MGP 'Presence to Earth' Resources are Now Online

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Vision in Action

MIA Prayer Intention: Crises Requiring Global Attention

Prayer

MIA Prayer Intention: Crises Requiring Global Attention

Last week, UN OCHA (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) singled out ten crises the world should not turn a blind eye to amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

We invite you this week to sit with one or more of these stories and to hold the needs of these communities -an estimated 259 million people - in your prayers.

Post your prayer in our online chapel.

MESSAGES TO: Berneice Loch rsm CEO MIA
Reminder: Remembrance Day Liturgy Online

Events & Programmes

Reminder: Remembrance Day Liturgy Online

On the 11th November, we remember the death of Catherine McAuley. Gathering in large numbers in the Chapel at Baggot St is still not possible, so this year a prerecorded liturgy will be made available through Mercy eNews on that date. We hope that you are able to link in and join in prayer for this anniversary.

MESSAGES TO: Anna Nicholls rsm Head of heritage & Spirituality
'Hope in a Time of Pandemic'- Issue Spotlight #8 – Livelihood

MGA

'Hope in a Time of Pandemic'- Issue Spotlight #8 – Livelihood

The global pandemic has had huge implications for people all over the world. It is described as a global health crisis, but the pandemic has also had enormous socio-economic impacts. Earlier spotlight reports have focused on the themes of inequality as discussed in MGA’s recent publication, ‘Hope in a Time of Pandemic: Responding to COVID-19 through a Mercy Lens’… This report looks at what has been revealed in terms of the impact on peoples’ livelihoods..

Members' News

Mercy Global Presence: a Reflection from the Western Province of the Congregation

The Congregation

Mercy Global Presence: a Reflection from the Western Province of the Congregation

Mercy Global Presence is a widely visionary and positively powerful resource. The gratuitous manner, in which it is freely available on the World Wide Web, tells a story of Mercy generosity, in sharing good news and comprehensive analysis. When we, Kathleen and Suzanne, were invited by our provincial leadership team to bring MGP to the notice of our Western Province, so that we all might engage more deeply with this fine resource, the invitation came as a precious gift. This gift keeps on giving…

Reducing Pesticides and Preserving Pollinators

Americas

Reducing Pesticides and Preserving Pollinators

Bees and other pollinators are essential to the world’s food production; in fact, 71 of the 100 crops that provide 90% of the world’s food are pollinated by bees. Yet pollinator populations are in great decline, due, in large part, to the pesticides used in agriculture…

Through the Pesticide Investor Initiative, co-organized by Friends of the Earth and IEHN, Mercy Investment Services continues to coordinate investor efforts to engage these grocery retailers, on applying the principles of safer chemical management to pesticide reduction. Click here for an op-ed piece co-authored by Mercy Investment Services to raise awareness of the issue.

How My Son Brought out My Inner Eco Warrior

Australia

How My Son Brought out My Inner Eco Warrior

A three-year old son with a penchant for picking rubbish off the street and shiny new pair of tongs were the inspiration for MercyCare Early Learning Services’ Eco Warrior Program.

MercyCare Early Learning Manager Rosina Smith tells her story on how MercyCare’s 14 Early Learning Centres are on a journey to become the shining stars of environmental sustainability.

Mercy Matters

1 November, Feast of All Saints

Gospel

1 November, Feast of All Saints

Matthew 5: 1-12

'We have become so familiar with the beatitudes that there is a danger of our listening only to the mellifluous flow of language and of failing to attend to the extraordinary present and future reversal that they offer to those who suffer injustice and to those who choose non-violent ways of addressing it. With pandemic sweeping the globe and affecting the dispossessed quite disproportionately, it is time to listen anew to these opening words of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount...'

Four Green Fields: Ireland, Biodiversity and the Climate Crisis.

Resource

Four Green Fields: Ireland, Biodiversity and the Climate Crisis.

Galilee Spirituality Centre Annual Climate Conference

Keynote speaker: Dr Liam Lysaght, Biodiversity Data Centre Ireland.
’Tracking Change in Ireland’s Biodiversity: How Everyone can Play their Part.’

This free conference on Zoom will be held on 31 October from
10:30am - 12.30pm Irish time (your time here)

Download the flyer here

Booking and link: info@galilee.ie

2 November, All Souls

International Days

2 November, All Souls

In this month when the Church traditionally remembers her dead, today we pray with our families, relatives, community members and friends who have gone before us, who ‘preserve their bonds of love and communion with us’. (GE 3) and are never far from us.

In this COVID year, we are invited to remember all those who have lost their lives as a result of the pandemic.

On This Day

Fact

On This Day

1859: Foundation to Goulburn from Westport, Co Mayo - M Ignatius Murphy

Contribute a fact from the story of your Mercy congregation, institute or federation, to our online archive.

 How to Reimagine the Future of Religious Life.

Resource

How to Reimagine the Future of Religious Life.

Vocations Ireland Autumn Conference

Speaker: Carol Zinn ssj (pictured above), Executive Director of LCWR
7 November 2020 via Zoom
2:00pm-5:00pm Irish time (Your time here)

Cost: 10 euro. (Your cost here)
Download the booking form here

Engaging Our Diversity: Interculturality and Consecrated Life Today

Resource

Engaging Our Diversity: Interculturality and Consecrated Life Today

Recording of the launch of the book and conversation with Maria Cimperman rscj (pictured above), Director of the Center for the Study of Consecrated Life at CTU Chicago and some of the authors, held 7 October.

Resources for Remembrance Day (1)

Reflection: Remembrance of Catherine McAuley's Death Day

Resource

Reflection: Remembrance of Catherine McAuley's Death Day

‘Let us take a moment to step into Catherine’s bedroom. Enter gently, silently, reverently.
Reflect on the sacred space in which she died’.

Prepared by Sisters of Mercy Newfoundland (2018).

Article: The Death & Burial of Catherine McAuley (1778-1841): Her Convent & Tomb as a Place of Pilgrimage

Resource

Article: The Death & Burial of Catherine McAuley (1778-1841): Her Convent & Tomb as a Place of Pilgrimage

‘In the evening of Thursday, November 11, 1841, Catherine McAuley, the founder of the Sisters of Mercy, died of tuberculosis at the Convent of Mercy on Baggot Street, Dublin—the first of twelve convents she had established in the preceding decade. She was surrounded by members of the Baggot Street, Booterstown, and Limerick communities, some of whom have left written eye-witness reports…’

Messages to: Mary C. Sullivan rsm

A Remembrance Prayer

Resource

A Remembrance Prayer

This remembrance prayer, composed by Mary Wickham rsm in 2019 for ISMAPNG and now adapted for general Mercy use, is in two parts: Remembering Our Companions (Part One) and The life and Death of Catherine McAuley (Part Two)

Messages to: Mary Wickham rsm

Further Resources

The Kanneh-Masons - Redemption Song

Worth Watching

The Kanneh-Masons - Redemption Song

Watch the seven Kenneh-Mason siblings, all classical musicians, playing Redemption song from their forthcoming album

Staring down climate despair through kinship

Worth Reading

Staring down climate despair through kinship

Radical kinship as articulated by Boyle embraces community, inclusion, dignity, mutuality and interconnection, characteristics that land warmly, perhaps because they suggest relationship, even nesting.

Indeed, Boyle's characteristics of kinship are remarkably ecological. Could it be that radical kinship is not merely a balm for wounded neighborhoods, but a broad remedy for healing a damaged Earth?…’

Read the article here
One in six children living in extreme poverty, with figure set to rise during pandemic

Worth Reading

One in six children living in extreme poverty, with figure set to rise during pandemic

‘An estimated one in six children – or 356 million globally – were living in extreme poverty before the COVID-19 pandemic began, and this is set to worsen significantly, according to a new World Bank Group and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) analysis released on Tuesday [20 October].’

Read the article here
Classroom crisis: Avert a ‘generational catastrophe’, urges UN chief

Worth Knowing

Classroom crisis: Avert a ‘generational catastrophe’, urges UN chief

‘In a video message to the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Global Education Meeting (GEM), Secretary-General António Guterres reminded delegates that the pandemic had had a “disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable and marginalized children and youth”.

Read the article here
LCWR 'Update'

Worth Reading

LCWR 'Update'

The November issue of ‘Update’, the monthly newsletter from LCWR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious) is now online.

Read 'Update' here
I am Greta documentary

Worth Knowing

I am Greta documentary

A documentary about environmentalist Greta ThunbergI Am Greta – is now available to watch in some regions.

Watch the trailer
#TheWorldWeWant

Worth Knowing

#TheWorldWeWant

To mark 75 years since the creation of the United Nations, people around the world were invited to share their vision for what the world could be…

Click on the individual photos to read hopes & dreams

Send suggestions and contributions for the ‘Worth’ Section 2020 to: The Editor

The Bottom line

‘To all believers, and to men and women of good will, we say: let us become creative artisans of peace, let us build social friendship, let us make our own the culture of dialogue. Honest, persistent and courageous dialogue is the antidote to distrust, division and violence…

No one can feel exempted from this. All of us have a shared responsibility. All of us need to forgive and to be forgiven. The injustices of the world and of history are not healed by hatred and revenge, but by dialogue and forgiveness.’ Read More

The 2020 Appeal for Peace

Mercy eNews

The online newsletter of Mercy International Association is published fortnightly, 24 weeks each year and distributed to subscribers via email.

For more information on the directors click here