Never Look Back in Your Selfless Service, Nuns in Ghana Told at 40th Anniversary

“We thank God for calling you forty and twenty-five years ago to persevere and give service to the Church in various apostolates. Just as Mother Mary accepted to be at the service of the Lord, you must also continue to be humble servants of the Lord,” Msgr. Louis further said.

He implored the HDR nuns who have ‘Mary’ as first names, not to expect anything in return after selflessly serving the Lord.

“The current generation cannot work without expecting anything in return,” he asserted, and added, “Never count the cost of your selflessness.”

He said the Jubilee, which was supposed to be celebrated on March 25, on the Solemnity of Annunciation, but was postponed due to COVID-19, was a time for the nuns to emulate the Virgin Mary’s humility and submission by giving themselves wholly and without hesitation to be used as instruments to reach God’s people.

“I pray that you will learn to serve selflessly, sacrificially, faithfully, chastely and with missionary zeal,” the Ghanaian Cleric said and encouraged the nuns to recount with joy what the Lord has done for them.

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The Vicar General further implored the nuns to continue making Jesus Christ their first and only love as they promised at their first profession and to live with the same strength and commitment that they embraced 40 and 25 years ago respectively.

He acknowledged that their many years of Consecrated Life was an important milestone worth celebrating and advised them to let their lives attract other people to embrace Religious Vocation.

Asking them to offer themselves totally to the Lord by the vows they took 40 and 25 years ago, Msgr. Louis urged the eight nuns to live a humble and simple life as Mary “who out of nothingness gave herself in totality to God.”

“To offer your (Jubilant) womb to the Lord is chastity,” he reminded the nuns, noting that by their Jubilee vows, they still continue to remain chaste and faithful to the Lord as Mother Mary said “yes” by offering her womb in sacrifice.

He said that by their renewal of vows after many years of profession, they were also making renewal of total sacrifice of themselves to the Holy and Triune God and assured them that God would give them the grace to persevere in the footsteps of Mary.

The Accra Vicar General told the nuns that the Consecrated Life they had lived for the past years was a mutual commitment between God and themselves for responding to the Evangelical Counsels of Chastity, Poverty and Obedience.

The HDR Superior General, Sr. Mary Domitila Amissah, called on the nuns who were celebrating their many years in Religious Life to endeavor to walk in the footsteps of Mary and to model their lives on her. She thanked them for their commitment and fidelity to their vocation.

The Handmaids of the Divine Redeemer is an indigenous Congregation of Religious Women based in Ghana. It was founded by the late Bishop Joseph Oliver Bowers, a member of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) in 1957.