'You have called us to fullness of life, O God. Set us free, then, from al that prevents us from reaching our full stature as children of grace. Freedom is the law you have written in our hearts, and so we know that you will hear and answer our prayer. Amen.'

Prayer from 18 December Evening Prayer. Source: Morning and Evening Prayer of the Sisters of Mercy

Editor: Each year the Christmas greetings not only impart good wishes and hopes for us all, but they also hold out to us something of the stories of Mercy lived, loved and experienced in ministries across the Mercy world.

As we bring this year of sharing our global Mercy story to its conclusion, we invite you to tell us all how it has been for you in your ministry - through an anecdote, a greeting, a prayer, a wish, a dream you have or a plan for 2014.

Post your Christmas greeting online on the mercyworld.org site. Send these in by 23 December.

Messages to: the Editor

Prayers with the intercession of Venerable Catherine McAuley are asked for all whose names are in our hearts and on our prayer list; in particular those whose names have been newly added to the list: Michael Claire and Family, James Roe, Mary Skorupa, Ellen Gunnell, Henry Jenkins.

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

On 12 December 2013, Sisters of Mercy, Mercy Associates and Friends of Mercy gathered in Catherine's house at Baggot Street to commemorate the 182nd anniversary of the Foundation of the Sisters of Mercy, and to celebrate the past, the present and the future of Mercy...

Messages to: Mary Reynolds rsm - Executive Director MIA

“Make every home, every shack or rickety structure a centre of learning.” (Nelson Mandela)

Throughout his life, Mandela stressed the need for education as a means of liberating the oppressed and enabling them to live in dignity. Even when he was imprisoned on Robben Island, he encouraged others (his white jailers as well as his co-prisoners) to keep on striving for an education. Above all he led by example – managing against all odds to qualify as a lawyer.

The South African apartheid regime used education as a means of oppression: firstly by providing education of an inferior nature, secondly by limiting access to any kind of education and thirdly by not making attendance at school compulsory for black Africans as it was for whites. (Mandela had been educated at a Methodist mission school before apartheid became a law).

How did the Church, and in particular, the Mercy Sisters contribute to Mandela’s ambition of universal education for every South African?...

Messages to: Immaculata Devine rsm

Editor: Sr Anna Burke's reflection at the Foundation Day Eucharist (pages 9-14 of the Mass booklet) draws the connections between Mercy as understood by Sisters of Mercy and Nelson Mandela. It is another lens, another source of inspiration on the topic addressed by Sr Immaculata.

Editor: Last week we published the news that the Americas Mercy Institute Leadership Team, along with 12 other religious congregations, has called upon Pope Francis to start a new era of justice with a public declaration that formally rescinds papal “bulls,” or decrees, of the 1490s that dehumanize indigenous peoples and justify the taking of indigenous land.

We have learned this week that religious non-governmental organizations in the United Nations, including the Partnership for Global Justice, have written to Pope Francis to ask him to 'act with courage and holy resolve to formally revoke the Papal Bulls', calling such an action 'an act of moral leadership' to governments and the churches.

Read the letter here

Messages to: Deirdre Mullan rsm - Executive Director Partnership for Global Justice

The Sisters of Mercy in Ireland as part of the Future we Need Intercongregational group has been contributing to the Open Working Group process at the United Nations. They are preparing submissions for the Irish government’s official delegation who are attending the OWG meetings in New York. To date they have submitted two papers, one on Energy and one on Human Rights.

 Messages to: Mary Purcell - Assistant Director Mercy Global Action

Carol Rittner rsm, Distinguished Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at The Richard Stockton College of NJ and a member of the Board of the Partnership for Global Justice at the UN, has been invited to give the keynote at the Department of Public Information (DPI) briefing to be held in Conference Room 2, United Nations headquarters, New York on 23 January 2014. The event will deal with the deportation of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust – Lessons for today.

Anyone in the tri-state area who might be in the NYC area at this time is welcome to attend. UN passes to this event can be arranged by contacting:

Deirdre Mullan rsm -Executive Director Partnership for Global Justice

Nga mihi atawhai – greetings to all in Mercy! It’s six years since the Sisters of Mercy in New Zealand began their partnership through Mercy Hospital Dunedin with the University of Otago, funding the McAuley Chair of International Health. The project aims at supporting the United Nations’ millennium objectives, particularly those to reduce child mortality, to improve maternal health and to combat diseases like HIV/AIDs, malaria and TB...

Messages to: Katrina Fabish rsm - Congregation Leadership Team

Editor: Carole McDonald rsm, Victorian Co-ordinator for Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans (ACRATH), was recently interviewed for the  Alumnae magazine published by the Academy of Mary Immaculate, Fitzroy where Sr Carole is a School Council member. The magazine's release coincided with the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery (2 December). In the article which is linked to this item, Sr Carole traces the establishment of ACRATH, an outcome of the 2001 UISG meeting in Rome.

Elsewhere in this newsletter, in the 'Further Resources' section, we provide a link to the NCR article 'Religious women link up to fight human trafficking' which outlines the growth in the work by women religious to address the issue of human trafficking, emanating from the 2009 UISG meeting and establishment of the group 'Talitha Kum'

Messages to: Carole McDonald rsm

Asylum seekers on bridging visas now have a place of refuge, learning and enrichment at the newly-opened Mercy House of Welcome in Adelaide, where more help is needed to keep up with growing demand, particularly in teaching English as a second language...

Run by Mercy Works (the development agency of the Sisters of Mercy in Australia and Papua New Guinea), the Mercy House offers English lessons, legal advice, assistance with paying bills, transport to appointments and general support. Already it is attracting around 20 asylum seekers every day and co-ordinator Alison Roach rsm says she is struggling to keep up with the demand, particularly for English lessons...

Messages to: Ali Roach rsm

1883: Foundation to Clonmen from Cahir, Co Tipperary - M Bernard Vaughan

'We are called not only to imagine what can be done, but with prayer, discipline and perserverance, to do it.'
Joan Buckham

by Kilteevan native  Kathleen Glennon rsm, a book ' about the beauty of the local landscape, its flora, fauna, history, heritage and personalities...' of Kilteevan, Roscommon, Ireland.

Read the report of the book launch attached to this item, watch the video clip and listen to the radio interview, all of which together convey a marvellous sense of this book of poetry.

'A Sense of Place' is on sale in Paddy Finns in Kilteevan, Gleesons in Roscommon, and Eight Til Late in Roscommon or, for those outside Roscommon, email Sr Kathleen regarding a purchase

Providence Row tackles the root causes of homelessness to help people get off, and stay off, the streets.

Time magazine's interactive timeline for 2013. One way to measure some of the significant events this year.

Source: Time