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| Edition No. 593 | 15 October 2014 | |
| | | | Imagine A World Where No One is Hungry  Editor: This week ushers in two UN Observances - World Food Day (16 October) and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (17 October). It also sees the launch by Caritas Internationalis of its Week of Action (12-19 October) in its 'One Human Family, Food for All' campaign, a campaign supported by Pope Francis. Although global food production has tripled since 1946 and the prevalence of undernourishment has dropped from 18.7 to 11.3 per cent globally, an estimated 805 million people are still chronically undernourished according to the latest Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO) estimates. While the idea of eradicating world hunger by 2025 —Pope Francis' goal— may at first seem unimaginable, UN figures demonstrate that the hunger target of the Millennium Development Goal – of halving the proportion of undernourished people in developing countries by 2015 – is within reach. At the Gathering Place in Newfoundland serving a noon meal to 80 to 150 guests per day; in the kitchens set up in the many small pueblos where Mercy Sisters minister in the Andes of Peru or on the Pacific coast; in feeding programs in Kenya; with students in the US Mercy schools programme — the Mercy Girl Effect—raising money to provide the children of the Nuba with much needed food; at the 'food for families' programme focussed on healthy eating in Te Waipuna Puawai Mercy Oasis in Ellerslie, Aotearoa New Zealand; serving meals at Mary's Table at Mary's Mercy Center in San Bernardino California; supplying nutritious meals for patients at an Anti Retroviral Clinic in Winterveldt, South Africa; partnering with VITA (an Irish NGO) for its work in Ethiopia; on meeting candidates for national and state offices in the US mid-terms to get a sense of where each candidate stands on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme, formerly known as Food Stamps .... in all parts of the Mercy world, Sisters of Mercy and our partners-in-ministry feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty through direct action and through our efforts to change unjust practices. May we continue to respond to the hungers of our time in ways that are creative, compassionate, respectful, life-giving and life-changing and which 'contribute towards attacking the structural causes of extreme poverty.' (Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Address to the UN, 8 October, 2014). Messages to: Mary Reynolds rsm - Executive Director MIA Image: Many Slices of Stale Bread. iStock. Used under licence | |
| | God of love and mercy, touch with your healing power and restore to full health Diana, Alaina, Maria & her parents, Hannah Graham, Brittany Maynard, the young boy who will lose his sight & Gerry, Anna Marie McKinney and all whose names are on our prayer list. We ask this with confidence through the intercession of Venerable Catherine McAuley. Amen. Messages to: the Vice postulators | | MIA Prayer Intention for the Week MIA joins with Nga Whaea Atawhai o Aotearoa Sisters of Mercy New Zealand in their prayer 'Leaven for our world' E Te Atua,
Whaea mahi rewena -
Baker-woman God:
in every age your word
nourishes us abundantly,
as you inspire us to share
the blessings you bestow. Jesus, whom you sent
as the living bread,
taught his disciples
to feed the crowds from
the little they could find,
and to fill the baskets
from what was left over. Be the leaven in our lives.
Surprise us by making
our meagre resources fruitful.
From the bread you give us
may we find for our world
a plenty that never runs out. Messages to: Mary Reynolds rsm - Executive Director MIA Post your own Prayer or Reflection in our online Chapel
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| | Sean O'Rourke is an Irish journalist and broadcaster who currently presents the Today with Sean O'Rourke show every weekday morning on RTÉ Radio 1. In the interview linked to this item, Sean is in conversation with Marie Louise O’Donnell about her visit to Hope House, Addiction Treatment Centre, Foxford, Co. Mayo which is celebrating 21 years in existence. Dolores Duggan rsm and Attracta Canny rsm, described by Marie Louise as 'full of humour and full of service', have been running Hope House since its foundation. This inspiring interview runs for 14'13'. Type the words 'hope house' into the field labelled 'search the player' and the interview will become visible. Click on the interview once you see the programme title appear. Messages to: Dolores Duggan rsm and Attracta Canny rsm Editor: Hope House is this week's featured Mercy website | | 'Advocacy is an integral part of developing a solution. It’s an act of boldness and bravery that builds the support and awareness necessary to fully understand a problem or challenge and let’s the world know that you care, and you want to be part of the solution. So each year we honor the work and dedication of an individual or group with our ADVOCATE Award. Advocacy is standing up for what you believe in, championing a cause, speaking out, or taking a stand. It’s about understanding the complex issues that face our communities, our state, and our nation, and coming together to solve them. Our advocates show us where we are needed most. They help us understand. Advocates orient us toward success by helping to build a roadmap that leads to a solution. The Advocate award winner this year is a group of women who, for decades, in Chittenden County and Vermont have shown us all, through words and more importantly through deed of kindness, caring, generosity and faith how to speak up against poverty, homelessness and injustice. The Sisters of Mercy...' Messages to: The Sisters of Mercy in Chittenden County and Vermont c/- Lauren Tyrrell - Institute Communications Office | | | Editor: Each fortnight Camille D'Arienzo rsm interviews a Catholic from around the United States in her NCR column 'Conversations with Sr Camille'. This week's interviewee is Doris Gottemoeller rsm, a former President of the Institute of Sisters of Mercy of the Americas and of LCWR. 'Name a ministry, and Mercy Sr. Doris Gottemoeller, 77, has been part of it. She has served on countless boards of universities, health systems, hospitals, seminaries, and high schools in her 61 years in religious life.
"I'm a generalist who cares about all of our Mercy ministries and appreciates the role of good governance in their success. ... Leaders come and go, and ministry needs change, but an institution such as a school endures in order to serve succeeding generations."' Messages to: Doris Gottemoeller rsm | | Editor: Deirdre Mullan rsm (The Congregation), the Executive Director of Mercy Reaches Mercy at the United Nations in New York, had the following article published in the 'Philadelphia Inquirer' yesterday. ' The Mercy Schools community in the Philadelphia area was already excited when it was announced that Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai would receive the 2014 Liberty Medal at the National Constitution Center this month. So imagine the intensity of our feelings now that she has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her continued demonstration of courage and resilience in the face of adversity and for serving as a powerful voice for those who have been denied their basic human rights...' Messages to: Deirdre Mullan rsm
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
Image: Malala Yousafzai from the website http://www.malala-yousafzai.com
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| | 1860: Foundation to Vicksburg from Baltimore - M de Sales Brown 1878: Foundation to Hokitika from Ennis, Co Clare - M Clare Moloney Submit a fact about the Story of the Sisters of Mercy for our online archive | | 'I began this collection of “Bible Texts that Speak of Mercy” for my own use several years ago...It may assist those who wish to do some cross-referencing.' - Alice M. Sinnott rsm | | Hope House is an affordable addiction centre which produces exceptional results using a research based approach...Situated in the quiet village of Foxford Co.Mayo on the banks of the river Moy on the West Coast of Ireland, Hope House provides a welcoming warm , comfortable and therapeutic place, a home away from home where recovery begins. | | | '...the Holy See notes with concern that however encouraging recent progress may have been in reducing global poverty, extreme poverty still remains widespread in many regions of the developing world. More than one billion people, or 15% of the world’s population, continue to live on less than $1.25 a day. To fight the structural causes of extreme poverty, every economic and political policy and activity must set about providing each person with the minimum wherewithal to live in dignity and freedom from want. Without this vision, economic and political policy and activity would be selfish and mere profiteering, and would not contribute towards attacking the structural causes of extreme poverty... - Archbishop Bernardito Auza, The Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the UN. Address to the UN General Assembly in New York delivered on 8 October 2014 | | For your amusement.
A guided tour of the latest in computer technology - the smallest computer in the world (01:37) | | 'God knows I would rather be cold and hungry than the poor in Kingstown or elsewhere should be deprived of any consolation in our power to afford.' - Catherine McAuley | |
| | Worth Playing: 'Bread for the world
a world of hunger.
Wine for all peoples
People who thirst...'
Lyrics from ' Bread for the World' on the album 'God Beyond All Names' by Bernadette Farrell. Available here on YouTube (01:59). Purchase it here on iTunes
Worth Checking Out: 'Francis of Rome & Francis of Assisi: A New Springtime for the Church' by Leonardo Boff. Paperback released August, 2014. Read the interview with Leonardo Boff in Publisher's Weekly Order from Orbis Books or Amazon 'Power of Sisterhood: Women Religious Tell the Story of the Apostolic Visitation' by Margaret Cain McCarthy, PhD and Mary Ann Zollmann, BVM, PhD. Order through the publisher, University Press of America, and use its code to get a 30% discount which is valid until 31 December 2014. Details of how to order and further information about the text can be found here Have you a recommendation for a recently published book title? Please let us know. 'Report takes deeper look at statistics about women's religious orders'. Read the article in Catholic News Service here. Access the report 'Population Trends Among Religious Institutes of Women' by Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) staffers Mary L. Gautier and Mark M. Gray, and Erick Berrelleza, a Jesuit scholastic at Boston College, released 13 October. (8pps; pdf) 'Advent in the New Universe Story' is a free four-session resource created by Terri MacKenzie for those interested in deepening their understanding of the Christmas/Incarnation reality in the context of the new creation story. This resource can be downloaded here (10 pps; pdf)
Worth Reading:
Opposing Human Trafficking
'"Modern-day slavery is real and occurring every day in Silicon Valley," according to a new human trafficking report based on hundreds of cases of sexual exploitation and forced labor in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties since 2011...' Read the news article here. The Report, produced in partnership with Juniper Networks and human trafficking advocacy group Not For Sale, can be read here (36 pps; pdf) Cosmology and Ecojustice
' In pure numbers, the past few decades have been marked by destruction: over the last 40 years, Earth has lost 52 percent of its wild animals; nearly 17 percent of the world’s forests have been felled in the last half-century; freshwater ecosystems have witnessed a 75-percent decline in animal populations since 1970; and nearly 95 percent of coral reefs are today threatened by pollution, coastal development and overfishing...' Read the complete article 'Humanity Failing the Earth’s Ecosystems' here Send suggestions and contributions for the 'Worth...' section to: the Editor | |
| Mercy World E-News is the Online Newsletter of the Mercy International Association. We hope you value this email. However, should you no longer wish to receive this eNewsletter, please unsubscribe. Mercy International Association LimitedRegistered in Ireland. Certificate Number 194263. Public Company Limited by Guarantee. Registered Office: Mercy International Association, 11 Adelaide Road, Dublin 2. Registered Charity no CHY 10078 Directors: Sister Denise Fox (ANZ), Sister Patricia McDermott (US), Ron Ashworth (US), Peter Burnett (GB), Sister Colette Cronin (GB), Mary Moorhead (IRL), Kevin Hoy (IRL), Sister Margaret Casey (IRL), Sister Scholasticah Nganda (IRL) | |
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