By Carolyn Shalhoub, Mercy Associate — In 2017, at a direction-setting international meeting, the Sisters of Mercy committed to education and engaged dialogue on gender identity and sexual orientation. How farsighted it was for the sisters to set out on this particular journey. Catherine McAuley would be proud.
By Joanne Castner, Mercy Associate — On May 8, 2022, 13 of us from across the United States gathered in the living room of the Columban Mission House in El Paso, Texas, the beginning of an immersion trip to meet with people who find ways to organize their communities and improve living conditions for those in need, and to discover why so many people from other countries are seeking to cross our nation’s borders.
By Gail Presbey, faculty member, University of Detroit Mercy — I was grateful for the opportunity to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border and see for myself the struggles that immigrants have, and to meet the people who are ministering to their needs and organizing for change. I was glad to do so in the company of Sisters of Mercy, Mercy associates and educators at Mercy institutions. I’d like to focus on the women I met there and the important work they do.
By Sister Eileen Campbell — Ever since I can remember in any of my ministries, I’ve known LGBTQ+ people who are alienated from and harmed by our church and society. They have been deeply traumatized, and unable to be who they are without judgment, alienation and cruelty. It should go without saying that people who are being true to who they are as LGBTQ+ individuals shouldn’t be subjected to such treatment in any part of our society, let alone our church, but they are and their pain cries out for healing.
By Sister Michelle Gorman — The Gospel reading for the feast of Corpus Christi is a microcosm of the life of Jesus and how we are to understand ourselves as members of the Body of Christ. Jesus is healing those in the crowd in the context of the reign of God, and he places this reign of God within the reality of a crowd whose hunger can be fed by the intervention of the Twelve in the present moment. The seemingly insignificant five loaves and two fish are multiplied through the action of blessing, breaking and sharing.
By Karel Lucander, Features Writer
— Sister Joan Serda and Sister Marilyn Graf have that feeling you get right before you embark on a big adventure. At 6 a.m. on June 17, they will board the Poor People’s Campaign Bus in Mobile, Alabama, bound for Washington, D.C.—leaving the comfort of the Convent of Mercy far behind.
By Sarah Smith, director of Mercy Partnership Fund —
Rebecca Chituyi, a 27-year-old farmer in Kenya’s Bungoma District, and her husband Richard worked hard to support their family on just a half-acre of land, but didn’t see much success. “The harvest used to depress me,” says Rebecca. “I would only get two bags of maize (corn), and this only lasted us for a few months.” In 2018, One Acre Fund came to Rebecca’s village. The nonprofit organization, which the Sisters of Mercy have invested in through the Mercy Partnership Fund, the global community investing program of Mercy Investment Services, provides seeds, fertilizer, education and post-harvest support to more than 1.4 million smallholder farmers across Africa.
By Sister Patricia McCann, RSM — It is time to go back to the use of the word ignorant in our Mercy vocabulary. Catherine McAuley committed us to service among “the poor, sick and ignorant.” In recent years we changed wording to uneducated in many of our documents and in daily usage. Thinking of the vast network of Mercy educational institutions, we thought uneducated seemed more inclusive and less pejorative. And in that limited context it probably is. In contemporary times, though, we are discovering a new urgency about denouncing ignorance.
By Sister Mary-Paula Cancienne — We live in upheaval. Among the questions we must ask are, what does it mean to be human, how should we act, and what is our vision for society? Human sexuality and gender identity issues are among the questions our society must face with an openness to new insights and with a commitment to lifelong learning.
By Sister Peg Sullivan — Have you ever thought about what it must have been like to be present on that first Pentecost? The apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit when they had the tongues of fire come to rest on them and immediately began to proclaim what Jesus had taught them. These were the same people who had cowered in fear just a short time before and who were now filled with a courage beyond themselves.
By Sister Pat Kenny — If the Easter narrative taught us nothing else, it did confirm the inevitable truth of joy and sadness in our lives. Wild elation and profound grief will be part of every life; not once or twice, but over and over during the lifetime of every person old enough to understand joy and sadness. Everyone will experience soft and ragged edges of each.
By Sister Victoria Incrivaglia — In the process of rebirth, there are times when both the blossoms and new leaves of the dogwood tree are present simultaneously; both are present to each other yet knowing that change will happen. The engagement of this process is a journey.