By Sister Cynthia Serjak — “Take me with you, Hyacinth, I will make the burden light.” The year was 1241 and the city of Kyiv was under siege. Hyacinth, a local monk, ran to the sanctuary to take the Blessed Sacrament to a safe place. As he turned to leave, he heard a pleading voice: “Take me with you, Hyacinth.” He realized it was the image of Our Lady of Kyiv, begging to be rescued.
By Sister Luz-Eugenia Alvarez — From the time I began formation in the novitiate (a phase in the process of becoming a Sister of Mercy), I knew that, following the completion of classes on the vow of service, there was the possibility I would go to the U.S.-Mexico border. This past June, I did. I traveled to the border between McAllen, Texas, and Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, to learn about how the sisters serve immigrants there.
By Sister Honora Nicholson — Today we celebrate the feast of Mary Magdalene, the woman whose place in the circle of Jesus’ friends was attested to by all four gospels and whose claim to apostleship is equal in every way to both Peter and Paul. Yet, unlike Peter, Mary never denied Jesus and, unlike Paul, she never persecuted him. She was given the title Apostle to the Apostles by the early church, the first to receive a direct mission from the Risen Lord to go and preach the Gospel.
By Sister Michele Schroeck — When I think of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American saint from the territory of the United States and Canada and patroness of ecology, I think of the Bhutanese immigrants living in my neighborhood. They were expelled from their native lands and sent to Nepal, where they lived in refugee camps in the 1990s before coming to the United States. These Bhutanese like many other native peoples were forced to leave their ancestral home.
More than 50 sisters, associates and colleagues in ministry joined the Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington, D.C., on Saturday, June 18, 2022. Sister Carren Herring and Sister Diane Guerin recently reflected on what it was like to be a part of this momentous event!
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 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 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.
By Sister Maria Teresa Muhuhu
— Responding to Earth’s cry is a sacred calling for Sisters of Mercy of the Americas in Jamaica and the Caribbean. It is not optional. At stake are the lives of the people we serve—women, children, migrants, people made poor—and the very existence of the beautiful islands we call home.