October is World Mission Month and the second last Sunday of October (22 October 2017) is World Mission Sunday.

While we pray especially with our Sisters, Associates and Colleagues who are on mission in distant places and for the communities they serve, we are each reminded by Pope Francis in his message for this day of our mission which is the mission at the heart of the Christian faith: to proclaim the gospel in our life and work.

Post your own Prayer or Reflection in our online Chapel

Messages to: Mary Reynolds rsm - Executive Director MIA

Image: iStock. Used under licence

On Monday September the 25th, Mercy International Association, Global Action at the UN, co-sponsored an event at the United Nations, entitled, ‘Children on the Move: Preventing Child Trafficking by Implementing the UN Global Plan of Action’. This event was strategically timed, as it was held two days prior to the UN General Assembly High –level Meeting on the appraisal of the Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons...

Messages to: Angela Reed rsm - - MIA Coordinator at the UN - Mercy Global Action

Arrangements are underway for Remembrance Day celebrations at Baggot Street.

This year, members of the Mercy family are invited to send in the names of Sisters, Associates, relatives, friends, co-workers...all who have died in the past year whom you wish to be remembered on 11 November, as part of the liturgy.

Names will be printed out and placed at Catherine’s grave.

The link to the form for the collection of names is here.  Please submit names of deceased by 9 November.

Further details about the celebrations at Baggot Street will be advised in MercyeNews once finalised.

Messages to: Anna Nicholls rsm - Team Leader Heritage & Spirituality

In recent weeks, our awareness and fear of hurricanes and cyclones has been heightened in following the reports of devastation across Latin America, the Caribbean and the American mainland by four major hurricanes — Harvey, Irma, Maria, and Nate. On Monday the world’s concern was for Ireland and the UK which were braced for the unknown – the impact of Hurricane Ophelia, later downgraded to a tropical storm.

We pray with the families and communities of the three reported deceased in Ireland. We give thanks for the planning by government, emergency and other services in Ireland and the UK  to ensure the safety of the general public. And we are reminded that the impacts of climate change know no borders and we must— each in whatever ways we can, individually and collectively — confront all of the challenges posed by our warming planet.

Post your own Prayer or Reflection in our online Chapel

Messages to: Mary Reynolds rsm - Executive Director MIA

Image: NASA. Used with permission
NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite took this thermal image of Hurricane Ophelia over Ireland on Oct. 16 at 02:54 UTC (Oct. 15 at 10:54 p.m. EDT).
Credits: NOAA/NASA Goddard Rapid Response Team
 

Editor: In the 9 August 2017 issue of MercyeNews (Issue #734) we featured the work of Mercy Focus on Haiti, (MFOH), a collaborative of Sisters of Mercy, Associate and Friends of Mercy, supported by the Institute of Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, and their partnership program MFOH-Fonkoze CLM to  enable ultra-poor women to emerge from poverty.

This week, in the article linked to this item, we read of the steps undertaken with the first two-hundred women who were selected for the Chemen Lavi Miyo (CLM) program, —a Creole phrase translated as 'Road to a Better Life'...

Messages to: Kathleen Roeder, MD c/- Lauren Albright - Institute Communications Office

Image: Members of the Mercy medical team meet with a CLM member and her family.

Mary Scullion rsm, President and Executive Director of Project HOME in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was recently acclaimed a Modern Hero (video) in a new series of the same name. The series celebrates women who are defying the odds, shattering glass ceilings, and making a difference in their careers and in the world. The goal is to inspire young girls and women to dream big and not let gender norms hold them back from success. Project HOME, cofounded in 1989 by Sister Mary and Joan Dawson McConnon, empowers adults, children, and families to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty. 

Messages to: Mary Scullion rsm

'Come to the Wedding'. Kathleen Rushton grapples with the Parable of the Wedding feast in Matthew 22:1-14 comparing the willingness of guests called to the banquet table.

Download the article (2pps; PDF)

Messages to: Kathleen Rushton rsm

Image: Banquet Still Life by Abraham van Beyeren c1620–1690

Dr. Thomas J. Botzman, president of Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania, recently announced that the Institute of Sacred Scripture at Misericordia will be renamed the Dr. Marie Noel Keller, RSM, Institute on Sacred Scripture after the executive director for the past 37 years. Sister Marie Noel Keller, RSM, is a member of the Sisters of Mercy Mid-Atlantic Community. For those 37 years, The Institute on Sacred Scripture at Misericordia University has provided clergy and lay people from across the nation the opportunity to study Scripture under the leadership of the top Biblical scholars in the country.

Messages to: Marie Noel Keller rsm

MECPATHS (Mercy Efforts to Counter Child Prostitution and Trafficking in the Hospitality Sector) is a campaign to raise awareness among hotel staff and those working in the hospitality sector in order to combat child sex trafficking in Ireland. 

18 October is European Day against Human Trafficking. A prayer for this day can be found here (2pps; PDF)

The Domiz refugee camp in northern Iraq is home to almost 60,000 Syrian refugees. An amazingly detailed, immersive multi-award winning new website tells the story of Domiz and highlights the human side of the crisis.. Explore Domiz and what life is like for people who live there by taking one of the virtual walks mapped out through the camp.

'The emergence of a common enemy is often the catalyst for sworn enemies to unite. In first century Palestine, Pharisees who were the respected religious teachers of the law and Herodians who represented secular Jewish power and wealth despised each other on both religious and political grounds...'

Read the Reflection on the Gospel by Veronica Lawson rsm (ISMAPNG)

Listen to the Gospel read by Fr Eamonn O'Connor (Ireland)

1914: Foundation to Cunnamulla from Brisbane - M Scholastica

Contribute a fact about the Story of the Sisters of Mercy in your congregation or institute to our online archive

'In the Lord’s Prayer we ask:
'Give us today our daily bread.'
GIVE - not take,
US - not just me,
OUR - as we depend on each other,
DAILY - renewable,
BREAD - that nourishes our world.

- Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance
 

'Close to God, all is peace and contentment.'
-M Frances Warde