Reflections on Mercy

Members of the global Mercy family have been invited to share their insights into mercy through a short written reflection (up to 250 words). These are published in the Mercy E-news.

'...Catherine McAuley was one who allowed the experiences of her life to teach and to guide her, one who, I like to say, was a recycler – taking what was given to her, wrapping it in the mercy of God she had experienced, and then finding a way to pass it on. Because she had experienced so clearly in her own life the providential care of God, she experienced also the need to reach out to others in the same way. Catherine, who had been homeless, created a place of refuge for women in Dublin; Catherine who had often felt the inadequacy of her own religious education created a school; Catherine who had depended on others to provide her with food and shelter taught skills to women to enable them to be self-directing and self- supporting; Catherine for whom God provided in her every need became daring in what she risked for God’s people; Catherine, who had so richly experienced God’s providence enabled others to experience it through her ministrations...'

Sheila Carney rsm (Americas)
Catherine’s Call (2009)

30 April

' One of the most important distinctions I have learned as I live out my life as a Sister of Mercy is the difference between optimism and hope. Optimism is the belief that things will get better. Hope is the faith that, together, we can make things better. Optimism is a passive virtue; hope is an active virtue. When connected to Mercy, hope gets things done! To be a carrier of Mercy means that we must become converted to "the consciousness that makes us one with the universe, in tune with the cosmic voice of God. We must become aware of the sacred in every element of life. We are helped to bring beauty to birth in a poor and plastic world by working to restore balance to the human community. We must grow in concert with the God who is within and become healers in a harsh society"' ¹

Deirdre Mullan rsm, The Many Faces of Mercy (2012)
¹ Joan Chittister OSB, Illuminated Life: Monastic Wisdom for Seekers of Light, Maryknoll, NU: Orbis Books, 2000, p.81.

23 April

The New Creation in the Risen Christ

'The New Creation in the Risen Christ has shattered all limitations and boundaries to unity between Peoples and with Creation. The focussed expression of the New Creation is ‘in Christ Jesus’ in the Christian community.

To be ‘in Christ Jesus’ is to be baptized into the empowering possibility of reconciling all Creation from its patterns of exploitation, abuse and violation of rights to a new integrity in the interdependence of the Life-sustaining presence of the new Creation, the Risen Lord.'

Adele Howard rsm (ISMAPNG)
The Land As Sacred: A Theology of the Land from an Australian Christian Perspective (1990)

16 April

We seem to forget that God calls upon us to take up our cross and that this cross must be composed of the sacrifice of something that is dear to us, that He requires of us constant watchfulness over our thoughts and words. Is this restraint, this self-denial to make us gloomy, sad or peevish? No, such is not His intention, for it is to the religious loaded with her cross that He has in particular promised the hundredfold, but then this is a conditional promise. It is not made to those who drag their cross after them...No it is to those who take it up generously, courageously and lovingly.

Catherine McAuley, Retreat Instructions, p168
cited in  Helen Marie Burns rsm and Sheila Carney rsm, Praying with Catherine McAuley, p62

9 April
Pursuing the Corporal Works of Mercy

Mercy, as described by Catherine McAuley, founder of the Sisters of Mercy, is 'the principal path pointed out by Jesus Christ to those who are desirous of following Him.' It sounds simple enough. And yet I often feel that this path can be a difficult one to travel, and that keeping pace with Jesus, our guide, is a challenge. But I also feel that it is a path worth pursuing, even if we end up wandering for a bit. The path of mercy is a wide one.

Pursuing the Corporal Works of Mercy has helped me to see how much of my faith must be a choice, how easy it is to become complacent, the need to remind myself to respond to the call of my faith each day. There are so many ways to say yes. Mercy is not something we bestow upon one another from on high in a sort of grand gesture, but rather something much quieter, more humble. It is an invitation, an openness, a kind of accompanying. To have mercy is to give mercy. And to give mercy is to empty oneself out to make room for the love for another.

– Adapted from Mercy in the City: How to Feed the Hungry, Give Drink to the Thirsty, Visit the Imprisoned, and Keep Your Day Job (Loyola Press) by Kerry Weber, managing editor for America magazine

2 April
To See with the Clear Vision of Catherine

'All of us are invited to see, with the clear vision of Catherine, the situation in our world, in our society, our own community, our own family. Where are the needs that cry out for our attention? What are the needs we overlook because they are almost too close and too ordinary for us to observe? It always comes back to the simplicity and the complexity of the question: Are we doing Mercy, and serving the ‘poor, sick and ignorant’ in accordance with the needs of our times and in a world very different from hers?'
Catherine McAuley and the Ministry of Mercy (2014)

Mary Reynolds rsm
MIA Executive Director
 

26 March
Mercy

“Lord have mercy!” We say it all the time. People beg for mercy everywhere, in prison cells, at the gallows, in places of sickness, at the time of death. The cry is passionate with the intensity of a prayer when the human heart turns to mercy. The whole world knows that mercy opens locked doors and melts the frozen heart. Mercy has written herself into historical time as the turning point where ‘no man’s land’ becomes the meeting place. The rivers and mountains know this and all creation groans with longing for the great embrace. When he came, the Christ of God, he evolved the face of time, pouring mercy into human consciousness that we might think like God, give like God, forgive, like God. As the silence of violence turned the hill to darkness, there was a movement in the earth and the words, “Father forgive them” heralded the dawn. Mercy is life-altering, in the giver and in the receiver. It awakens the best part of us, releases the essential human quality and evolves the communion of all things visible and invisible.

Anna Burke rsm
Sisters of Mercy Western Province
The Congregation

19 March

The Flame Tree
Judith Wright

How to live, I said, as the flame tree lives?
- to know what the flame tree knows: to be
prodigal of my life as that wild tree
and wear my passion so.
That lover’s knot of water and earth and sun,
that easy answer to the question baffling reason,
branches out of my heart, this sudden season.
I know what I would know.

How shall I thank you, who teach me how to wait
in quietness for the hour to ask or give:
to take and in taking bestow, in bestowing live:
in the loss of myself, to find?
This is the flame-tree; look how gloriously
That careless blossomer scatters, and more, and more.
What the earth takes of her, it will restore.
These are the thanks of lovers who share one min

Growing up in a country town in south-western New South Wales, we experienced extremes of temperature; fog, heavy frosts and extremely cold winters with searing temperatures and high humidity in summer.
In this semi-arid climate, plant life struggled. In our garden was one tree that, in spite of these extremes, bloomed faithfully each year. The flame tree with its spectacular red flowers covering the whole tree was a gift to us. Years later, I discovered Judith Wright’s poem, “The Flame Tree”. Here, coupled with my childhood memories, I came to understand something more of the essence of Mercy.
Wright speaks of what the flame tree knows – “to be prodigal of my life as that wild tree.” Mercy, as we experience it as coming to us from God, is prodigal – extravagant, reckless, unrestrained, lavish, unsparing. When I recognize deep in my being that this is how God gifts me with mercy, I come to understand that this mercy can never be possessed just for myself. I am challenged to reflect the prodigality of God’s mercy. In Wright’s words:
“How shall I thank you, who teach me how to wait
in quietness for the hour to ask or give:
to take and in taking bestow, in bestowing live:
in the loss of myself, to find?”

Mercy received must become Mercy shared.
 

Anne Ferguson
Coordinator, Office of Mission Animation, Sisters of Mercy Parramatta Congregation, Australia

From The Gateway, Judith Wright, Angus & Robertston, 1953.

Judith Wright (1915 -2000) is a major figure in Australian poetry. In her later years she became better known as an environmentalist and an activist campaigning for the rights of Aboriginal peoples.
 

12 March
Hymn for a Profession

When there is a weighty mission, when there is a stubborn need,
God looks ‘round to find the people who will stand and take the lead.
These are men and women of faith, whose willing answer startles us,
shakes us from our apathy and helps us to be generous.

When the world is torn and broken, when the path of grace seems lost,
deep within the Church is heard the call to serve and not count cost.
Then from pews and from the altar come the willing, come the strong-
risking all to serve the God whose voice has led them all along.

When we seem to know our purpose, when we think we understand,
could it be that God is calling us to open up our hands?
Could we be the ones to lead, to give new voice to God’s good news?
Will we let our hands be free to do what God would have us do?

So today we celebrate the vows that bind a heart of flesh
to the heart within the Godhead, to the love forever fresh.
Mercy calls us, mercy finds us, mercy shapes us in God’s Word,
takes us well beyond our limits out to teach and heal and serve.

Download Alternate verses (PDF)

Text © 2006 Cynthia Serjak, RSM. 8787D. Suggested tune: Hymn to Joy (Beethoven)

Cynthia Serjak rsm
New Membership Office
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas

5 March
Reflection on Mercy

How inspiring and challenging it is to have a Pope whose words and actions make evident his pastoral priority. How refreshing to hear more about mercy than obedience. The word mercy appears thirty-one times in his Apostolic Exhortation, Joy of the Gospel.

The late Judy Cannato gifted many with her book, Field of Compassion. The field to which she refers is no plot of land or slice of acreage. The field she references is one as understood through the lens of quantum thinking. Diarmuid O’Murchu describes this particular field as a “constellation of energy…that thrives on relationship, always pushing toward enlarged horizons”.

Lest we wonder at times about the relevance of our vocation, maybe deeper meaning can be found when viewed from a quantum perspective. It is a grand enterprise to which we are committed. Ours is no small call when we recognize it as our participation in a field of mercy. This energy of mercy is an elegant movement that enhances the intricate and ever-expanding web of life. Just imagine that we, along with Pope Francis, engage in the evolution and influence of mercy throughout all of creation. No, ours is no small call.

Donna Vaillancourt rsm
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas  

26 February
A Way of Life

Misericordia is taking the misery of another to one’s heart. In learning to be mercy, one lives in the way of compassion. We can find the way to live deep mercy and compassion from the parable of the Prodigal Son. (Lk.15:11-32) In the parable Jesus addresses the Pharisees and the Scribes, who object to his keeping company with people who were considered to be sinners, the poor, the sick, the outcast. I tend to think that the parable is misnamed. Rather than be called The Prodigal Son, I would title the parable, The Prodigal Father. Most of us can see ourselves in the two brothers, in need of reconciliation. Are we able to see ourselves in the prodigal actions of the father? The dictionary describes prodigal as lavish in giving, extravagant, giving in abundance, bounteous. These words certainly describe the father’s actions. At the sight of his son he is filled with compassion, he runs to his son and embraces and kisses him, he prepares a feast, reminds the elder son that he is loved and rejoices and celebrates.
Are we not called to be prodigal in our actions?
Who is it that calls us to compassion and mercy?
Who calls us to embrace?
For whom do we prepare a feast?
Who is it that calls us to love unconditionally?
Who is it that calls us to rejoice and celebrate?
Pope Francis has used the word “mercying” as a way to live. Are we up to the challenge to be prodigal people, taking to heart, misericordia? If our response is yes,

“imagine! imagine!
                        the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.”*

*'Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me' by Mary Oliver

Grace Leggio Agate rsm
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas
Mid-Atlantic Community