Sister Jean publishes memoir of faith, basketball
CHICAGO — At age 103, Sister Jean awakes daily at 5 a.m. She sits up quickly to avoid going to sleep again — “I’ve got too much to do,” she says. After prayers for the day ahead, she reads the Gospel on her tablet.
“I guess there aren’t too many 103-year-old nuns using iPads these days — there aren’t too many 103-year-olds, period,” she writes in her memoir that will be published Feb. 28. “But I’m pretty comfortable with modern technology. I’ve always said, ‘If you’re not moving forward, you’re going to get left behind real quick.’ Adaptability is my superpower.”
In “Wake Up with Purpose: What I’ve Learned in My First Hundred Years,” Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt tells her life story, offers spiritual guidance and shares some of the lessons she’s learned.
The beloved Catholic nun captured the sports world’s imagination and became something of a folk hero as the chaplain for the Loyola Chicago men’s basketball team that reached the NCAA Final Four in 2018.
She has been featured by newspapers and TV stations across America. Her NCAA news conference, she was told, had more journalists than Tom Brady drew at the Super Bowl. Her likeness appears on socks, bobbleheads, even a Lego statue at her gallery in Loyola’s art museum. She sees the attention as a holy opportunity to tell her story and share what she’s learned; to help others wake up with purpose. Among her priorities, there’s little that she enjoys more than talking with young people.
“I love life so much and enjoy being with young people,” she told The Associated Press. “They’re the ones who keep me going because they bring such joy into my life — and they keep you updated on what’s happening in their world.”
Born in San Francisco in 1919, Sister Jean grew up in a devoutly Catholic family. She witnessed the impact of the Great Depression, World War II and the building of the Golden Gate Bridge, which she recalls crossing on foot when it opened in 1937.
Her religious calling, she said, came at the age of 8. She was in third grade when she met a kind, joyful teacher who belonged to the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Brimming with admiration, she would pray every day: “Dear God, help me understand what I should do, but please tell me I should become a BVM sister,” she recounts in her memoir, cowritten with sportswriter/ broadcaster Seth Davis.
“I guess God listened to me on that one,” she writes.