19 October is Global Frackdown Day. For the past eight weeks in Mercy e-news ( Issues 528 -) we have publicised events being organised by Mercy Sisters and our Partners in Ministry to highlight our shared concerns with this process of extraction.

This week we are highlighting prayer services organised by members of Mercy Congregations:

• Nga Whaea Atawhai o Aotearoa Sisters of Mercy New Zealand - Prayer Service (PDF)
• The Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy - Guidelines for the Prayer Service (PDF)
• The Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy - Prayer Service (PDF)

The Institute of Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Justice Team  have supplied the Frackdown prayer in Spanish. They advise:
'For ease of posting, we’ve combined the instructions and the prayer so it’s all one link. You could easily pull them apart, if that works better for you.
Se adjunta la oración Frackdown en español. Para facilitar la publicación , hemos combinado las instrucciones y la oración lo que es todo un enlace de web. Desde aquí se puede separarlos, si es que funciona mejor para usted.'

• Pautas para la oración sobre fracturación global: El Grito de la Tierra

This day is an opportunity to inform ourselves about hydrofracking. An excellent handout explaining what Fracking is and why it is a concern can be downloaded from the Sisters of Mercy New Zealand website. Download it here (PDF) A reminder about the animation 'Fracking explained: opportunity or danger', previously listed in the resource section (Issue 532, 18 September). Watch it here (05:04)

We invite you to join us in prayer on this day and to participate in other activities where you can.

Messages to: Mary Purcell - Assistant Director Mercy Global Action

Over half a million people in Cambodia have been affected by catastrophic flooding, with huge areas of the country currently underwater. A total of 160,000 households have felt the impact of this flooding which has hit 16 of the country’s 24 provinces (including the capital, Phnom Penh). In India, one million people have been displaced due to the catastrophic rains along the east coast of the country, the result of Cyclone Phailin.

Let us keep in our prayers the needs of the Cambodian and Indian people and all those in other parts of our world who are experiencing devastation due to too much water. Let us not forget either those in our world who lack access to a plentiful supply of clean water.

As we go to press, news of the devastating earthquake in the Philippines has reached us. MIA joins with our Sisters in the Philippines in prayers for the victims and their families and all those affected by this event.

Messages to: Mary Reynolds rsm - Executive Director MIA

Prayers with the intercession of Venerable Catherine McAuley are asked for all whose names are in our hearts and on our prayer list, especially those whose names are newly added:Nicholas Marendy, Emma Grace, Bill Pendergast, Kelly Harper.

Messages to:
Anne Hannon rsm - Vice postulator Europe and Africa
Sheila Carney rsm - Vice postulator Americas
Caroline Ryan rsm - Vice postulator Australia & PNG, Aotearoa New Zealand, Philippines

For the next few months, commencing at the end of October, maintenance works will be taking place on the second floor windows and the facade of Mercy International Centre.

Scaffolding will be erected on both the Lower Baggot Street & Herbert Street walls. The work to be done includes removal and repairs to windows, repairs to the granite copings and render as well as painting of windows and walls.

Unfortunately we will not be able to offer Bed & Breakfast accommodation from 28 October - 25 November. Accommodation will be available from 25 November to 14 December and from Monday 6 January 2014 onwards.

Messages to: Sylvia Williams rsm - Assistant Director Administration & Finance

Pat McDermott rsm, President of the Institute of Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, is among the thirty-three faith leader signatories to a letter to U.S. representatives and senators expressing concerns about the country’s 'completely avoidable budget and financial crises' and opposing efforts to stand in the way of funding federal operations and raising the debt ceiling. The letter can be read here.

In a further action today, on the eve of World Hunger Day, The Institute Leadership Team of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas joined more than two dozen faith leaders in signing a statement that called on legislators 'to fund our nation’s government, raise the debt limit without preconditions and get back to work on a faithful budget that serves the common good.' The letter was left at the offices of U.S. Representatives today during a pilgrimage through congressional offices buildings by faith leaders and low-wage workers who are struggling without paychecks. You may read the statement here.

Messages to: Pat McDermott rsm - Institute President

During the recent Sisters of Mercy Brisbane Congregation Chapter the Leadership Team was elected for the next five years. Their term of office will begin on 12 December 2013.

We thank you for your prayers and messages of support during our Chapter.

Messages to: Sandra Lupi rsm - Congregational Leader

During the month of September this year, Mayfair Convent School celebrated 100 years of Mercy education in South Africa.

Situated as the only Catholic, Christian school, entirely surrounded by Muslim mosques and Indian schools, we continue to further Catherine McAuley’s Mercy Ethos in an educational institution. Learners are being bussed in by taxi from as close as 10km to as far as 50km away. Not a single child lives in the immediate vicinity and yet we hold 647 learners from Gr. 0- 7...

Messages to: Amalia Filiantris - Principal, Mayfair Convent

Sisters, Associates, Co-workers and a Mercy Companion from across the Institute gathered at Mercy Center in St. Louis, Missouri on Sunday, September 29 for the opening blessing ritual for the U.S. novitiate located at Mercy Center. Sisters Pat McDermott, Institute president; Rayleen Giannotti, novitiate minister; and others led the prayer service which included a blessing of the novitiate space.

To learn more about 'Becoming a Sister in the 21st Century', read our blog.

Messages to: Pat Kenny rsm - Institute Communications Office

What you can plan is too small for you to live... David Whyte

Sister Mary Antonio Egan, the founder of the first Convent of Mercy on Newfoundland’s west coast, would have undoubtedly nodded in agreement at poet David Whyte’s wise comment on life.

The call of the mission in the late nineteenth century took her from the comfortable academic and cultural milieu of convent life and ministry in Providence, Rhode Island, to a foreign, harsh environment with very rudimentary educational and social structures. It was in this environment of hardship and struggle in Bay St. George, Newfoundland, that Sister Mary Antonio and her companions gave birth to a dream that would change their lives and the lives of all who were touched by their ministry of Mercy...

Messages to: Charlotte Fitzpatrick rsm

Editor: This article on M Antonio Egan has been newly added to the 'Foundresses' collection in the Heritage section on mercyworld.org Is your Mercy foundress included? If not, please contact The Editor so arrangements can be made to do so.

In the 1970s, Maryville University and Mercy forged a partnership to ensure the health care leaders of tomorrow received the best education possible. Today, that dedication to excellence in education was strengthened with the announcement that, thanks to a generous gift from Mercy, Maryville’s nursing program will be named The Catherine McAuley School of Nursing...

“Naming the school after Catherine is a great honor for all of Mercy,” said Mercy president and CEO Lynn Britton. “It acknowledges the tremendous influence she and the Sisters have had on health care, both by the bedside and through the ‘Careful Nursing’ philosophy that’s still taught to Maryville students today. It also honors those who helped make our partnership with Maryville possible, especially Sister Mary Roch Rocklage, whose leadership helped us transition from two schools into an outstanding unified program that’s still going strong today."...

Messages to:
Bethany Pope - Mercy Media Contact
Sue Davis - Maryville University Media Contact

On 5 October, 2013, several Sisters were present at Holy Rosary Parish Church in Portugal Cove, NL, for a special event. An altar of historical significance was rededicated for that Church by Archbishop Martin Currie...

In the mid 1960s, with the construction of the new St. Teresa’s Church by the Redemptorists and the construction of St. Bride’s College and Mercy Generalate on the Littledale property, the altar was given by Monsignor Summers to Sister Mary Assumpta Veitch, Superior General, for the chapel at the new Generalate...

Messages to: Rosemary Ryan

Since 1992, 'Wrap With Love' volunteers around Australia have been knitting squares and sewing these into wraps that have been shipped all over Australia and around the globe as gifts for people in need.

For the past eight years Catherine McAuley Westmead students, staff and families have been contributing their efforts to this worthwhile project.

Mrs Sue O’Connell, Science Coordinator and the Wrap With Love organiser at the school sees the Wrap With Love project in keeping with the school’s commitment to social justice. 'At Catherine McAuley we seek to develop in our students an awareness of those in need and we encourage active involvement in social justice initiatives', she says. 'There is also the added bonding experience for students and staff involved as we come together in our commitment to knit yet more squares! It is wonderful that so many mothers and grandmothers have been able to do this activity together with their daughters'.

Messages to: Jacqui Hamilton -School Development Officer

1843: Foundation to Sunderland from St Maries of the Isle, Cork - M Aloysius O'Connell
1864: Foundation to Worcester, Massachusetts from New York - M Jerome Shubrick

'Compassion... the Flame of Mercy. Compassion enkindles the Flame of Mercy.' Lucille Ciafre

Written over a five-year period, this book by Mary Herbst, Maureen Ott and Maureen Weber, chronicles memories of their attendance at the Mercy Hospital School of Nursing (presently Trocaire College in Buffalo) from 1960 to 1963.

Purchase the book here (paperback)

Trocaire College is this week's featured Mercy website

'Trocaire College was founded in 1958 in the City of Buffalo by the Sisters of Mercy as Sancta Maria College, offering higher educational opportunities to women of the Order. The College gained distinction early on in the field of Nursing and Health Science education. In 1967, in an effort to honor the heritage of the founding Sisters, the College's name was officially changed to Trocaire, the Gaelic word for mercy. Trocaire granted admission to lay female students in 1965 and male students in 1972...'

Unusual, awful, amusing... There could be many reasons for the choices of these images in such a collection. See what you think of the 40 images that made the list.

Source: Bored Panda