In our Mercy schools, Earth Day, April 22, is not a one-off event to celebrate the environment. The annual commemoration underscores their dutiful year-round efforts to cultivate not only a greener planet but also more conscientious, knowledgeable and compassionate stewards of creation, our future leaders.
By Sister Regina Ward, Associate Director for Mission Integration, Mercy Education — Mercy Day is the anniversary of the opening of the first House of Mercy by Catherine McAuley and her two companions, Anna Maria Doyle and Catherine Byrn, on September 24, 1827. Many sisters who attended Mercy schools remember having a day off on September 24, most likely because the sisters who worked in the school considered it a feast day and would take the day to celebrate Catherine and her legacy.
By Sister Anna Regina Gakuhi — In my ministry at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Jamaica, I work with a group of men and women in the dietary and housekeeping departments. Most of these staff members have not completed their formal education. I engage with them to help them improve their skills, which helps improve their performance. Not only does this result in quality service and products, but it also boosts self-esteem and creates a joy in work as they each serve to their best capacity.
Since 1998, the Mercy Ambassadors Program offers students at Colegio Santa Ethnea (Bella Vista, Buenos Aires, Argentina) and U.S. Mercy schools the opportunity to participate in a foreign exchange study. After a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the cycle that started in February 2020 was completed in June 2022. Lucía García Fernández, who heads the program in Argentina, shared the following: Within the framework of the Mercy Ambassadors Program (MAP), Lily Adams and Anna Koeberlein, students from Assumption High School (Louisville, Kentucky) visited Colegio Santa Ethnea during the month of June. They shared school life for three weeks, at all levels and in all the areas of our school. Before returning home, they expressed their gratitude for this incredible experience, full of memories that they will keep in their hearts forever.
By Jocelyn Welch, Mercy Montessori Erdkinder/Farmessori Directress —
Mercy Montessori’s Farmessori and Erdkinder Program in Cincinnati, Ohio, is rooted in Montessori philosophy and strives to give all students opportunities to work with the land and grow into stewards of our Earth.
By Christina D’Amico, Library Assistant, Mercy High School, Middletown, Connecticut — As the final bell rings at Mercy High School, a committee of faculty, staff and administration gather to pray. They are dubbed the Mercy Circle in collective spirit of keeping the mission of the Sisters of Mercy thriving within their community. Several months later, the Mercy Circle prepares a celebration honoring the arrival of the Sisters of Mercy to Middletown, Connecticut, from their home turf of Ennis, Ireland, 150 years ago.
By Amanda Ricci, student, Georgian Court University, New Jersey —
Making the decision to travel to Washington D.C. and advocate for climate policy was far and beyond my comfort zone but was the leap of faith I needed. Engaging in advocacy trainings and putting those learned skills into action was certainly anxiety-provoking but entirely worth it in the end. Not only did I find my voice to address environmental concerns, but I learned how to do so through a Mercy lens.
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.
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April is National Poetry Month! Follow along on our Stories of Mercy blog and enjoy poems from Mercy students on the theme “Love of the Natural World.”