A Special Announcement on our 21st Birthday

July 22, 2015

On 23rd July 2015, we celebrate the 21st birthday of Mercy International Centre.

It is traditional to mark 21st birthdays with a key; but what is a key without a door! During the course of our 21st year, the Year of Mercy, the door of 64A, Lower Baggot Street will take on a special meaning. Pope Francis has used the symbolism of ‘Opening the Door of Mercy’ as a way of urging us to discover anew the call of Mercy and the implications of that call for us today.

Without consciously knowing it, God the Potter has been moulding us for this special year.

For quite a while, MIA has been engaged in an exploration of the new cosmology and issues of eco justice. To underpin this work the Theological Advisory Committee began to develop an international reflection process. The Committee had already named the process Flaming the Fire of Mercy: Creation Waiting in Eager Longing long before Pope Francis announced the Extraordinary Year of Mercy or promulgated his encyclical Laudato Si' - On care for our common home. At the practical level the 20th Anniversary celebrations last year and the Reflective Process this year for the Year of Consecrated Life has given us the confidence of knowing that the Mercy Global family can be connected in very enriching ways. In gratitude, we recognise that we have come to a Kairos moment.

As was announced in a recent edition of Mercy e-News, all our Mercy leaders and the MIA board took a decision to invite Sisters of Mercy and our partners in Mercy in the Jubilee Year of Mercy to participate in a worldwide reflection process so that we can discern together globally a shared response to the human and other than human cry for Mercy in our world today.