Calling on the Gifts of the Mercy World

Welcome to this first issue of the new look Mercy E-news of 2014.

To mark the occasion of MIA's 20th Anniversary, both the homepage design of the mercyworld.org website and the Mercy E-news template have been refreshed, their ongoing evolution reflecting our continuous effort to better express online the messages Mercy needs to convey.

Speaking earlier this week to the employees of Italy's national broadcaster, Pope Francis reminded his audience that their profession "in addition to being informative, is formative; it is a public service, that is, a service for the common good, a service for truth, for goodness, and for beauty.”

Here at Mercy E-News we, too, continue to be challenged and to challenge ourselves, to produce a weekly newsletter that informs, enriches and inspires our global readership as together we engage in the work of transformation for the sake of the Gospel.

Three new ways and two old ways we will continue to do this with you this year:

Feature article
The Feature article design includes what we're calling a 'Showcase' area, replacing the small 'picture frame' of previous templates.To showcase means "to display to advantage". Where we have been mainly showing images of Mercy activity, we can now, and want to, display to advantage the work of our Mercy artists - our painters, musicians, poets, iconographers, photographers... to invite pause and contemplation.

Reflections
The newly named 'Mercy Matters' section includes the publication of reflections on the Sunday Gospels. Veronica Lawson rsm (ISMAPNG) is a biblical scholar who writes from an eco-feminist perspective. Her reflections on the Sunday Gospels are widely reproduced; we are delighted to now be able to publish them.

The Reflection space will also be used for other Reflections and we invite contributions for this area from our Mercy writers - theologians, scripture scholars, liturgists, poets, songwriters...as well as suggestions from our readers of other sources of good reading.

Mercy Words
Today's quote comes from the Mercy Through the Years Calendar. We hope this space can also be used more broadly - to quote from our written and oral, historical and contemporary, familiar and now to be discovered Mercy thinkers, speakers and writers...in a few words or a few paragraphs.

Contributions continue to be invited of Mercy news items, weblinks, resources, quotes and facts. These can be posted online using the appropriate webform or emailed directly to the Editor

Further Resources
The popularity of this section over the past twelve months means it is no longer at the bottom of the enewsletter. We know many readers look there first so we've made this section more accessible. Contributions and suggestions of enriching resources that reflect the interests and concerns of the Mercy world, that are worth knowing, hearing, reading or viewing, are always welcome for this section.

I look forward to hearing from you with your contributions, suggestions and feedback, so that together we continue to build the global Mercy community online. For ease of access, my contact email appears at the bottom of each edition of Mercy E-news.

Happy reading.

Messages to: Anne Walsh - Mercy E-news Editor