At the ongoing Annual Retreat of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus (HHCJ), Ghana Province, the Sisters have been invited to reflect honestly on the difficult seasons of Consecrated Life under the theme “Falling Upward Through Necessary Suffering.”
On August 27, 2026, at the Our Lady of the Annunciation Novitiate Nsoatre, where the Retreat is taking place, Fr. Edmund Agorhom, SJ, the Retreat Director led the Sisters into the reality of disappointments, limitations, dryness and wounds in Consecrated Life.
Reflecting on the title, “When the Road Is Not What We Expected,” he also delved into misunderstanding, ageing, and the suffering that can accompany the journey of Consecrated Life.
Drawing on Richard Rohr’s expression “falling upward,” the Sisters were invited to see that what feels like collapse may sometimes become a passage to deeper growth.
“Sometimes what feels like collapse is actually passage. Sometimes what feels like loss is a doorway. Sometimes what humbles us is the very thing that deepens us. Sometimes the place where our plans fail is the place where grace begins to ripen.”
The reflection acknowledged that nobody wakes up asking to be disappointed, humiliated or confronted with dryness and broken plans. Yet some things,
Fr. Edmund noted, are only learned when the shell is cracked. What looks like destruction from the outside can, from within, become the beginning of new life.
Consecrated Life can begin with enthusiasm, generosity, idealism and grand hopes. But with time, reality teaches its own hard wisdom. Community may not be easy. Ministry may not produce the expected results. People may disappoint us, prayer may change, health and energy may change, and the body itself may become weaker.
The important question, therefore, is not simply “What am I suffering?” but “What is this suffering doing?”
Is it making me harder or softer? More self-protective or more free? More bitter or more compassionate? More controlling or more surrendered?
Fr. Edmund cautioned that suffering does not automatically sanctify us. “Only grace can make a wound into wisdom instead of poison.” Necessary suffering must also be distinguished from unhealthy suffering. Injustice, abuse and dysfunction should never be romanticised or accepted as something holy.
Yet there are realities in life that cannot be mastered. We cannot control every outcome, prevent every misunderstanding, remain forever young, guarantee visible results or remove every ache in community. At a certain point, the Lord may be asking for more than our strength.
“Now I want more than your strength. I want your poverty too.”
That moment may feel like falling, but it can also be falling upward—from control into trust, from performing into being, from image into substance, and from successfulness into deeper holiness.
The Sisters were encouraged, therefore, not to ask only, “How do I get out of this?” but also:
“Lord, how do you want me to meet you in this?”
“What are you freeing me from? What are you ripening in me? What false supports are you loosening? What deeper trust are you inviting me to?”
The reflection concluded with the reminder that when suffering is received in Christ, it can deepen consecration, purify mission and make love more spacious.
As the Sisters continue their retreat journey, they are being invited to see that not every difficult season means that something has gone wrong.
Sometimes, through the very places where plans fail, strength diminishes and life becomes uncertain, grace is quietly leading the heart deeper.
By Sr. Vera Tina Woelinam Tay, HHCJ
Catholic Sister Communicators Network – Ghana (CASCON-GH)
