Young Mercy Leaders Pilgrimage: Day Two

The quote for today from Catherine in the 'Mercy through the Years' calendar is: You must be cheerful and happy, animating all around you. This proved to be a perfect maxim for our second day on pilgrimage.

Morning prayer had been planned for the Cemetery Garden but the rain overnight put paid to those plans. As it turned out, the International Room provided a perfect practice area for learning the 'Leap for Freedom' dance which was a central aspect of our prayer together.

Prayer commenced in silence. Pilgrims were then invited to take a series of steps: one step forward for creation, one step into the pilgrimage, then one step into the heart of who we are, to bring out the best in ourselves, before being seated.

A prayer to the four directions followed. In many traditions this prayer is a way of symbolically inviting all of creation to be present and recognises that all of life is connected. There are many versions of this prayer. We used the Four Directions prayer from Joyce Rupp', Open the Door

Four readers, representatives of the pilgrims, mentors, MIA staff and the volunteers, read the prayers. The prayers invited us to extend goodness to all in the four directions where suffering, emptiness, insecurity, terror and other losses, tragedies, and needs are being experienced.

An opportunity for personal, silent reflection followed before we were invited to 'Leap into Freedom', to Michael Jackson's song 'Will You Be There'. Sr Bernie asked us to look at the lyrics and to move and hear in the song a new word for our pilgrim journey.

Cheerful, happy, energetic movement followed, as can be seen in this slideshow of images

Evening Process

Liz Murphy rsm, Facilitator, used licorice allsorts (sweets) in the Evening Process to illustrate the variety and commonality, uniqueness and difference of who we are and of our experiences over these two pilgrimage days where we have been in a new place, in small and large group settings, met new people heard new things.

She recapped on the stages of group development, checked out how these were unfolding and modelled the importance of the group hearing from each other by encouraging many of the pilgrims to have their voices heard in a review of the day.

A voice we heard: Emily McGonigle	A voice we heard: Mitch Rock

Licorice Allsorts	Licorice Allsorts

A voice we heard: Sheila Carney rsm	A voice we heard: Liz Murphy rsm

Talent Show

Tonight the international Room was once again turned into a performance space but with another purpose – the YML Talent Show. An evening showcasing the talents of our Mercy singers, dancers and musicians is a much anticipated event on the pilgrimage calendar. It's not hard to see why.

There were group acts from Carlow University, Gwynedd Mercy University, Mount Mercy along with  solo acts and pairs from both the American and Irish delegations. The varied program included traditional Irish brush dancing, mid-western line dancing as well as salsa dancing; music included classical instrumental and contemporary country music; rap and pop.

Drea Molitoris and Mitch Rock from Misericordia University were the Talent Show Host and MC. 

The Talent Show was a perfect end to a very busy day as each pilgrim had attended 4 of their scheduled 7 workshops. Workshops are being held in the Baggot Street and Herbert Street buildings and are a real smorgasbord of experiences. Offerings include Ruth Kilcullen, Campaign Manager of MECPATHS exploring the issue of human trafficking; Betty Scanlon rsm developing her keynote workshopping how to create links of compassion and mercy; Denise Boyle fmdm and Betty Lacey on global justice with a UN focus; Mary Conway rsm teaching skills of mindfulness; Ivette Diaz rsm on how to discern choices for life; Keri Young and Elizabeth MacNeal from Mercy Volunteer Corps on finding your passion and Mary Trainer rsm on the vision and mission of mercy.

We will bring you reports on some of these these workshops tomorrow.

Messages to: YML Communications Team: Elizabeth, Ruth, Anne

The program (PDF) will run until Friday night. You are invited to follow online the life and energy of these days with our daily updates on the mercyworld.org website, on Facebook @MIA Young Mercy Leaders and on Twitter using the hashtag #YML2016.