UN Dates
The 22nd General Chapter of the Sisters of Mercy of Newfoundland will commence on 3 June and close on 6 August.
Our prayer card with our Chapter theme and logo Mercying: Imaging the Face of God in All Creation, Misericordiando: Siendo Imagen del Rostro de Dias en toda la Creación can be downloaded here
We invite you to pray with us as we take the next steps in our Mercy journey.
Messages to: Elizabeth Marrie rsm – Chair of the Chapter Coordinating Committee
On Sunday, 22 May, 2022, St Clare’s Mercy Hospital, St John’s, NL, celebrated 100 years of ministry to the sick and vulnerable of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Established by the Sisters of Mercy, today Eastern Health continues our legacy of providing compassionate and caring healthcare services to the people of the province, delivered and supported by almost 500 dedicated staff and health-care professionals at St Clare’s.
“It is a privilege for me to give thanks on behalf of all Sisters of Mercy and our associates as we mark the 100th anniversary of St. Clare’s Mercy Hospital,” said Congregational Leader, Sister Diane Smyth. “I speak with gratitude for all those who shared their gifts, talents, time, expertise and love to ensure that every aspect of human life was cared for – body, mind and spirit. For 100 years St. Clare’s has stood proud of its history and heritage and its standards of excellence.”
Read the press release from Eastern Health to mark the occasion.
To mark the centenary, Eastern Health produced this video of the ritual of gratitude (54.23).
The people of St. Michael’s Parish invited any Sisters who could attend to join them for Mass, dinner and music. Twenty-one of us joined them for the special evening.
The crossing on the new ferry, the Legionnaire, was beautiful – calm and sunny. The Archbishop and eight priests joined us for the trip. We were met at the ferry by several Knights of Columbus who offered us drives if needed. We went directly to Church and joined the parishioners and many others who had come back home for the occasion.
The bell, used at the original St. Michael’s Church and preserved by St. Michael’s High School, was relocated to the grounds of the modern St. Michael’s Parish Church (build on the site of the Immaculate Conception Church after it had burned to the ground). Archbishop Currie blessed the bell, rang it and then invited a small choir from St. Michael’s School to lead us in O Canada and the Ode to Newfoundland. The bell has so much significance in joyfully in linking our built heritage with the geography of this Island.
We then went into the Church for Mass at which the Archbishop presided. The sanctuary was lovely, adorned by a single vase of red roses and new white altar cloths with gold embroidery. The School choir joined the adult choir to lead us in song. Members of the parish led the Liturgy of the Word. The Archbishop, in his homily, recalled some of our history on Bell Island right up to the present day with a special mention of Sister Phyllis’ pastoral presence. He reminded us that the Ode to Newfoundland was sung for the very first time at the opening of the first Catholic school on the Island in 1901!
Read more about the wonderful celebrations on Bell Island. Download the report here
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| Ms. Judith King facilates Chapter | Service of Remembrance of Deceased Sisters of Mercy |
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| Chapter Day with Associates, colleagues and friends |
Archbishop Martin Currie enjoys a break |
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| Interested and engaged sisters, associates and colleagues | Sister Elizabeth Davis, newly elected leader, greets Sisters at McAuley Convent |
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| Banquet of Gratitude | Welcome to our kitchen party! |
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| Catherine (Mona) McAuley and her schola visited! | Treated to a dance from Peruvian sisters |
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| A visit from Marg and Stace (Alverna and Rosline) | Eight Sisters in Peru missioned in Huarmey and Pt. Eten |
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| New Leadership Team – Sisters Betty, Diane, Elizabeth and Eileen |
Whole group including Cait Wims rsm and Judith King |
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| Congregation blesses newly elected team member, Eileen Penney |
Esther places candle in closing ritual of 21st General Chapter |
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| Closing BBQ at McAuley Convent | Chapter Planning Committees: Coordinating Committee and Contemplative Listening Committee |
New Leadership Team – Sisters Betty Morrissey, Diane Smyth, Elizabeth Davis (Congregation Leader) and Eileen Penney
Messages to: Sisters of Mercy Newfoundland
Two images, one from the logo and one from the motto, now invite us into the living out of our Chapter Statement. In the logo, the simple panes of the side panels (not the ornate decoration of the earlier drafts) remind us of a time in Catherine’s life when she was uncertain, seemingly out of her depth and without the security of her faith tradition. We are told that, denied the right to have access to any Catholic symbols or rituals, in her ingenuity she found the Cross in the window panes and door panels and the intersecting branches of trees on the lawn. I see six such crosses in the side panels of our logo – how many do you see? In a postmodern world, in what familiar yet unexpected places will we find the Creating One, the Risen One and the Spirit of peace and justice?
The time has also come to look at the three dots embedded in our motto. These three dots, a punctuation mark known in English as an ellipsis, are at the end of the quotation in English and in Spanish and are the link between the two phrases. There is an invitation to graceful movement inherent in this punctuation mark – it suggests the unfinished thought, the slight pause, the intentional silence, the echoing voice. In these coming four years, let us attend to those unfinished thoughts, let us respect the slight pauses, let us become calm in the intentional silences, and let us delight in the echoing voices.
During our Chapter days, we heard the echoing voices of four profound phrases: Who we love transforms us ~ Where we live reshapes us ~ How we create remakes us ~ What we choose changes us.
-Reflections given by Elizabeth Davis, rsm on the closing of the 21st General Chapter of the Sisters of Mercy of Newfoundland.
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| Cait Wims rsm, translator | Chapter centerpiece |
The theme and logo of the Chapter have been drawn forth from the engagement of many sisters, associates, colleagues and friends in the Mercy International Reflection Process of the past year. Our previous engagement in the Year of Consecrated Life and the Jubilee Year of Mercy have served to establish a solid foundation. Our Chapter theme Mercying into the future . . .Misericordiando hacia el futuro resonates with our desire to experience a renewed sense of mercying in this new time leading us into Mercy Global Presence. The logo faces us with a lively Mercy Cross leaping out of the doors at Baggot Street!
Ms. Judith King, Ireland, has been working with coordinating committees for the past year in planning for the Chapter. The first two days of Chapter will be experienced in a spirit of contemplative listening, dialogue and presence. The following day associates and colleagues will join us to continue in a mode of contemplative listening with a focus on “mercying” in the context of mission, charism, ministry and community living. By the end of the day we hope that we would further in creative and energizing ways the initiative and leadership of the Mercy International Reflection Process towards Mercy Global Presence in its dual focus on degradation of earth and the displacement of persons. We will explore with associates and colleagues to discover how the Sisters of Mercy, in collaboration with them and others, might further such initiative. In the next days, the chapter delegates will continue to focus on our congregation’s current reality and how we are called in the great movement of mercying now and into the future. We will explore ministry and community living in collaboration and partnerships with others and the way we will live this out in the next four years. By the end of the week on July 28 the Chapter will hopefully have set clear directions for the future.
Another important part of our Chapter is the election of a new leadership team. Members of the congregation have been praying and engaged in a discernment process for leadership. Four sisters will be elected to lead us during the next four years.
Complementing the contemplative aspect of the Chapter and important business there will be plenty of time for celebration, prayer, fun and food. We have much to celebrate especially in this 175th year of our foundation in Newfoundland. We have jubilarians celebrating 25, 50 and 60 years; we and relatives of our deceased sisters will remember our deceased members in a ritual in our cemetery; we have invited the general public to pray with us in a Eucharistic celebration followed by refreshments and gathering; we will have a grand banquet where we express gratitude to the team members of the past four years. We will also have a “kitchen party” that is sure to be entertaining and light-hearted featuring the hidden talents of our members. We will conclude our Chapter with a barbecue hosted at McAuley Convent in presence of our elderly and sick sisters..
We invite our Mercy friends and others around the world to join with us these days in prayer and support. We are grateful for the energy and effort of so many with whom we share “Mercy”.
Messages to: Elizabeth Marrie rsm
The theme of their Chapter is Mercying Into the future…Misericordiando hacia el futuro…
They invite sisters, associates and colleagues to join with them and pray with them as they prepare.
As part of their preparation and to deepen their appreciation of contemplative listening and dialogue they are using a video prepared by Judith King, their Chapter facilitator.
The video was produced by videographer, Ruaidhri Nolan, Dublin of thelivetimes.com in January of this year.
Messages to: Sisters of Mercy Newfoundland
On March 3 a brief ceremony in the hospital chapel marked the closing of St. Clare’s Mercy Hospital Convent on LeMarchant Road, St. John’s, NL.
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The grand, three-storey house on the corner of St. Clare Avenue and Lemarchant Road was purchased from the Honorable E.M. Jackman by Archbishop M. F. Howley in 1913 for five thousand dollars. Bishop Howley’s plan was to open a hostel for women who came to St. John’s looking for work.
A Presentation Sister, M. Clare English, was a keen supporter of the project and began to raise money for it. She donated the proceeds of a rosary made of gold nuggets given to her by a prospector relative. In September 1913 St. Clare’s Home for Working Girls was opened. Bishop Howley asked the Sisters of Mercy to administer the home since such ministry was more in keeping with the rule of their order; the operation of such an institution was one of the ministries for which they were founded. Three Sisters of Mercy took up residence in the ‘white house’.
Within a year, Bishop Howley had considered turning the home into a Catholic hospital but he died before any action could be taken. Archbishop E.P. Roche built on his predecessor’s dream to establish a Catholic hospital. He arranged for Sister Mary Bernard Gladney, one of the three sisters at St. Clare’s Home, to go to a Sisters of Mercy Hospital in Pittsburg to train as a nurse and to eventually take the leadership of establishing and running the hospital.
St. Clare’s Mercy Hospital opened in May 1922. Katherine Bellamy writes in her history: “The little hospital soon gained a superb reputation for its care of the sick, and within a short time it was functioning at full capacity.” Bellamy, Weavers of the Tapestry, p. 390.
Additional sisters went to the United States to train as registered nurses. Others trained for dietetics, radiography, anesthesia and laboratory. The sisters continued to live in the hospital in a section of the building set aside for their community life. Surely they were on call every day and every hour! As the years passed and the hospital grew, with new modern extensions, more room became available in the “white house” for the sisters who themselves were increasing in numbers. The lab was the last vestige of the hospital that shared the house with the sisters! A modern large, new lab was built into the 1970s extension and the sisters finally had the convent to themselves!
For the past 102 years, beginning in the former Jackman home, the Sisters of Mercy have reached out with competence and compassion to all who came through the doors seeking shelter, healing and care. The sisters were pioneers of health care in the province and provided leadership in all facets of care of the sick. They were pioneers of wholistic care long before it became part of medical terminology. Over the years they lead the way in comprehensive hospital care, information technology, pastoral care, palliative care, detoxification and innovative mental health care. We celebrate that great story!
The ceremony (repeated in the early evening) to mark the closing of the convent recognized the contribution of the ninety-two women who lived in the ‘white house’ over the 102 years. The participants, graduates from St. Clare’s School of Nursing, staff and former staff, sisters, physicians, administrators and colleagues, celebrated in readings, prayer and song and gathered at the end for a “good cup of tea”.
In her reflection Sister Elizabeth Davis, Congregational Leader and former CEO of St. Clare’s said: “The ninety-two Sisters of Mercy who have called the Convent home over more than one hundred years have been primarily involved in Mercy health and healing ministries – at St. Clare’s Mercy Hospital and at St. Patrick’s Mercy Home – and in education ministry at the St. Clare’s School of Nursing. These women have made a difference in the lives of individuals who came to the hospital for healing, in the health and health care of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, in the education of women and men working within health care, and in the shape of our province’s health care system. In a few moments we will hear the names of these ninety-two women, we will see the faces of the ones who loved us and influenced us and shaped who we are and what this hospital is.”
Sisters of Mercy will continue to be committed to the provision of medical, spiritual and pastoral care, to visitation of sick people in St. Clare’s and in other hospitals, private homes and long-term care homes, to support people on dialysis, to encourage and support educational, spiritual and leadership endeavours within health care, to advocate for justice for people with complex needs, and to the encouragement and support all with whom they collaborate.
We acknowledge the contribution of the sisters who lived in St. Clare’s Convent since 1913, a home and refuge for women; and later the foundation of a hospital that would grow to be a modern tertiary healthcare facility among the present-day comprehensive services of the Eastern Health Regional system.
May the Spirit of Mercy continue to inspire all of those who continue to walk in the footsteps of these Women of Mercy.
Note: the ‘white house’ is now the property of the Eastern Health Regional Board.
We began with the video Circle of Mercy thus bringing Sisters of Mercy from around the world into our gathering. Sister Elizabeth Davis, congregational leader, welcomed the group giving a backdrop for the celebrations. We enjoyed a slideshow of The Face of Mercy which included photos of many of the people in the room and which had been sent to Ireland to be part of the photo display during this week of celebration.
Sister Sheila O’Dea then led us through the liturgy that a committee had prepared for the celebrations at Baggot Street, Dublin on September 26. The prayer was beautifully woven with readings, images, reflection and chants. The refrains were written by some of our own sisters. Bill Brennan, a well known local musician, had composed a piano piece, Country Rose, that was listened to as part of our reflection time.
The theme of our liturgy was Caring for our Environment. The opening action invited all of life from the four corners of creation to the centre of our room as we turned to each of the directions. Various symbols were brought to the centre of the room. Water was one of the key symbols, which was later blessed. Each of us asked to approach the water prayerfully and playfully to bless ourself or others with the water. At the end of the liturgy we each turned to the various directions to bless all people and creatures in our cosmos.
Of course we all enjoyed wonderful refreshments following the liturgy.
Since many of our sisters could not attend this gathering we celebrated the event at McAuley Convent on September 22. We began in the chapel with the liturgy as prepared for the worldwide celebration. It was so moving to see so many of the sister residents and staff of McAuley Convent participate in the various components of the service and to participate in the refrains. We then had a “good cup of tea” before watching the slide show “the Face of Mercy”.
As the week continued many of our sisters joined in the worldwide celebrations as
they were livestreamed from BaggotStreet chapel. We were so pleased to be able to join in the celebrations “live” through the world wide web, even thought some of them were in the early hours of the mornign for us. We were so delighted that Sisters Patricia March and Monical Hickey as well as Anne Curtis, one of our colleagues, could be present among the group in Dublin for the celebrations and to represent us there. We were so pleased to contribute to the celebrations on September 23 and to contribute to the liturgical celebration used on September 26. We were especially pleased and excited when Patricia told the story of the formal opening of Mercy International Centre and are grateful to her deep love and commitment to Mercy.
We thank the committee who met often to prepare the litugical format and to carry out the various local celebrations. We thank the sisters who worked to prepare to celebrate at home and to manage the technology that brought us into the chapel at Baggot Street! We are especially grateful for the group who planned this international celebration of the twenty years of world wide Mercy.
The Sisters of Mercy of Newfoundland celebrated their 20th General Chapter, June 16 – 21, 2013. The Chapter, titled Tending the Fire of God’s Mercy, was declared “Open” by Congregational Leader, Sister Elizabeth Davis on Sunday evening. There were almost 200 present in the Corpus Christi parish hall, among whom were about 80 Sisters, as well as Associates of the sisters, and colleagues and friends. 
The sisters of the two communities in Peru were in attendance. Earlier that afternoon a prayer of remembrance was held in the Sisters’ Cemetery at Belvedere and also at McAuley Convent where the sick and infirm sisters reside. Relatives of the deceased sisters were present for the prayer.
The same l
arge group came together on Monday to reflect on where the Mercy of God is experienced and where it is needed. Ms. Judith King of Donegal, Ireland was the Chapter facilitator and guided the group through the proceedings of the day. In the evening the Archbishop of St. John’s, Martin Currie, presided at the celebration of the Eucharist. The next day the sisters gathered to continue their reflection and discussion and to build on the work of the previous day. On Thursday the Chapter of Election took place and the sisters elected four of their members who would lead them for the next four years. The leadership team for 2013 – 2017 will be Sisters Elizabeth Davis (Leader), Sheila O’Dea, Elizabeth Marrie, Diane Smyth. Friday was the last day of the Chapter and the session ended at noon.
The reflections and conversations over these days provide guidance for the direction that the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy of Newfoundland will take over the next four years. The 20th General Chapter was one of prayer, reflection, discussion, visioning and celebration. Fun and humor also found a place in the days and evenings, especially a very well planned and fun-filled “kitchen party”. A good cup of tea was always part of the day-to day events!
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