Author: Diane Smyth

Sacred Garden at Baggot Street – Holder of Holiness
11 November 2019

This September we joined with many Sisters of Mercy, Associates and others around the world to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Mercy International. The renovation of our founding house at 64A Baggot Street and its establishment as a Mercy Centre for pilgrimage, heritage, hospitality and spirituality has proven to be a blessing for Sisters of Mercy around the world, for our colleagues and for many of us personally. This year we celebrate twenty-five years! We are definitely an international group connected by our common history, heritage and spirituality!

So now in September 2019, the 192th anniversary of the opening of the House of Mercy, the sacred garden at Baggot Street has been renewed and re-dedicated with blessing and celebration. The presence of so many Sisters of Mercy, Associates and colleagues (in person and via modern technology) was definitely an unprecedented international celebration throughout the Mercy world! We are delighted that Patricia, Monica and Elizabeth had prominent roles in these celebrations!

In 1841 shortly after her death, Catherine McAuley was buried in the convent garden at Baggot Street thus making it sacred and holy ground. The next Sister of Mercy to be buried there, one month after Catherine, was Anne Fleming (Sr. Mary Justina), niece of Bishop Fleming. Anne was in the novitiate at Baggot Street and professed on the same date, August 19, 1841, as Marianne Creedon (Sr. M. Francis), Foundress of the Mercy community in Newfoundland. We know that Francis was present with Catherine in her dying and would have been part of the prayer and burial in that garden as well as the burial of her novitiate companion, Justina Fleming, soon after. Bishop Fleming was in Dublin in November 1841 and we might surmise that he was present at Catherine’s funeral and burial and perhaps, the burial of his niece! Thus the garden at Baggot Street takes on additional meaning and significance to us here in Newfoundland.

We have been offered a virtual visit to the garden:Remembering in the Sacred Garden, Baggot Street in this video:

Let us take a few moments to go to the garden at Baggot Street in Dublin, to think about Catherine McAuley, Justina Fleming and the other sisters buried there. Let us think about the hundreds of Sisters of Mercy buried in sacred grounds around the world. Let us remember them with gratitude and love. Let us remember Associates and colleagues who have died.

Also, on this November 11 we are called to remember men and women who died in the two World Wars! We remember them!
Photos: Anne Walsh

For nine days we have met as a community holding accountability for our life in Mercy for the past four years and imagining the unfolding of our life in Mercy over the next four years. Contemplation has been the thread weaving the texture and the colour through our days together. Our profoundly centering logo has drawn us time and again into deeper contemplation as we endeavoured to explore the depths of our motto “Mercying into the future. .  . Misericordiando hacia el futuro. . .”

Two images, one from the logo and one from the motto, now invite us into the living out of our Chapter Statement.  In the logo, the simple panes of the side panels (not the ornate decoration of the earlier drafts) remind us of a time in Catherine’s life when she was uncertain, seemingly out of her depth and without the security of her faith tradition.  We are told that, denied the right to have access to any Catholic symbols or rituals, in her ingenuity she found the Cross in the window panes and door panels and the intersecting branches of trees on the lawn. I see six such crosses in the side panels of our logo – how many do you see?  In a postmodern world, in what familiar yet unexpected places will we find the Creating One, the Risen One and the Spirit of peace and justice?

The time has also come to look at the three dots embedded in our motto.  These three dots, a punctuation mark known in English as an ellipsis, are at the end of the quotation in English and in Spanish and are the link between the two phrases.  There is an invitation to graceful movement inherent in this punctuation mark – it suggests the unfinished thought, the slight pause, the intentional silence, the echoing voice.  In these coming four years, let us attend to those unfinished thoughts, let us respect the slight pauses, let us become calm in the intentional silences, and let us delight in the echoing voices.

During our Chapter days, we heard the echoing voices of four profound phrases: Who we love transforms us ~ Where we live reshapes us ~ How we create remakes us ~ What we choose changes us.

-Reflections given by Elizabeth Davis, rsm on the closing of the 21st General Chapter of the Sisters of Mercy of Newfoundland.

Cait Wims rsm, translator	Chapter centerpiece

On July 21, 2017 Sister Elizabeth Davis, Congregational Leader, will open the 21st General Chapter of the Sisters of Mercy of Newfoundland.

The theme and logo of the Chapter have been drawn forth from the engagement of many sisters, associates, colleagues and friends in the Mercy International Reflection Process of the past year.  Our previous engagement in the Year of Consecrated Life and the Jubilee Year of Mercy have served to establish a solid foundation.   Our Chapter theme Mercying into the future . . .Misericordiando hacia el futuro resonates with  our desire to experience a renewed sense of mercying in this new time leading us into Mercy Global Presence.  The logo faces us with a lively Mercy Cross leaping out of the doors at Baggot Street!

Ms. Judith King, Ireland, has been working with coordinating committees for the past year in planning for the Chapter.  The first two days of Chapter will be experienced in a spirit of contemplative listening, dialogue and presence. The following day associates and colleagues will join us to continue in a mode of contemplative listening with a focus on “mercying” in the context of mission, charism, ministry and community living.  By the end of the day we hope that we would further in creative and energizing ways the initiative and leadership of the Mercy International Reflection Process towards Mercy Global Presence in its dual focus on degradation of earth and the displacement of persons.  We will explore with associates and colleagues to discover how the Sisters of Mercy, in collaboration with them and others, might further such initiative.  In the next days, the chapter delegates will continue to focus on our congregation’s current reality and how we are called in the great movement of mercying now and into the future. We will explore ministry and community living in collaboration and partnerships with others and the way we will live this out in the next four years.  By the end of the week on July 28 the Chapter will hopefully have set clear directions for the future.

Another important part of our Chapter is the election of a new leadership team.   Members of the congregation have been praying and engaged in a discernment process for leadership.  Four sisters will be elected to lead us during the next four years.

Complementing the contemplative aspect of the Chapter and important business there will be plenty of time for celebration, prayer, fun and food.  We have much to celebrate especially in this 175th year of our foundation in Newfoundland.  We have jubilarians celebrating 25, 50 and 60 years; we and relatives of our deceased sisters will remember our deceased members in a ritual in our cemetery; we have invited the general public to pray with us in a Eucharistic celebration followed by  refreshments and gathering; we will have a grand banquet where we express gratitude to the team members of the past four years. We will also have a “kitchen party” that is sure to be entertaining and light-hearted featuring the hidden talents of our members.  We will conclude our Chapter with a barbecue hosted at McAuley Convent in presence of our elderly and sick sisters..

We invite our Mercy friends and others around the world to join with us these days in prayer and support.  We are grateful for the energy and effort of so many with whom we share “Mercy”.

Messages to: Elizabeth Marrie rsm

The Sisters of Mercy of Newfoundland are preparing for their Chapter to be held July 21 – 28, 2017.

The theme of their Chapter is Mercying Into the future…Misericordiando hacia el futuro…

They invite sisters, associates and colleagues to join with them and pray with them as they prepare.

As part of their preparation and to deepen their appreciation of contemplative listening and dialogue they are using a video prepared by Judith King, their Chapter facilitator.

The video was produced by videographer, Ruaidhri Nolan, Dublin of thelivetimes.com in January of this year.

Messages to: Sisters of Mercy Newfoundland