In October 2024, the American Province launched Graced Moments, where every month, a Holy Child Sister shares a “grace-filled” experience that has influenced her life. The project flows from the Society’s mission “to help others to believe that God lives and acts in them and in our world.”

We thank Karen Gosser, a Sister of the Holy Child Jesus for 56 years, for offering her “graced moment.”

Feel free to leave a comment for Sister Karen at the bottom of this page. Thank you.

Click the audio player to listen to Sister Karen read her
reflection or see the text below. Enjoy!

“God writes straight with crooked lines and gets us where we need to be.”

A Graced Moment transpired in my senior year at HCA in Portland, Oregon.

I had previous thoughts of being drawn to be a sister, even recalling Mother Michael, the principal of St. Rose, asking some of us what we wanted to be. I said I would be a Holy Child Sister.

Yet, by the early part of my senior year, I was thinking about marrying the Jesuit High School boy that I was dating. I also wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. My intention was to apply to Oregon State University that had a Social Work program.

But then, a graced moment came with Mary Anita Connolly.

She had come to Portland from Nigeria, as she had to leave because of the Biafra War. She asked a few of us if we could drive her around to pick up donations, she had sought to provide support to the Nigerian people who were without resources.

She then led our senior retreat. It was through the graced moments of her yes to God that I was feeling more and more to being drawn in the way Anita and Cornelia were drawn. After the retreat, I told my parents what I would be doing.

I often share with some of those I accompany that “God writes straight with crooked lines and gets us where we need to be.”

“It is not presumption to have hope and joy
and confidence in God’s grace.”

-Venerable Cornelia Connelly

What in Sister Karen’s graced moment resonated with you? Please share below.