‘Go and celebrate the good news!’

Sister of the Holy Family Sylvia Thibodeaux delivered the following reflection at St. Rita Church in New Orleans, on the occasion of the May 22 Jubilarian Mass for the Archdiocese of New Orleans. The annual Mass honors priests and men and women religious who have served God’s people for 25, 50, 60, 70 or 75 years.

By Sister Sylvia Thibodeaux, S.S.F.
Guest columnist

Greetings, my dear sisters and brothers in the Lord!

How blessed and highly favored you are to be celebrating this graced moment of a vocation to serve God singleheartedly. In a season when our world is struggling with unprecedented challenges, you are able to take a deserving breath to remember and celebrate the journey that is your religious vocation.

In the second reading for the fifth Sunday of Easter (Acts 14: 21-27), the apostles Paul and Barnabas responded to God’s call to proclaim the good news to “that city.” We are told they made a considerable number of disciples. This spreading of the Good News did not happen without undergoing many trials; their spirit was tested, but the disciples were urged to persevere in faith. The reward of these early Christian leaders was knowing that the story of Jesus of Nazareth and the gift of himself for the salvation of the world would spread to all and continue to this day.

Our vocation story to the consecrated life is a metaphor for continuing the call of Jesus to the apostles and disciples to go to the whole world and spread the Good News of God’s kingdom.

Going to “that city,” which is not named in Acts, Chapter 14, reminds us of the days when we received that little envelope telling us to go to “that city.” We went; it was not always easy, but with faith and the love of God, we persevered. We tried to give witness of God’s great love by remaining faithful to our mission.

Vatican II awakened in us the reality that our vocation to the consecrated life is a divine call lived every day, to give witness to the world of a life to come in the hereafter.

Today we come together to remember and celebrate your 25, 50, 60, 70, 75 jubilee years of living and serving God’s people, not only in the Archdiocese of New Orleans but also in many cities, towns and villages throughout the world. Not without hardships!

I am reminded of a story that I was told by Sister Madeline of Jesus, Founder of the Little Sisters of Jesus in Rome. She said when assigning a Little Sister, she would take her to a large map of the world and tell her to find a place where no missionary has gone before and tell her to go there – very different from our consulting and discerning in our modern times.

When I became a Sister of the Holy Family many years ago, I did not know I would be assigned to Africa. But I was, and for 18 years. It was not without hardship, but so was my assignment in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was a missionary in my own country. 

We never know God’s plan for us. The women and men who got up last Saturday going about the rhythm of life in Buffalo, U.S.A., had no idea racism would be the direct cause and effect of their death.

As we celebrate this jubilee, we have mixed emotions. One of our own heard and responded to God’s call “to find that place on the map, in a town or village where few will go and go there.” She went! Our human longing is for her to return to us, safe and unharmed. But the mystery of the call to be a Christian is an ebb and flow of life. We follow in the footsteps and limitless love of Jesus, and the charisms and traditions of the founders of our religious families. We are inspired by the nomadic life of the mothers and fathers of the desert like Little Sister of Jesus Madeline and recently canonized Little Brother Charles de Foucauld.

So, sisters and brothers, let us live in love, make justice our way of being, knowing that joy comes in the morning when we will all be commended to the Lord for the life we have lived and the work we have accomplished in his name (Acts 14: 21-27).

Go and celebrate the good news! 

Sister of the Holy Family Sylvia Thibodeaux is the former leader of her congregation and former executive director of the Office of Religious in the Archdiocese of New Orleans.