“I’m His clay, He’s the potter”: Life Offered, Love Embraced as First Kenyan Congregation of Jesus Takes Final Vows

It is a truth that found its expression in Sr. Clara’s own reflection read out just before the start of the Eucharistic celebration procession, where she declared referring to God, “I am His clay, He is the potter; I trust the hands that hold me and this is enough.”

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

A divine encounter, not merely a ceremony

In his homily, Bishop Odiwa invited the congregation to see Perpetual Profession not as a formal ritual but as “a divine encounter, an echo of Samuel’s ‘Here I am,’ a response to a God who lovingly calls us by name.” 

Drawing from the Gospel of the Annunciation (Luke 1:26–38), proclaimed during the December 13 Perpetual Profession, the Kenyan Catholic Bishop said that God’s call often arises from ordinary, unnoticed places – just as Nazareth was small and obscure, yet chosen as the starting point of salvation history.

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

“Today’s profession is not just about human achievement,” he said, adding that “it is about God entering a life.” 

Addressing Sr. Clara directly, Bishop Odiwa framed her vocation as something that began long before this liturgical moment of her Perpetual Profession in the CJ. “It means therefore that your vocation began the day God entered your Nazareth,” he said about the native of Homa Bay Diocese.

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

That call, Bishop Odiwa emphasized, is both surprising and stretching. Like Mary, who asked honestly, “How can this be?”, every consecrated person faces questions and fears. Yet vocational fidelity does not rest on personal capacity but on God’s promise, he said.

“Do not be afraid… The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” the Catholic Bishop recalled, adding that the same assurance is spoken anew to Sr. Clara, that is, “I am the one who called you; I am the one who will sustain you.”

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

A vow rooted in God’s prior promise

One of the central messages of Bishop Odiwa’s homily was that Final Vows are always a response, never an initiative taken alone. “Your perpetual profession Sr. Clara is therefore not the beginning of God’s commitment to you,” he said, adding that her Final Vow are “but a response to the commitment He has always had for you.”

He pointed to Mary’s fiat, “Let it be done to me according to your word” as “the heart of Consecrated Life.” This “let it be,” Bishop Odiwa explained, is not passive or fearful but courageous and trusting. It is spoken daily in prayer, ministry, community life, joy, and suffering. Through such a yes, Christ becomes present in the world again, he said, and told Sr. Clara, “For Mary carried Christ in her womb; you will carry Him in your life.”

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Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

The Local Ordinary of Homa Bay Diocese since his Episcopal Consecration in February 2021 said that the people of God rejoice not only because Sr. Clara gives herself to God forever, but because her “yes” renews hope, strengthens faith, and inspires others. 

Sr. Clara’s life, he said, becomes “a living Scripture, an open page on which God continues writing His story of love.”

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

“Christ is worth everything”

The second reading from Philippians (3:7–14) deepened that theme, presenting St. Paul’s radical reordering of values: “Whatever was gain to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” Bishop Odiwa described Perpetual Profession as “a living echo of this declaration,” a choice to value Christ above all else.

“To profess vows perpetually is to anchor one’s entire existence” on the desire expressed by Paul: “I want to know Christ,” he said. This knowing, he noted, is lived out in prayer, in service to the poor, in community life, and in the Evangelical Counsels of obedience, chastity, and poverty. It is not the end of a journey, but “the beginning of a deeper one.”

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

Bishop Odiwa went on to acknowledge that trials and dark nights characterize human life, yet the consecrated person presses on, “forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,” trusting that Christ walks every step of the journey. 

“Your life,” he told Sr. Clara, “becomes a living homily, a proclamation that Christ is enough, Christ is worthy, and that Christ is everything.”

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

Joy, perseverance, and standing firm in values

That joy and perseverance were taken up in the speech by Sr. Mary Gitau, the Provincial Leader of CJ members in Eastern Africa. Addressing Sr. Clara, Sr. Mary described Final Vows as “a real time of joy,” even more so than First Vows, because they affirm that a decision once made still stands.

“We rejoice with you, we celebrate you, we thank God for you,” Sr. Mary said, noting that Sr. Clara took both her First and Final Vows “alone,” a path that required deep fidelity. “We are very grateful that you have persevered,” she added, acknowledging that not everyone is able to do so.

Sr. Mary Gitau, the Province Leader of CJ Eastern Africa Province putting ring on Sr. Clara Atieno’s finger on her Perpetual Profession. Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

Reflecting on St. Paul’s words about counting everything as loss, Sr. Mary posed searching questions: “Where do I stand? On what am I standing? What is the voice in me and where is that voice leading me to?” For her, Sr. Clara’s life offered a clear answer – everything else is secondary to what God has done, is doing, and will continue to do.

Sr. Mary went on to offer both practical and spiritual advice. “If you give God a hundred percent, he gives you back a hundred percent,” she said, and urged Sr. Clara to live the values she has internalized as a Loreto Sister: “Stand on those… let Jesus be the center of your life,” the Nairobi-based CJ leader emphasized.

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

She also thanked Sr. Clara’s family for their generosity and highlighted her commitment as a nurse, including her mission in South Sudan. “We have journeyed with her,” Sr. Mary said about Sr. Clara, and told the delegation from South Sudan, “We are very happy that you have come all the way… to celebrate with her on this joyful occasion.”

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

A lived “yes” in South Sudan

Perhaps the most vivid testimony to Sr. Clara’s lived vocation came from Sr. Orla Treacy, a CJ member serving in South Sudan’s Catholic Diocese of Rumbek.

Sr. Orla Treacy. Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

“We wanted to come and witness your yes today,” Sr. Orla said, recalling the privilege of having Sr. Clara with them for over three years.

Those years, Sr. Orla explained, were marked by extraordinary challenges, especially during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a nurse and leader of the Loreto clinic in Rumbek Diocese, Sr. Clara arrived in South Sudan “just as COVID was beginning,” a time filled with fear and uncertainty. While schools closed and the future was unclear, the clinic faced a critical decision.

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

“Sr. Clara was the leader,” Sr. Orla recalled. Asked what to do, Sr. Clara asked for time, consulted her team, and returned with a courageous response: “We want to work. We want to serve the community, and we want to be here.” Their reasoning was simple and profound – COVID-19 was one disease among many, and if they stopped serving, “many will die.”

What followed was daily fidelity. “Everyday Clara and her team said yes,” Sr. Orla testified, describing how the Loreto clinic gates opened to welcome hundreds of patients. Through trust in God and perseverance, they continued their mission, she said, adding that Sr. Clara’s leadership even extended to securing a vaccination program, so that “we now have 200 babies vaccinated every week because of Clara’s yes.”

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

The testimony of the Irish CJ member, who was conferred an Honorary Doctorate by St. Patrick's Pontifical University in Maynooth, Ireland, on September 27 for transforming the lives of hundreds of girls in the war-torn East African nation turned into a call to mission for others as well. 

“We need more Loreto Sisters in South Sudan,” Sr. Orla said, referring to CJ members, and inviting young women to consider the same generous availability that Sr. Clara had lived so concretely among the people of God in Rumbek Diocese.

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

Clay in the hands of the potter

If the homily and speeches showed how Sr. Clara’s vocation has borne fruit, her own reflection revealed the inner landscape of that journey. Drawing on Jeremiah 18:6, she offered a personal image: “As I make my perpetual vows to God today, the image that holds my heart is the ‘clay in the hands of the potter.’”

Sr. Clara Jemarice Atieno. Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

Sr. Clara reflected candidly of fragility and vulnerability, acknowledging that she had not come this far through her own strength but through God’s mercy and patience. “Most of the times, I came to the wheel inadequate, resistant and afraid,” she reflected, adding, “Yet the Potter’s hands never discarded me.”

The shaping, Sr. Clara admitted, was not always gentle. There were moments of pressure, dizziness, and crushed plans. Yet failure revealed something greater, she recalled, “This Potter (God) never left me alone.” Each time, God gathered the broken clay and began again – “an evident of the tender mercy of God,” she further reflected.

Inspired by the words of the CJ members’ founder, Venerable Mary Ward, “We are not bound to any particular place, but the whole world is ours,” Sr. Clara described Consecrated Life as freedom for mission, a deeper obedience rooted not in certainty but in availability. 

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

“Today I am not offering to God a finished vessel,” she said, “but in freedom of spirit, I offer to Him my YES.”

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

She was going to pronounce a “yes” ready to be moulded and reshaped, poured out in love wherever the need is greatest. And Sr. Clara’s final words in her reflection summed up the spirit of the day: “Like clay in hands of a potter so I am in your hands Lord.”

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

A mission begun

The event of Sr. Clara’s Perpetual Profession was not an ending but a beginning. As Bishop Odiwa said in his homily, “A life offered, is a mission begun.” In taking her Final Vows, Sr. Clara united her story with those of Mary, Samuel, and Paul, each having responded to God’s call with trust, courage, and perseverance.

Credit: Congregation of Jesus/CJ/Sr. Mary Santrina Tumusiime, CJ/Nairobi

In a world often marked by uncertainty and self-preservation, Sr. Clara’s Perpetual Profession is a witness that a life given wholly to God becomes a source of hope, healing, and life for others. And as she reflected in her own words, life rests securely not in human hands, but in the faithful hands of the Potter who continues to shape His clay for love and mission.