Holy Rosary Retreat and Conference Centre, Nsukka
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Regional Headquarters: Holy Rosary Convent, Independence Layout, Enugu, Enugu State.
Regional Leader: Sister Stella Nwosu. Telephone: 00 234 803 934 3202. Email:
uchestellan@yahoo.com
Vocation Contact:
+2347055159331
Our Communities
Our communities are 10, situated in five Dioceses: Abuja, Akwa, Enugu, Nsukka and Onitsha.
Our Lady Queen and Protectress of Nigeria, pray for us
Regional House, Enugu
Shanahan’s Mission House, Enugu
Holy Rosary Retreat and Conference Centre, PO Box 160, Nsukka, Enugu State. Phone: 07033510287 07036267408
Holy Rosary College, Uwani Enugu,
Novitiate Community, Enugu
Holy Rosary Girls’ College Gwagwalada,
Wuse Community Abuja,
Magazine Road Community Onitsha,
Holy Rosary Girls’College Nsugbe,
Igboukwu Community,
Holy Rosary Sisters Community Nsukka.
We remain true to the vision of our founder by our continued commitment to education, and maintain contact with our past Holy Rosary Students who contribute to life in society as wives, mothers, teachers, doctors, nurses and members of other professions, not only in Nigeria but throughout the world.
Now in this 21st century, filled with that same missionary spirit that inspired the founding sisters, the daughters and grand-daughters of those early Holy Rosary pupils carry forward the banner of mission to the wide world. Here in Southern Nigeria we continue to minister to people in the areas of Religious Formation, Administration, Education, Health, Development work, Pastoral/Social work, Advocacy, Adult Literacy and Women’s empowerment, and more. We are a “Sending Region” and from here sisters “go forth to the whole world” – to nearby Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone in West Africa, as well as to Kenya, Zambia and Ethiopia in East Africa; they serve also in Ireland, the UK, the USA, and Brazil. How great must be the joy in Bishop Shanahan’s heart as he sees how the gospel seeds planted long ago are flourishing today!
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Come and join us on the Cosmic Spiral Walk. Go back to the beginning of Creation and step through 3.5 billion years of God’s fantastic creation from the Big Bang to the present day. You will be filled with awe at this great God of ours and at His Fatherly love for every single creature, and for each one of us.
People come to pray on the Cosmic Walk and in the Gethsemane Garden. If they wish they can also help by weeding the garden.
“Touch the Earth and you will feel its healing power!”
At the Retreat and Conference Centre, Nsukka, we have facility for retreats, educational seminars, human development workshops, conferences and meetings. It is a serene and conducive environment for spiritual and pastoral exercises for priests, religious and the lay faithful. Visit us online for a list of programmes.
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Guess what? We can all foster vocations for our beloved Congregation just by a click of the button!
Pope Francis tells us, “Let us boldly become citizens of the digital world. The church needs to be concerned for, and present in, the world of communication, in order to dialogue with people today and to help them encounter Christ’’.
The facilitator was Amaka Okoye, a good friend of Holy Rosary who is presently working with PLUSTV in Lagos, Nigeria.
She introduced the topic to us and highlighted its importance in our vocation fostering,
We were encouraged to use our strength as a system to achieve a strong online presence. Every MSHR is called to use her social media platform to preach the gospel, announce our Founder, Charism and Spirituality and intentionally connect it to vocation fostering. Like,
* We are Sisters spreading God’s love, come and join us.
* We should not put our pictures and our works online without weaving short stories to accompany them.
If we all do that, then we have used our systemic strength to become a very dynamic congregation online. If anyone misses out then it is a disservice as the Holy Father said.
* But, we should make use of the social media prudently and not allow the social media to use us.
. We were all taken through on how to open Facebook and Instagram and how to make good use of them. Each Sister was able to open both Facebook and Instagram accounts; we were able to follow one another’s pages and we also made our different posts.
In our postings, we were advised to be intentional and not to contradict who we are and what we do with our kind of postings. For instance, we were advised to put on the attire that depicts who we are, use real action pictures and make short clips of our vocation stories etc.
All the Sisters were very excited and determined to make good use of social media to spread the Gospel of Christ.
A new book on Interculturality and the Religious life has just been written by Sr Chinyeaka C Ezeani, published by Pauline Publications Africa.
“Taking seriously the prayer of Jesus that all may be one (John 17:21), Sister Chinyeaka tries in this book to articulate clearly the challenges as well as the beauty of living as people from different cultures in religious life. The underlying assumption in her work is that it is possible and necessary to appreciate the beauty that each culture brings. This requires continuous to conversion to the heart of Christ, and prayerful attentiveness to biases and complexes that tend to support mischaracterization of other cultures. ” (From the Foreward)
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We continue to thank God for the good work our sisters in Formation ministry are doing on behalf of the whole congregation. God has continued to furnish our congregation with the gift of vocations to Mission. We remain ever grateful and do not relent in promoting vocations.
Seven pre-candidates left for Cameroon in September, 2018 to begin their candidacy programme. Here in the novitiate there are seven first year novices and three second years. We pray that God will be with them as they discern their vocation.
![]() Setting off for the Candidates’ programme with happy smiles. |
![]() Profession: the parents generously bring their daughter to God |
![]() We desire to consecrate our lives to God as Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary… |
Bishop Shanahan placed the highest value on the Catholic school. In the visitors’ book on the occasion of the opening of the first Holy Rosary school he wrote the following:
The object of the school is to honour and glorify God by teaching every pupil to know, love and serve him here below, and then to share with him his happiness forever in heaven.
May every girl who enters this school reproduce in her life the virtues practiced by Our Lady, …. who was and is the greatest model of Christ Her Divine Son.
May the blessing of Jesus Christ ever come upon and remain with every little girl who enters this school.
May every girl who enters this school enter one day the gates of heaven.
In addition to Education, the Region of Southern Nigeria is engaged in health care, pastoral work, vocation fostering, justice and peace, retreat work, development, and small scale industries. We are also responsible for the religious formation of our future missionaries in Holy Rosary Novitiate, Enugu. (See About us, Vocation, and Be Part of Our Mission.)
Candidates in formation, preparing to be missionaries and religious
The Region of Southern Nigeria is now the main sending region for the congregation, with sisters on mission in most of our other Regions.
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This approach comprises adult literacy, skills acquisition training and microcredit. The project is now running in several Local Government Areas in Enugu and Imo States and has reached over 400 women with varying degrees of success in the different locations.
Here is Stella, giving her own testimony:
“My life was full of struggles
“My name is Ogbu Stella. I used to trade in cocoyams; but finance was my problem. As a widow with six children, my life was full of struggles and challenges. I did not have enough money to take care of my children. Unless I begged, my children and I would not eat. I used to borrow to go to the market but it was not enough. Then I resorted to making brooms for sale; also searching and picking palm kernels from the bush. I returned to the house to shell them to bring out the seeds. I would then go and sell them in a distant market where many people used to go, like Kogi. I used to be afraid to go alone because I could not understand their language and I could not speak English.
Then Ifendu came along. Since then there has been joy and gladness in my family. Yes! Ifendu brought us joy and happiness; especially the literacy classes. We learnt so much. … Ifendu taught us to share news of anything happening in any part of the country. They made us women who know about things around us. My brain that was blocked before was able to open!”
Many women share similar stories, which can be read in the Ifendu Newsletter on this website under Development.
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Holy Rosary Retreat and Conference Centre, Nsukka, is a popular venue for retreats, seminars, workshops and conferences of various kinds. Leadership training for functionaries in the nearby secondary schools is also highly valued by participating schools.
Email: angelaadaogwaogar:gmail.com
Phone: +234 703 4390 090
We also engage in skills training for young women and some young men to enable them to earn their living. To maintain the Centre with its many financial demands we also run some mini-projects, such as the palm oil and palm kernel oil processing seen below.
Palm oil production
Trainees learn soap making, detergents, powders and cosmetics.
Young men and women are employed in the bakery, host-making, tailoring and other departments, where they can learn skills and earn their living. It is our priority to maintain links with their families, and to guide them to plan for the future when they can set up their own businesses with the skills they have learnt.
Tailoring, Baking, Making Hosts, Packing bread for sale.
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Copyright Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary
Holy Rosary Schools and Hospitals in Southern Nigeria between 1928 and 1965
First school: Immaculata Primary School, Onitsha, followed by many other primary schools. Post Primary schools included: QRS Onitsha; Owerri Girls High School; Mount Carmel Teachers’ College, Emekuku; Ozaba Secondary School, Port Harcourt; Diobu Secondary School; Aba T.C.; Ehime and Ihiite T.C.s; Umuna T.C. and Ihioma Secondary School; Awgu Secondary School; QRS Nsukka; Loretto T.C., and more, from which young women graduated and went on to contribute in many admirable ways to society.
Hospitals included: Onitsha Maternity, Borromeo, Emekuku, Ihiala, and Shanahan Hospital, Nsukka.
All these were taken over by the Government at the end of the Biafran war.