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Catherine's Canonisation Cause
Let Loose the Charism of Mercy - Anne Hannon rsm
(This is the text of a reflection given by Anne Hannon rsm
at the celebration of 160 years of Sisters of Mercy in Sunderland,
England, on November 26 2003.)
On her deathbed Catherine's bequest to all Sisters of Mercy
was spelled out quite clearly, 'My legacy to the Institute is
Charity'. That this was clearly understood, is vouched for, by
Mother Austin Carroll, a charismatic foundress of the Sisters
of Mercy in North America. 'The blessing of unity still dwells
amongst us ...this is the Spirit of the order indeed - the true
spirit of Mercy - flowing to US (1), All Sisters of Mercy know
this to be true from personal experience, irrespective of the
many
times when we personally may have failed to allow love to flow
through us to others. The Charism of Mercy is all about love,
a commodity spoken about and sung about but never experienced
in a lifetime by some people. Mercy is about 'bringing one's
heart to misery, to wretchedness' (2). Action with and for those
who suffer is the concrete expression of the compassionate life,
and the final criterion of being a Christian. Acts of Mercy do
not detract from moments of prayer, worship and contemplation
but are themselves such moments. Why was this so for Catherine?
Surely, it was because she modelled herself on a Christ, who
did not cling to his divinity, but became one of us and could
be found by choice where there were hungry, thirsty, marginalized,
alienated, sick and imprisoned people. Catherine saw the works
of mercy as a direct means of encountering and coming into union
with God. She also saw that when we live in ongoing conversation
with Christ, and allow His Spirit to guide our lives, we recognise
Him in the poor, the oppressed and the downtrodden. Yes, we will
hear His cry and respond to it wherever he reveals Himself. Thus,
for Catherine and for us action and prayer are two aspects of
the same discipline.
How did Catherine come to be such an apostle of love and Mercy?
Catherine grew up in a society
where, thanks to the Penal Code, the poor were wretchedly poor;
the sick were helplessly sick
and the ignorant were hopelessly ignorant. The McAuleys were
people of wealth and property who tended to be Anglo-Irish
in their social life, attitudes and sympathies. 'If Catherine
had
a father other than James McAuley, she might have lived a graceful
life in polite society, insulated from the sufferings of Ireland's
poor and fed on false assumptions concerning them.' (3) James
McAuley's Catholicism had survived the trials of penal deprivation
and
was all the stronger because of the hardships encountered and
overcome. Catherine as a young child often witnessed his social
concern when he brought the children of the poor into his own
home and instructed them in the faith. From him she learned
steadfast faith, integrity of character, practical love for the
poor and
sensitivity to their needs. Following her father's death Catherine
endured a transition from wealth to poverty and suffered two
decades of a siege on her religious convictions, from the sincere
but misguided friends whose charity she was forced to accept.
It was this personal experience of being the recipient of handouts
which made her own giving so gracious and kindly. The casual
and patronizing giving of alms was not for her. She was later
to declare that 'there are things which the poor prize more
highly than gold, though they cost the donor nothing. Among these
are the kind word, the gentle compassionate look and the patient
hearing of sorrows'. When Catherine joined the Callaghan
household in 1803 she found scope for a ministry among the unlearned
and deprived in the locality. While the Callaghans were opposed
to Catholicism they consented to her good work on condition that
there were no manifestations of popery in the house. But Catherine
was practised in the art of finding God everywhere. She soon
occupied in the hearts of the Callaghans the place of the daughter
they had always wished for. Through her constant love for them
and her unfailing witness to Gospel values they were both converted
to Catholicism. Eventually, William Callaghan left her the bulk
of his fortune, convinced that she would put it to good use.
She now had the financial wherewithal to make her mission of
mercy possible and to share her charism with a group of like-minded
women. And so the Mercy Charism was let loose on an unsuspecting
Dublin and on a world-wide scale.
 Catherine was a woman for her time and for all times. She had
her finger on the pulse of things and she was an expert at reading
the signs of the times. Long before she was financially able
to do so, she provided for the spiritual and temporal needs of
the poor. For Christ she was ready to renounce comfort, and social
position and to accept instead cold, hunger and want. 'God knows
I would rather be cold and hungry than that the poor of Kingstown
or elsewhere should be deprived of any consolation in our power
to afford them'. No wonder then, when she became an heiress she
saw her inherited wealth as a trust to be expended on others
by providing services which were not then on offer. She became
both an educator and a social worker, who initiated new services
under the banner of mercy, which she declared to be 'the principal
path marked out by Jesus Christ [which] has in all ages of the
Church excited the faithful in a particular manner to instruct
and comfort the sick and dying poor, as in them they regarded
the person of our Divine Master'. She aimed to teach the poor
so that they might help themselves and so become independent
and earn their own living. She penetrated to the heart of poverty
and was truly a 'Jesus person' who left herself constantly open
and receptive to all, sympathising with the afflicted as Jesus
did, and relieving distress after his example. Lack of resources
never deterred her, because she put her whole confidence in God
and her invariable answer to her less trusting companions was,
'Prayer will do more... than all the money in the Bank of Ireland'.
Catherine believed that 'No work of charity could be more productive
of good in society or more conducive to the happiness of the
poor than the careful instruction of women.' Side by side with
this, she was determined to provide shelter for young unemployed
girls for whom no adequate services were at that time available.
How was she to see her dream fulfilled? Determined to place her
house where the poor would be visible to the rich and where young
women could find employment nearby, she bought a plot in Baggot
Street, a highly fashionable part of residential Dublin. She
planned a building that would include dormitories, schoolrooms,
an oratory and living quarters for herself and for the associates
she hoped to attract to her new enterprise. Remember Catherine
McAuley was a lay person, the holder of a special charism and
she hoped through this new building to let that charism loose
on the world. When the house was built it was very conventual
in style and it was in the building of this house that Catherine
set out on the road to becoming a nun. She built the house to
help the poor and the poor helped her to become a nun. Kitty's
Folly, as the house became known, started out as a source of
annoyance to the Baggot Street locality, which she was reputedly
seen to be downgrading. On the positive side, at the same time
two companions joined Catherine and they took up residence in
Baggot Street on September 24, feast of Our Lady of Mercy.
Why did Catherine decide to become a nun?
We are told by one
of her early companions that 'she was convinced that Almighty
God required her to make some lasting efforts for the relief
of the suffering and instruction of the ignorant, and she thought
of establishing a society of pious secular ladies who would devote
themselves to this service, with the liberty to return to their
worldly life when they no longer felt inclined to discharge such
duties She did not like the idea of religious vows and disapproved
of conventual observances, having constantly heard them ridiculed
and misrepresented by Protestants'. Meanwhile, the little group
were living a conventual life, albeit without vows. Uniformity
of dress was adopted, and a common timetable was drafted. The
group took to occupying a separate section of the house for spiritual
exercises and daily living, which became in effect a type of
enclosure. The time-table specified a regular time for rising,
for Mass, prayer, work and recreation. Neither Archbishop Murray
nor Catherine had envisaged 'the idea of a convent starting up
of itself in this manner'. But eventually the Archbishop delivered
an ultimatum that she either become a religious or withdraw from
the project. The choice presented to her was agonizing. On the
one hand, she feared that her work would come to an end or that
they would lose the freedom to carry it out in the manner she
had planned. On the other hand, the idealism and potential of
her now fourteen companions and the promise of the Archbishop
that she could continue to pursue her work, and that her Institute
would have a status of its own independent of other religious
congregations, convinced her to agree. So to continue her work
for the poor she became a nun, and she became a nun with her
whole being. Her willingness to proceed along a way for which
she had no burning desire - the way of religious life, is perhaps
the greatest moment of her profound openness to the Spirit speaking
to her through circumstances and the needs of the people whom
she wished to serve and through the canonical regulations of
the church she loved so deeply. That Catherine McAuley thus yielded
to the circumstances of her day and established a religious community
into which she incorporated the same goals of minimal religiosity
and maximal service of God and man is a great tribute to her
understanding of an integrated spirituality and a tremendous
heritage to us. It challenges us to look at the signs of the
times and to put her charism at work today for the salvation
and sanctification of the world. Catherine's heart seemed to
expand with the needs. The early Sisters and Catherine's daughters
to this day are often called to accomplish work beyond what they
judge their natural and supernatural resources to be. Yet they
learned to give all and to trust in a provident God.
On December 12th 1831, Catherine, Anne Doyle and Elizabeth Harley
were professed. The Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy assumed
canonical status that day. As the late Cardinal Basil Hume said
in Westminster at the Bi-Centenary celebration 'I have
a suspicion that if Archbishop Murray had not told Catherine
to become a novice at the age of fifty-two and, what is more,
in another religious order, you dear Sisters, would probably
have not been here today. The charism which comes from God often
proves to be a fragile thing unless it is protected and sustained
by the institution. The genius of the foundress only survived
after death, because her work no longer depended on her alone.
The Church gave it permanence and stability (4). Through her
action in becoming a Sister Catherine let loose her Charism among
her
religious community, among the Church community and among the
world community.
 Eight
years after the foundation of the Institute Catherine wrote,
'We were joined so fast that it became a matter of general
wonder'. Called by God to share life in the community of Mercy,
these first Sisters of Mercy cherished the dignity of every human
person. The poor they longed to serve were those in want, marginalised,
powerless, victimized, struggling to live lives of dignity in
justice and equity. In responding to this call of Mercy the lives
of Catherine and her followers radiated compassion and love and invited such a great number
of new members that Catherine said,' The fire that Christ cast
upon them is kindling very fast'. Needs everywhere were so great
that they challenged the limits of ability to respond. But respond
they did, and, during Catherine's short ten years as a Sister
of Mercy the works of Mercy spread over Ireland and England.
Within a few years after her death, convents began in Newfoundland,
the United States, Australia and New Zealand. In each foundation
visitation of the poor began at once. As long as the poor were
taken care of, Catherine urged her sisters to adapt to local
circumstances because she did not want the limitations of one
locality to hamper the work of another area. Catherine felt the
pain of life and wept for it. She felt the joy too and rejoiced
in it and she wanted to replace the pain with the joy.
Now that the Mercy Sisters are declining in number and our age
profile is on the increase, the question is often asked, 'Will
the Mercy Charism survive?
It will because it must. Mercy is
needed as much in our time as it was in Catherine's. What is
the unique face of God's Mercy needing to be revealed to the
world today? As I see it there is an Ocean of God's Mercy.
Within this ocean there are various groups called to carry out
the Mercy
of Jesus through the charism of Mercy. There is the diminishing
group of consecrated Mercy women; there are associates; and
there are colleagues in ministry who have appropriated the charism
of mercy. All of us in our different ways are enriched by Catherine's
charism. We are aware that Mercy is always mutual - there is
no such thing as one way mercy. In giving we receive. We are
essential for Mercy to each other and to all we meet in ministry.
We are the face of God's Mercy to others. We are the listening
ear to people. We have a legacy from Catherine and she has
shown
us how to use it. We have the same Spirit spurring us on -
a force Who is energising us. Our life together is learning how
to be Mercy to each other. We find Mercy where we are by being
who we are, all instruments of Mercy. We are contemplatives
in
action. We each hold the charism but we can't hug it to ourselves.
It is for others. Lets spread it far and wide. From Baggot
Street came forth enterprises to help the poor, journeys to far-off
lands, sanctity, and relevance to the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. How relevant we shall be to the twenty first century
will depend on how clearly we see the signs of the times, how
we imitate
Catherine in listening
to the Spirit and in hearing the voices of needy people who
cry out for Mercy all over the world. So as we consecrated
women
of mercy become fewer we call on all active Catholics to share
the Mercy Charism, to see the needs as Catherine saw them.
In our day, in spite of energetic measures to alleviate the
ills
of society - poverty, sickness, ignorance and addiction abound;
the alienated, the lonely, the deserted, and the physically
abused abound. In our world of indifference concerning belief,
the erosion
of faith in God and in transcendent reality have spawned self-destructive
greed, selfishness, and life-styles of out-manoeuvring one
another. Out of consequent erosion of integrity in word and
work, dishonesty,
brutality and destructiveness abound. When was the flow of
God's Mercy more needed? Catherine brought her heart to misery.
By
courageous, contagious concern for the spiritual and temporal
welfare of the poor, the sick, and the ignorant, she broke
through the impossibilities of her time. She animated many
to walk with
her... ... She connected the rich to the poor; the healthy
to the sick; the educated and skilled to the uninstructed;
the influential
to those of no consequence; the powerful to the weak. She let
loose the charism of Mercy. Can we do the same?
- Oral tradition of the Sisters of Mercy, Sister Austin
Carroll's Life of Catherine McAuley (New York
and Philadelphia: P.J. Kennedy & Sons, 1866), p.435
- Johanna Regan, Tender Courage, Gwynedd-Mercy
College,(Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania) 1978
- Johanna Regan, Tender Courage
- Basil Hume on the occasion of Bi-Centenary of
Catherine's birth, in Westminster Cathedral, September 24th,1981
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