The House Has Her Say - a new poem by Sr Mary Wickham RSM for Mercy Day 2025

Sr Mary Wickham RSM has gifted a wonderful poem to the Mercy World for Mercy Day 2025.

Her poem entitled The House Has Her Say is written in the voice of Catherine's House at 64A Lower Baggot Street in Dublin. In her beautifully and cleverly crafted poem, Mary permits the house to anticipate what will come with the temporary closure of Mercy International Centre for refurbishment work from this month. She also allows the house to look back and to look to the future. She gifts us a reassurance from the house that she will look after all the treasures too.

Have a read of the poem below:

THE HOUSE HAS HER SAY

There will a brief pause between

the preparation and the process,

that little while before the tired tarnish transforms into the aspiring polish of progress,

before walls that sag and joints that creak with normal age are soothed and braced.

There will be a brief pause when the humans close my fine red door

and I will be myself, by myself, in stillness,

and will take sage stock of all that has happened within me

since those very first years when the lady, Catherine,

called me into being, planned each brick and mortar space

and brought to life a bold scheme of meaning.

She lived within me; she died within me;

I hold her grounded bones and I remember her.

When my door is closed I will rest in deep contentment

that what she began is still commissioned here,

that life still takes flight here and mercy is made, mercy is met.

There will be a solitariness at night in my spaces

yet my wings, like arms, will draw close the familiar company of the garden bones,

and the spirits who move through the floors will whisper fondly to me,

as my eyes gaze upon the teeming commerce and people-parade of Baggot St,

buses scuttling where once horses passed.

Think as you close my door

of all those who have crossed this threshold of mercy-

coming in for life, for salvation in its truest, purest meanings,

and those going out for much the same reasons-

down the street, across to Connaught, across continents, carried on canal, sea and air.

When you return I will essentially, at heart, be the same,

just a bit of a spruce and polish, a few bits tucked and tidied,

but I will have achieved in the idle time,

that time between the leavings and the hammerings,

a reckoning of all the days,

a gratitude for the graces,

a humility for the shortcomings,

a sorrow for any harms and missed chances,

an aptitude for all that will be.

I will hold all the treasures and the memories

and they will be waiting for you,

once the new dust has settled, safe in the sacred space.

And when all is ready,

I will invite you back to a vibrantly new disposition to grace,

to enthuse in each one the spirit of this place,

and reveal once again my fine and precious balance of past and future.

Were I to give you a word before you go it would be

what I used to glimpse, inscribed on Catherine’s ring,

as she grasped my bannisters or brushed her hand gently along my walls:

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.

That’s what this is all about,

and what she would want me, her enduring witness, to tell you.

She and I belonged to one another, remember.

The sun will reach me through the sainted coloured windows,

but in case the winter bites, leave the peat stacked in her room hearth,

ready for warm glow and gathering.

And don’t forget to come back – we need each other more than ever.

Mary Wickham RSM

Listen to Mary reading her poem here.

Thank you Mary for your generosity and giftedness. You can read more of her poetry on her website including a whole suite about Catherine and Baggot Street.