Suffering is focus of Holy Apostles CCW retreat

Uniting personal pain to Jesus’ suffering on the cross is transformative

About 100 women attended the Council of Catholic Women’s annual retreat on April 5 at Holy Apostles Parish in Meridian. Above, CCW members participate in an affirmation exercise that offers encouragement and support.

By Philip A. Janquart

ICR Assistant Editor

Most of us recoil from suffering. No one likes pain, but can there be salvific or redemptive value in it?

Tracy Janis, one of two guest speakers at this year’s Council of Catholic Women (CCW) retreat, said emphatically, “Yes.”

“I’d like to share with you a message of hope, a message that tells us that suffering, when seen through the lens of faith, can be redemptive, and that God’s promise to help us is certain,” she said, addressing over 100 women at Holy Apostles Church in Meridian on April 5.

“Jesus’ suffering on the cross was not a meaningless event,” Janis said. “It was through His suffering that the world was reconciled to God. His pain, His agony and His death were the very means by which we are offered salvation. This is what we call the ‘Paschal Mystery.’ When we suffer, we are invited to join our struggles with those of Christ.”

Spirituality Commissioner for the CCW board, Krista Murphy, coordinated the retreat.

“Since it’s Lent, we decided the theme would be, ‘Hand-in-Hand with Our Lady of Sorrows,’” she told the Idaho Catholic Register (ICR). “We wanted to talk about suffering and finding healing and hope through suffering.”

Murphy said the retreat was marketed in the ICR, on Salt and Light Radio and in parish bulletins, drawing women from several parishes, including Sacred Heart in Emmett.

“It was a great success,” she said. “Father Emmanuel Chinedu explained the seven sorrows, giving examples (ncregister.com/blog/what-are-the-seven-sorrows-of-mary), and it was really neat hearing some of his background. He is a wonderful speaker and teacher. We had a Q&A with him, and it was great hearing the ladies ask him different questions and learning from them.”

Father Chinedu and Father Roger Fernando are parochial vicars at Holy Apostles. Father Vitalis Onyeama is the pastor.

“Tracy (Janis) was very relatable,” Murphy said. “She was entertaining, a lot of fun and very inspiring.”

Janis, a St. Mark’s Boise parishioner, has served on all CCW levels, including St. Mark’s CCW, the Idaho Council of Catholic Women (ICCW) and the National Council of Catholic Women (NCCW), representing Oregon, Idaho and Montana as director of the Province of Portland under the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). She also served on the Deanery board and is the current ICCW secretary.

Tracy Janis, guest speaker, leads the 2025 CCW retreat. (ICR Photo/Philip A. Janquart)

The suffering begins

“I’m originally from Alabama and moved to Idaho by way of Germany way back in 1988,” Janis told the ICR. The former military police officer added, “I was in the U.S. Army. When I got out, I had married someone from Idaho, and we ended up here.”

The marriage didn’t last, and the fallout became a source of her suffering as she attempted to raise two daughters as a single mother, which involved working three jobs.

She is currently a compliance officer for Wells Fargo Advisors, but at the time, she also worked at Cracker Barrel and Hugo’s Deli. Despite the long hours, Janis continued to help with altar care at St. Mark’s.

“When I was learning how to become a single parent of traumatized teenagers, I felt horribly alone and lost,” she said during her talk. “No one could possibly understand what I was going through, or so I felt. The world was suddenly a very lonely and dark place. I would talk, or rather complain, to God when doing my chores. It would go something like this: ‘God, this isn’t fair. I didn’t do anything wrong. Why am I having to do all the chores after working my three jobs? Why won’t the kids listen to me? No one loves me. It isn’t fair,’ Blah, Blah, Blah, right?’”

Janis explained that suffering affects us not only in itself but also in its duration, sometimes causing us to slip into the perception that we are living a provisional existence, not knowing when it will end.

But that perception can disintegrate in a single moment, as she joyfully discovered while mowing the lawn.

Small miracles

“One day in July, I was cutting the backyard, and I started my typical ‘conversation’ with God, and I felt that I could not feel any lower than I felt at that moment,” Janis said. “I remember stopping in the middle of the yard and saying to Jesus, ‘I can’t do it any longer. I’m so alone. I have no one.’

“Suddenly, in the hot, dry July heat, I am in the middle of a swirl of rose petals,” she said. “I stood there in shock, knowing that as bad as it felt to me at that time, I was not alone. I had Jesus, and he sent His Mother to support me in my crisis. I won’t say that my life suddenly turned around, and everything was ‘rosy,’ but I found the strength to keep moving forward.”

On another occasion, the Lord enlivened her when she was polishing pews at St. Mark’s. She didn’t think she had the energy to finish before leaving for one of her jobs.

“I’m sitting there, doing my normal prayer, which is talking to God and complaining, ‘Oh, I’m so tired,’” Janis recalled. “And then, suddenly, I stop. Have any of you ever been shocked by electricity? Well, that electricity started in my toes, went up into my ankles, knees, hips, hands and then my head. Suddenly, I wasn’t tired anymore.

“I’m telling you, I had so much energy that not only did I finish those pews, I got the windows done, too. And let me tell you, there are a lot of windows at St. Mark’s,” she said.

Is it my fault?

Janis expressed what many feel, that we must have done something wrong to deserve what we are experiencing or that the suffering is random and meaningless. It turns out that’s not the case, she said.

“We often think of suffering as a punishment or something pointless that we must endure,” she related. “It’s easy to believe that pain, whether it’s loss, illness, betrayal or hardship, is just something that happens to us without reason. But in the Catholic faith, we believe that God doesn’t simply stand by while we suffer—He is right there with us, and through our suffering, He is at work in ways we might not always understand.”

Janis noted that the idea of redemptive suffering is central to Catholic theology, teaching that our pain and challenges are not wasted, that “in some mysterious way, suffering can be used for a greater purpose,” and that “just as Jesus, the Son of God, suffered and died on the Cross for our salvation, so too can our suffering, when united to His, have redemptive power.”

She stressed that faith is key to redemptive suffering and prayer is our lifeline.

“Suffering, when offered to God, becomes a means of grace, growth and transformation,” she said. “God is with us, and He will never leave us or forsake us.”