More than 100 women and men religious who minister in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and celebrate significant anniversaries of their vowed lives in 2013, were honored Jan. 27 at the Mass for Religious Jubilarians.“You are a visible sign of the real love of Jesus Christ in your love for the poor and sick, through your work teaching and in other ministries,” Archbishop José Gomez, main celebrant, told the jubilarians during the annual liturgy celebrated at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. “This is a beautiful day for our archdiocese as we celebrate your anniversary. You are a visible sign of God’s presence and love.” During the Mass, jubilarians — marking milestones ranging from 25 to 75 years — held lit candles as they renewed their vows of chastity, poverty and obedience and recommitted their lives to serve the Church. Among them: Notre Dame Sister Francelia Klingshirn, a spry 95-year-old, one of two religious celebrating 75 years of profession and able to attend the celebration at the Cathedral. Though retired now, “I keep busy,” she told The Tidings. “I do things around the house. I love computer work — and I am on it a lot — and I do floral arrangements around the house.” Most of all though, she declared, “I still love teaching!” She spent almost 50 years in educational ministry (plus six years as provincial superior). Her last assignment was teaching ESL classes at the International Language School in Los Angeles for foreign students — “delightful,” she smiled.“I am very grateful for the number of years I was able to serve,” she continued, saying she loved children and also “really enjoyed teaching teachers to teach,” having done that for many years, especially in Washington, D.C., at Catholic University. It just comes and you make the best of it. It is all a gift.”In much the same way, Congregation of the Holy Faith Sister Mary Glennon, a 60-year jubilarian, talked about her great love of education and ministry. Currently on the faculty at St. John Seminary in Camarillo, she works one-on-one with the seminarians as assistant director for spiritual formation — “shepherding the new shepherds,” so to speak.“At this hour in my life I feel so blessed,” she told The Tidings. “It is a great privilege. It is like the icing on the cake. I feel so blessed as a leader of new leaders.”Sister Glennon attributes her vocation to praying the Angelus. Born 80 years ago in Wilkinstown, Navan, County Meath (Ireland), she prayed the Angelus “automatically” as a child and teenager, “and then one day I stopped in my tracks from rattling off just a bunch of words. I stopped at the words ‘Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ,’ and I asked myself, ‘What are you doing, as a teenager going on 19, to be worthy of the promises of Christ?’ “I said, ‘This is it, God. Take me, I am yours.’ And it was an open-ended call. I really connected myself to Mary as she said her ‘Yes’ and never ever looked back.”After profession of first vows with the Congregation of the Holy Faith, she was sent to the United States as a member of the second group of her congregation to come to Los Angeles. Over the next few years she taught at St. John of God School in Norwalk and St. Raymond School in Downey, continued her studies at Immaculate Heart College to complete her degree and earn her credential, and become a U.S. citizen. She was a principal, returned to Ireland to serve as a member of the leadership team for her congregation for six years, then came back to California and was asked to be archdiocesan Vicar for Women Religious.At this point in her life Sister Glennon is definitely enjoying her life at the seminary. “I dearly love them [the seminarians],” she said happily. “And I am so privileged to be part of their journey and getting to know them at so many different levels.”As she listens to the seminarians’ vocations’ stories, she hears similarities with her story and others. “Nothing has changed,” she noted. “They are just following the call of God. Vocation is a mystery. Those men are coming up that hill for the same reason as I came — to follow Christ.” Sister Glennon is enjoying her jubilee year “immensely. And I am enjoying that I have the health and the great gift to be able to continue ministry because I have just no desire to stop being who I am — a ministerial person.”“I live by the words of St. Irenaeus, ‘The glory of God’s creation is the human being fully alive.’”Also celebrating 75 years of religious life in 2013 are St. Joseph of Carondelet Sisters Margaret Callahan and Mary Martin McCullough, Carmelite Sister Belen Cornejo, and Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary Marguerite McLoughlin.At the celebration, religious communities celebrating milestones of continuous service in the archdiocese were honored: Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, 130 years; Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, 90 years; Sisters of the Holy Faith, 60 years; Guadalupan Missionaries of the Holy Spirit, 25 years; Little Handmaids of the Most Holy Trinity, 15 years; and the Puso Ng Carmelo Community (Heart of Carmel Community), 10 years.Anniversaries of foundation were acknowledged as well: the Missionaries of Charity Brothers (50 years), and the Dominican Sisters of Christian Doctrine and Little Handmaids of the Most Holy Trinity ( 25 years each).{gallery width=100 height=100}gallery/2013/0201/olajubilarians/{/gallery}