HOBART - All across the Diocese of Gary, from LaPorte to East Chicago, religious sisters serve tirelessly in parishes, schools and hospitals. So for a few hours on Sept. 12, the Serra Club of Northwest Indiana served them, hosting a festive luncheon that gave the devoted women a chance to relax and share a home cooked meal and fellowship.
“We are overjoyed to have you here with our Serra Club members,” said Dori Albright, welcoming more than 20 guests of honor to a St. Bridget parish hall decorated in fall colors. Recalling that her first experience with a nun came as a child when she got to know her grandmother’s sister in Florida, Albright added that “Sisters have had a big role in my spiritual life.”
Whether they work in health care, education, service to at-risk populations or spirituality, religious sisters contribute irreplaceable services in Northwest Indiana, and the Serra Club is glad to honor them for their vocation. “We give you thanks for sharing your talents and good works in our diocese,” said Father Dominic Bertino, Serra Club chaplain and senior priest, in his opening prayer. “You strengthen the bonds that unite us in love.”
In an effort to highlight their wide-ranging contributions to the Catholic Church and its faithful, a number of honored guests were asked to explain what they like best about their service and what career they might have chosen if they had not accepted the call of God to become a nun.
Sister Elizabeth Lima, Congregation of the Daughters of Mary from Tanzania, serves at Sharing Meadows in LaPorte, where she enjoys “feeding (residents) healthy food and giving them medications to get them healthy.” Her alternate career would involve “serving poor young women and fighting for the rights of women.”
Sister Loretta Schleper, Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, lives in East Chicago. Having worked at Sojourner House before retirement, she now serves on several agency boards and concentrates on “justice decisions with the Interfaith Action Network, helping people with mental illness connect with resources.” When she decided to enter the convent while in eighth grade, she did have to break up with a boyfriend. “I probably would have been a married woman in southern Illinois and worked with my mother as a housekeeper.”
Sister Pam Tholkes, Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, lives in East Chicago and most enjoys “filling food baskets and serving other needs of clients at Sojourner Truth House and working there with my co-workers. If I had not become a nun, I probably would have become a nurse,” she said.
Sister Mary Rose, Sisters of the Compassionate Heart of Christ, serves at Sharing Meadows in LaPorte, where her joy comes from “rendering care with compassion and without judgement.” As an alternative, she said she would likely be “a married lay person, still taking care of people, but in a nursing home or hospital.”
Sister Joyce Diltz, Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, lives in Donaldson at the motherhouse, having directed a spiritual retreat house before retirement. “Now I love meeting one-on-one with people for spiritual direction, and I often feel centered, quiet and grateful afterward,” she said. “If I hadn’t become a religious sister, I would have been a newspaper or TV journalist to try to get the truth out.”
Sister Janice Kolesiak, Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, lives in Dyer, where the chrism of her order assigns each member at least one hour of Eucharistic adoration each day. “I pray in the morning in my room, and then together with my congregation, and then I receive my assignment for the day.” After graduating college, she was first assigned to teach theology and sewing at the same college, and still enjoys interacting with the students at St. Francis Day Services Center in Dyer, so she would likely have become a teacher if not a nun.
Sister Afra Urio, Congregation of Our Lady of Kilimanjaro Sisters, serves at Sharing Meadows in LaPorte, where she enjoys most working with the residents to make soap to sell, especially the new turmeric honey bars. If she were not a nun, “I would not live alone, but have a family with eight children, and I would have had a business cooking and selling food,” she said.
Sister Mary Joseph, Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, lives in Dyer, where she teaches at the St. Francis Day Services Center. “I especially like interacting with the students, who want to learn, and being the ‘cool nun.’” Math is her favorite subject, and if not a nun, she would probably still be a teacher. “As a little kid, I wanted to be a teacher, or a fashion designer,” she said.
Sister Ruth Luthman, Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, served as vice president for mission integration at Franciscan South in Olympia Fields until the hospital closed, and felt joy chairing the Ethics Committee, where “things were not always black and white, but I liked to make sure the patients and families came first,” she said. “I started in nursing, so I would have probably been a nurse if not a nun, maybe doing mission work, since I had wanted to travel. I would also have been married with kids,” she said. “But God knew what he was doing.”
Sister Thu Nguyen, Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, lives in East Chicago and is a kinesiology student at Calumet College of St. Joseph. “I love studying in the school library,” she revealed. Her alternate career would be “doing make-up and hair styles at a spa.”
Sister Mary Ellen Goeller, Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, lives in Portage, where she works with families at Rees Funeral Home. She also keeps the financial books for the gift shops at St. Catherine Hospital and St. Mary Medical Center, serves as a member of the Ancilla Domini Board and has been a regular volunteer at Ss. Monica and Luke food pantry in Gary. “I like being of service, listening to people and praying, and I like the quiet,” she said. Having earned college degrees in business and health care administration, she believes she would have “gotten married and volunteered or worked in business,” if she hadn’t joined the PHJC. “But I have no regrets.”
Sister Jolise May, Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, lives in Donaldson. She is retired after a career in education and administration, having served her congregation as General Superior, living in Germany for six years and also traveling to Mexico and other countries the PHJC serves. “Now I enjoy improving the quality of life of my religious community and being there to see in my fellow sisters their life and their whole being. It is also very rewarding teaching citizenship classes to immigrants at a school in Plymouth and getting to know them.” As a young woman, she said she had three choices: “Join the WAVES (post- WWII), become a baseball player or become a nun. My examples of serving others were the nuns I knew while growing up in Chicago, and I had a burning desire to be of service to others, so that’s how I made my choice.”
Caption: Mike Montgomery of the Serra Club talks with nonagenarian Sister Kathleen Quinn of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ during the annual luncheon hosted by the club for Diocese of Gary religious sisters. The meal, along with games, prizes and gift bags, was held at St. Bridget in Hobart on Sept. 12. (Marlene A. Zloza photo)
