Entered Life: March 27, 1934
Entered Religious Life: September 8, 1951
Entered Eternal Life:  May 3, 2024  

“To love Thee more and more.”

Celebration of Life Service was Wednesday, May 8, 2024.

Click here to watch the previously livestreamed service.

Sister Mary Lou (Mary Paul) Wcislo peacefully passed away at age 90 on Friday, May 3, 2024 at Saint Patrick’s Residence in Naperville after 72 years in religious life.

Preceded in death by her parents, John and Eleanor Wcislo, brother, Gordon, and Aunts, Loretta Miller and Jean Fagan. Survived by nieces, Mary Lou Voitik (Patrick), Ellen Wcislo, Michelle Drehobl (Rick), and Jeanne Lemow (Kurt); Cousins Lilly (Miller) Lewinger and Joseph Miller.

Sister Mary Lou served in Chicago at St. Brides, St. Adrian, St. Mary’s Riverside, Unity High School, St. Gregory’s (Arizona) and Loretto Catholic (Michigan).  Sister Mary Lou served on the IBVM General Council in Toronto.

Memorials may also be mailed to IBVM Development Office, Box 508, Wheaton, IL 60187.

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Funeral Reflection by Arlene Ashack, IBVM
May 8, 2024

What can I say about Mary Lou that hasn’t already been stated or implied in the readings. Mary Lou, herself, picked the second reading and the Gospel. Friends and I found the first reading, the paraphrase of the Valiant Woman. Her choice of readings tell us how she understood herself. The reading we picked let us tell her who she was for us, how we experienced her. She truly was a woman who “committed her heart to goodness.”

Let me start with a story. I read it in the book entitled SOMEHOW…Thoughts on Love by Anne Lamott. It’s about a young girl who was having a hard time falling asleep one night and calls out to her mother. “Her mother comes in and gently tucks her in again and assures her that Jesus is there in the room with her, so she needn’t be afraid. This goes on and on, each time the mother saying basically the same thing until finally, in the dark, the little girls says plaintively, ‘I need someone with skin on.’”

Anyone who experienced Mary Lou knew she was the someone with skin on. She made the concept of love real. She was extraordinary in that she lived what she loved and believed, and it showed. Having lived with her in different places I had to share with her that my experience of her was as the “earth mother.”  We just had the reading of the Valiant Woman. Change that title to the earth mother and you capture Mary Lou. She was the glue that held us all together. She made living in community a remarkable experience. She so quietly called out the best in us. 

There are so many things we can say about who she was in the various ministries of her life, from teacher to IBVM leadership, and all her other roles in between. Getting to the essence of her though was she truly was the one “with skin on.” Wherever she was, what ever she did, who ever she was with, she radiated love and acceptance.  You knew when you were with her she accepted the gift of you, and quietly affirmed you.

As some of her friends said, Mary Lou was unflappable. She didn’t get hung up in the minutia. She walked through life in touch with the essence of things. Certainly this was evident in the way she dealt with her diagnosis and the choice of hospice. When she was asked how she could be so unflappable she simply replied “that’s who I am.” 

A committed woman she modeled for us all what being a religious was all about. She went from teaching, to being a part of leadership, to being retired at Casa. What didn’t change in that was her commitment to being a Mary Ward woman of her time in her particular set of circumstances. Mary Ward’s charism, the spirit she left us was Integrity, Justice, and Freedom. Mary Ward’s understanding of freedom was the freedom to be in relationship with God. Mary Lou had that freedom; she lived that freedom; she modeled that freedom. As I said at the beginning, she was the one “with skin on.” She made it all real. She made the ordinary extraordinary. 

Her motto on her ring was “To Love Thee More and More.” She certainly grew into that in her life and that love flowed out from her to the rest of us. Her experience of the God relationship of intimacy showed up in her love of each one who came into her life in a particular way to that person.    

In the reading, it said how God showed love for us. God sent His one and only son into the world that we might live through him. God also sent Mary Lou who showed us how to love. And it was good.

Mary Lou picked the Gospel of the good Shepherd. I have to say when I read it in preparation a different insight came to me. The good shepherd may have searched for the lost sheep. But the shepherd also was the one who held the flock together, who communicated a sense of security, a sense of peace, and certainly a sense of acceptance.

One author wrote, “love can leave bruises on the heart, an ocean ache.”  When I was at Mary Lou’s bedside shortly after her death the ocean of ache washed in. One of the sisters who cared for her came into the room, noticed my state, and said it’s the human being heart that hurts. That captured it. Right now, all of our human being hearts are hurting but you know Mary Lou. She is smiling and sending us her joy. The ocean ache is the grief and gratitude for her mixing together.

I’d like to end with a poem that Richard Rohr had in his morning meditation the other day. When I read it, it was as if Mary Lou was sharing who she was with me.

…I want to walk
through life
amazed and inarticulate
with thanks…

I want to know
When I lean down to the lilies
By the water
And feel their small and
Perfect reflection
On my face…

I want to know
What I am
And what I am
Involved with by loving
This world
As I do…

I want to be found by love,
…I want to come alive
in the holiness
of that belonging.

She certainly was found by love, and she certainly came alive and shared that love in so many ways with all of us.

Going back to my love of quantum theory it’s the entanglement that is so evident now. Mary Lou was, and still is, entangled with all of us. She let us know she was ready for this new journey and she’s already sharing her spirit of joy with us. She is smiling and making us smile when we think of her. She hasn’t left us. Her spirit is surrounding us right now. 

And so Mary Lou, for all of us, I just want to say, “Thank you for who and how you were in the lives of each of us.”