When Sister Lynn Rettinger, S.C., a Sister of Charity of Seton Hill in Pittsburgh, saw a man reach into an open car window and take a wallet a couple of weeks ago, she spoke to him as she would have any erring student in her 50 years of teaching, telling him, “You need to give me what you have.”

The man, whom police were still looking for, handed over the wallet, apologized, and walked away.

Sister Rettinger, by the way, just celebrated her jubilee anniversary as a Sister of Charity and has this to say about her vocation: “Striving to live always in the presence of God and practicing that charism in my daily routine has had a centering effect on my ministry. Through the years the virtues of humility, simplicity, and charity have become part of the fabric of living to the point where we ourselves don’t recognize how integral they are to us. It is always an awakening when a lay person comments on how those virtues are lived. It is often someone from outside oneself who points out what we take for granted.”