Messages Received from the Mercy World #13

September 26, 2014

Thank you to all who have sent messages for Mercy Day and for the 20th Anniversary Celebrations (23-29 September, 2014). We are hoping to hear from many of our Mercy family and friends over the coming weeks. Send your messages to: mercyenews@mercyinternational.ie

24th Mercy Day: Greetings from Bridge Gate Derby UK
Thank you for all your efforts to unite us on these very special days. We are watching, reading and listening with great joy and deeply appreciate the all the creative spirituality, work, energy and enthusiasm that are making these days so uplifting and unifying.

Here in Bridge Gate our Mercy Day Liturgy was inspired and vey linked into what was happening in Baggott Street. We are fortunate to be celebrating three Masses in honour of Our Lady of Mercy in our Convent Chapel this week at which we will be joined by local parishioners.
This week also coincides with the celebration of the 200th anniversary of St Mary’s Primary School. Started in stealth by a local priest, it was possibly one of the first schools of its kind in post Reformation days in England.

In 1849 Sisters from Kinsale, Co Cork made a foundation here and its growth has been nurtured by Mercy Sisters for the past 160 years or so. At the close of World War Two the Sisters with great vision foresight and courage purchased an eighty-four acre site for the ‘Works of Mercy.’ This site now houses the two hundred year old school, along with St Benedict’ Secondary School and Performing Arts College, catering for Catholic youth of Derby, flats for the elderly, and a Mercy Care Centre comprising a Care Home, a state of the Art Dementia Unit, Close to Care flats, called ‘Kinsale Court,’ for the vulnerable elderly and two Convents.

It feels very special and significant for us that our Mercy Celebrations in Dublin coincides with our celebrations of Mercy here in Derby. We hope you will unite with us in spirit on Friday 2.pm when the Anniversary Mass will be celebrated in the school grounds, as we will surely be united with you in MIC as your celebrations draw to their conclusion.