Sister Jean’s urgent plea: “Work with people of other cultures and try to understand each other” 

As she celebrates her 103rd birthday, Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt offers sage advice for young students, parents and our nation as a whole.

The longtime Loyola University men’s basketball chaplain and internationally renowned symbol of ecumenical optimism and grace, spoke to me over the weekend about her views of today’s young generation and the future of our society.

“I think if we just continue to work with our neighbors and work with people of other cultures and try to understand each other…we have to talk to each other to do that,” said Sister Jean. “We can’t be in separate groups. Then nothing will happen because there is no bridge there. So we have a lot of work to do. But it is possible. And I think we have to make that possible in the near future. The very near future.”

Sister Jean makes herself available to listen to Loyola students by keeping her office door open in the student atrium lounge.

“Well, fortunately, I see a lot of young people and I work with a lot of young people. And I have to tell you, even though sometimes a person will say: ‘Oh, this generation is blah-blah-blah…’ That doesn’t affect me at all, because I have great faith in them,” she said. “And I keep telling them as I see them around and as I talk to them…if they have any dreams in mind…just keep dreaming and try to make their dreams a reality. Don’t let anybody prevent you from fulfilling your dream. Because, if it isn’t for you, then you are going to find out yourself. But work on your dream and that is how wonderful things happen.”

Sister Jean always interacts with Loyola basketball players before and after games.

Sister Jean has served as Loyola’s men’s basketball chaplain since 1994. I devoted an entire chapter about her remarkable life in my 2019 book titled: “The History of Loyola Basketball: More Than a Shot and a Prayer.” When the Ramblers advanced to the Final Four in 2018, Sister Jean’s recognition grew nationally and even internationally. She prides herself on being able to reach out to young students and athletes to provide counsel and advice.

“I have great faith in these young people and when parents talk to me and say: ‘Oh, my children don’t go to church.’ I say: ‘Don’t worry. As soon as they need God they are going to go back to God. And everything will be all right for them.’ So I have a lot of faith, even though generations seem to change,” she said.

Sister Jean renders a team prayer before each home game, offers a brief scouting report of the opposing team, then sends individual text messages to players and coaches after each regular-season game.

“I have been talking about athletics because I really believe that it is a very important part of a student’s life,” she said. “They don’t all have to belong to a varsity team, but Loyola has wonderful sports clubs. And we have hundreds of students belonging to those, also. I think it’s important in their life to have that because first of all, they learn a team spirit. And that is what life is all about. If you are not working as a team and always working individually and pushing yourself, you’re not going to make it. If you work as a team, everything goes well.

“The other thing is that you learn to work with people of other cultures and that’s very important these days. It always has been important. In the gospel reading today, it was interesting to me because it was a story about the lawyer who asked the Lord: ‘What should I do for eternal life?’ He said: ‘You have to keep the commandments. And the important one is to love God and of course to love your neighbor.”

Perhaps the question Sister Jean is asked most often is: “What is the secret to your longevity?”

“Part of it is hereditary,” she says. Her father lived to be 95. Sister Jean was raised by her parents in San Francisco along with her two brothers.

“They taught us as children to get along with the boys and girls in the neighborhood, and we knew everybody in the neighborhood. That made for good community spirit,” she said. “I grew up in the Depression time, so nobody was being paid for babysitting. But that was just the neighborly thing to do. If a mother said she needed you and your mom said you could go and help her, that was very good. So we were very service oriented, although in those days we didn’t call it that. But I got a very good example from my mom and dad, who never thought anything was too hard or too much to do.”

Sister Jean played on a girls basketball team in California before graduating from high school in 1937. At age 18, she boarded a train to Dubuque, Iowa, where she entered the convent of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary to become a nun. She received a bachelor’s degree from Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles in 1949, and a master’s degree from Loyola of Los Angeles (now Loyola Marymount) in 1961. After college, she taught elementary school and coached girls basketball, volleyball and track in Los Angeles, North Hollywood and Chicago.

“If we said we didn’t have time to do something, my mom used to say to us: ‘You’ll learn. You have to make time to do certain things. And it works out,” said Sister Jean. “You have to give a little bit here and a little bit there. And it will all work out in the end.'”