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Caroline Thompson is Head of Heritage and Spirituality with Mercy International Association. She shares a Spiritual Reflection for the Mercy World on 1837 - one of the hardest years of Catherine McAuley's life:
In his beautiful poem Pilgrim, David Whyte writes:
"Once you step out you will see for yourself how nothing could have made you ready for this road
That it will take you from what you know to what you cannot perceive except, perhaps, in your dreaming or as it gives a glimpse in prayer."
It is said that Catherine McAuley suffered from deep anxiety, that she sometimes withdrew into a quiet space, that she cried tears of frustration and despair.
Mary Reynolds rsm notes: "Catherine was often anxious … in one of her letters to Francis Warde, with whom she often shared very personal confidences, she confided: I have suffered more than usual with my own pain of sorrow and anxiety."
(2010 accessed at www.mercyworld.org).
Mary Sullivan rsm (2012) links the line from Catherine McAuley’s Suscipe, … take from my heart all painful anxiety, with 1837 … "with its five deaths, fatiguing travels, human separations and several clerical controversies … one of the hardest years of her life." (The Path of Mercy, 216).
These revelations about Catherine McAuley’s life remind us that pain and grief are a part of life and we should always tread softly around people we encounter in the day to day as you never know what hurt they carry.
We should also allow others to dream, enabling that subconscious belief that one can make a difference. These two aspects of a mercy lens on the world were more than evident in Catherine’s life – the capacity to embrace the negative while nurturing the dreams of others. Think of the young women, worn down by the cruelty of life on the streets given a second chance at the House of Mercy. Somewhere deep within them did they dream that life could be better? I wonder what dreams some of the young novices brought with them to Baggot Street. Helping others realise their dreams: What a gift of mercy! It is a gift we can all share.
What gifts can you share with your community?
ENDS