The official blessing of the Mercy Centre for Ecology and Justice located in the lovely Pippy Park area of St. John’s took place today.
Sister Elizabeth Davis spoke to the more than fifty people in attendance; she moved throughout the Centre with a prayer of blessing being chanted by a small choir and the quests. Sister Mary Tee is the coordinator of the Centre and was host of today’s events. Light refreshments were served.
The building is a bungalow that was renovated to provide office and meeting space for the Centre’s activities. It is situated on an acre of land that has fruit trees and berry bushes around the perimeter and fertile soil that has seen two crops of vegetables in the past two summers. The garden is a project of the Centre in collabloration with a group of “new Canadians” and students of St. Bonaventure’s College. The produce is shared with the food banks and other groups. Many educational and reflective opportunities are provided through the Centre.
opened Centre. 
In the ensuing days the owner of the property told the committee who came to examine the house and land that a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes that was in the grotto had originally come from the local parish school, which had been administered by Sisters of Mercy, Our Lady of Lourdes School. The owner said that he had just recently offered the statue to one of the Mercy Convents because of the pending sale of the property. A short while after that the sisters learned that the statue had been warmly and gratefully welcomed at McAuley Convent and would eventually be ensconced in the garden there. When the Mount Scio property was finally purchased plans were made that the statue would be sent back to be installed in the empty grotto. Our Lady of Lourdes has returned 
to her former abode. Through her intercession we pray that the Mercy Centre for Ecology and Justice will be blessed in its ministry in care for the earth and for all of creation and in its efforts to promote the cause for peace and justice locally and globally. (The Centre is ideally located in Pippy Park, a huge green space in the center of St. John’s.)
in an attempt to assist the people of Haiti. Through a fund-raising campaign of a few hours, $2,000 was collected. This amount has been forwarded to “Doctors Without Borders” to assist physicians and coworkers in their efforts to save lives and to control infection and disease.
From the Opening Prayer/Ritual, where we heard the call to acknowledge the presence of God within us, among us and in all creation, to the welcome, where we were challenged by the words of the poet, Mary Oliver ‘Can one be passionate about the just, the ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit to no labor in its cause? I don’t think so…Be ignited, or be gone’, to the Litany of Blessing where we were reminded that we are blessed as custodians of the open table, symbol of creation’s abundant resources, from which no one is ever to be excluded, we heard the same call, to be agents of change, to engage in a more expansive way of living, a more integrated way of being.
Conlon spoke of the effects that a culture of greed, oppression and domination lead to – widespread unemployment, violence, substance abuse and ecological devastation. Yet the message was a call to hope. The brokenheartedness is not about despair but rather the call to break our hearts open so as to become people of compassion, leading to joy in the struggle and faith in the fulfillment. Drawing on the spirituality, the wisdom, the teaching of a number of our great thinkers, mystics, teachers, scientists, Conlon laid out for us a new way of being, a new way of living. The stars tell the great cosmic story; the streets tell our human-based hopes and dreams. He reminded us that we are genetically coded to live as community and that humans have the choice as to what the community will look like; it is all about Story and Dream. He challenged us to become geo-justice people, honoring each other’s gifts and respecting soul life.
