercy and blessings, reminders of the holy in our lives. How fortunate we are to have so many such doors in our own Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens.
Yet, it also makes me think about the many other doors of our lives as committed women and men religious and faithful laity. Among them are classroom doors, office doors, hospital and sick-room doors, board-room doors, doors to apartments of the elderly and homebound, doors to homes of our students and their families, doors on buses and subways, doors to our own convents, friaries and homes.
I daresay that if we had a dollar for every one of these doors we have walked though in service to others, our religious communities would have no financial worries at all.
These doors are the Holy Doors of our everyday lives; they bring special blessings and indulgences for our lives, our ministries and service. These doors are an invitation to walk with God and for God. In this Year of Mercy, we hear God’s call to spiritually and corporally tend to the needs of our neighbors and all we meet.
Ambassadors of Mercy
We are called to put feet under the Gospel mission of Jesus in today’s world, to walk tenderly on our earth and to allow God’s mercy, love and forgiveness to embrace others through us. We are called to make a difference through HOW we live out mercy, forgiveness and love.
So this time of Jubilee is a time to celebrate God of Mercy with us anew, just as you have done for so many years. Jubilee is a today-time: to go forward to continue to celebrate the gift of our call, the gift of God’s love and to walk through all the new doors waiting for us.
What we have done and what we continue to do stand in our legacy of serving the Church, the Body of Christ, and the People of God. But the HOW and WHY of what we have done and of all that we accomplish belong not to us, but to our God, to Jesus the living model of Mercy.
So in this special year, we, in Brooklyn and Queens, celebrate you, our Jubilarians, as ambassadors of Mercy, to lead us through the doors of Mercy. Many blessings and our sincere congratulations.
These are the remarks of Sister Maryann Seton Lopiccolo, S.C., the episcopal delegate for religious, at the Sisters’ and Brothers’ Jubilee celebration at the Immaculate Conception Pastoral Center in Douglaston on Trinity Sunday, May 22.