Month: August 2025

Fresh Ground Pepper

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Creation, Eternal Life, Faith, Hope, joy, Mercy, Seasons, spiritualityLeave a comment

September 1, 2025

September has barely poked its nose through the door, but already we see signs of Autumn. A slight gold shimmers on the trees. Geese gather in noisy expectation. Early morning sheds its night veil in slower layers of magenta and blue. There have even been a few sweet nights when we can open the windows wide and sleep in the suggestively crisp air. All the signs are there — it is a new season – “The Season of Freshness”.

“Fresh” is a powerful word. Who can resist the crisply-aproned waiter suggesting, “Fresh ground pepper?” Who can ignore the aroma of fresh baked bread? Some of us even remember with appreciation the scent of linens fresh from our mother’s clothesline.

Let this beautiful season remind us that each day the Creator shakes out a fresh beginning for every one of us. With every radiant morning, the slate is clear with mercy. The opportunity to re-create the world awaits us. Our lives, our work, our relationships are the fresh bread of God’s hope for us. Within them, we are invited to reveal the powerful grace which runs just under the visibility of the ordinary. It whispers to us, “You are Beloved, and I want your life to be a fountain of joy.”

September is for fresh beginnings: a sparkling season, an unmarked semester, a turning of the garden, a clean page. It is nature’s way of saying forgiveness is possible, life is resilient, hope is eternal. Imagine September as the white-aproned waiter inviting you to freshness. At the Creator’s table, the tablecloth is clean and the sacred menu is forgiveness, hope, mercy and renewed beginnings. Don’t miss this opportunity to assess what needs refreshment in your life. Feast on September’s graces! They can be life-changing!

Music: September Song – Alexis Ffrench

For Your Reflection

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: Psalm 92

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The Generational Dream

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality2 Comments

August 30, 2025

Mimi Connor, RSM playing
Mother Patricia Waldrom

Dear Sisters, dear Mercy Family,

We have shared our Founders’ dreams with you.
We love you so for making the dream come true
in each succeeding generation.
Today you have a new name
“Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas”.
Quite impressive!
But the dream remains singular and unchanged.
In each of you,
We see our dream repeated, nourished,
Clothed in the needs of your day,
Assisting in the merciful recreation of the earth.

Many sisters now have come to be with us in heaven.
Know that they all join us in blessing you this night.
Do not fear diminishment.
I made that mistake myself in the early 1900s
When I expressed the fear that
There would not be enough hands for all the work.

But God makes a way.
We flourished after that
In ways I had never imagined.

Right here in these seats, in these balconies,
in these neighborhoods and homes,
There are pure young hearts
Who know that God’s dream for mercy lives in them.
They will have the courage we had.

And so we say good night. God bless you all.
We will see you in another 50 years or so.
Go now and dream the Mercy dream
For the generations you have yet to see.

Maestra Jeanette Goglia, RSM
conducts over 3000 voices
in her composition
“The Circle of Mercy”
Click arrowhead to listen to “The Circle of Mercy”.

The Prayerful Dream

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality6 Comments

August 29, 2025

Eliza Curtin – Sister Mary Angela
Played by Connie Haughton, RSM

And finally, my friends, a word from the youngest!
Hello. My name is Eliza Curtin
… Sister Mary Angela to you.
Do you believe that I too was born in Cork!
Quite a hotbed of Mercy, yes?

I was only fifteen when I came to the Sisters of Mercy.
They said I was a pure, young soul.
My fingers were never still.
I was a handywoman and artist.
It was my dream to be a saint and so to honor God.

I think as I look out at you, my sisters in the audience
You too came to Mercy as pure, young souls.
What a precious gift you gave …
each one of you – each one of us.
That simple gift is the foundation
Of God’s mighty works.

Not so young now, some of us?
But still, the pure young gift thrives.
How is that?

Prayer, my sisters, my friends.
It is the fountain of our spiritual youth.
No work … no exercise is more important
To the vitality of mercy.

It is through prayer
that we grow eternally young even as we age.
It is through prayer
that we can transcend our burdens
and are enfolded in the Providence of God.
In prayer, we become free.
In prayer, we become whole.

It is our elders, who have prayed the longest
who pray best.
They carry all the rest of us within their web of grace.
Their prayer, and mine, has fallen like pure white snow
On the landscape of your petitions,
Lifting your need in simplicity and confidence
Into God’s listening heart.

For Your Reflection

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:12-18

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The Zealous Dream

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality1 Comment

August 28, 2025

Elizabeth Dowling – Sister Mary Gertrude
Played by Kathleen Mary Long, RSM

As you have heard clearly from dear Sister Mary Veronica,
The journey of faith is deep and mysterious.
It takes hold of the whole capacity of our souls
And raises us – sometimes in darkness –
into the wonder and the light of God.

I am Elizabeth Dowling,
later known as Mother Mary Gertrude.
I was but a novice when we came to Philadelphia in 1861.
I had barely begun to form my “Yes”
to the invitation of God.

“Yes” often begins in us
As the simple inability to say “No.”
How can we see someone hungry, thirsty, naked,
homeless, imprisoned and not help?

But in helping, it is we, not they,
who are transformed.
We begin to see, understand, and love with new eyes.
God’s own Self is revealed
In the wounds we relieve.
In the mystery of mercy,
our life becomes a wholehearted “Yes”
to the “Yes” God is whispering eternally over creation.

It was said of me that my zeal for the work of the Institute
Was rarely equaled and never surpassed,
But underneath that zeal, my deep dream was always
That our every success AND failure
Find meaning in our seamless union with God.

My soul was deep like the midnight sky.
But stars blazed from my depths to lead others to holiness.
With that starlight, I bless each one of you tonight.
Be Mercy in the world.

For Your Reflection:

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: Colossians 3:12-17

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The Joyful Dream

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality5 Comments

August 27, 2025

Margaret O’Reilly – Sister Mary Veronica
Played by Eileen Sizer, RSM

Holding on to hope … how weak and fragile is our grasp.
Let me tell you my story.
It is one you may not have expected to hear tonight.

My name is Margaret O’Reilly.
Couldn’t be more Irish, could I?
I too was born in Cork but, with my family,
Came to America when Ireland languished.

I entered the Sisters of Mercy
in Manchester, New Hampshire,
And was known as Sister Mary Veronica…
“Veronica” …
the one who bore the true image of the suffering Christ.

I traveled with the pioneer band to Philadelphia in 1861.
I was filled with enthusiasm and energy
to do the works of mercy.
I wanted to change the world,
But instead… the world changed me.

My spirit broke under the burden of our early hardships.
We were so often hungry, so cold, so poor.
Fear took my heart…. It tried to crush my dream.
I spent many years before I died
incapacitated by my broken spirit.

‘Tis a heavy tale, is it not?
Indeed it would be had I not – all the time –
Been held in God’s own heart
Which heals and glorifies all our broken dreams
And allows them to live
in the generations we cannot yet see.


From the wounds of my suffering,
God wove the royal purple robe
of my salvation and my joy.
I have blessed you and embraced you in its folds.

In the silent years,
God and I have dreamed a dream of joy for you…
A joy expressed in tenderness
for those who have been broken,
For those deemed “damaged”
by a world that doesn’t understand.

So dear ones, it is not my work,
But instead my suffering
that is my legacy to you.
Like Veronica,
may you bring mercy to the broken body of Christ.

Through the years, I have seen you embrace
the misunderstood and the vulnerable.

I know that in the mysterious way of God
You have found great joy in that embrace.

For Your Reflection:

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: Isaiah 41:8-10

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The Hope-filled Dream

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality5 Comments

August 26, 2025

Mary Ann Coveney – Sister Mary Ann
Played by Diane Guerin, RSM

Still,
here at home were those
Who were strangers in their own land.

Pushed to the fringes of society,
They languished in prisons, poorhouses.
They sought refuge when they had no shelter.
They were imprisoned in the hopeless land of violence,
Ignorance, addiction and all the disguises
injustice takes to keep its true name hidden.

My heart cried for these struggling sons
and daughters of God.

My name is Mary Ann Coveney … known to you
simply as Sister Mary Ann.
I too was born in Cork in 1838.
The sisters said I was a charming, vivacious girl.
I was! My heart was full of life.
When I was about 20 years old,
I recognized my gift as “Hope”,
And I came to Mercy with a dream to share that gift
with the hopeless ones.

Philadelphia, in the 19th century,
harbored stagnant pockets of despair.
Moyamensing Prison was one such place.

When there is no one to care,
The powerless are crushed beyond recognition.
They become nameless, numbered.

My sisters and I went often to these abandoned souls.
We brought them hope.

For hope is just to know
that someone speaks your name in mercy,
And will return to speak it once again.

Dear sisters, I lived among you for just four brief years.
But through all the years since then,
my dream has lived in you.

I have accompanied you to the prisons,
on your civil rights marches,
as you protest at the School of the Americas.

I have stood with you against war,
Against economic oppression,
against the immigration raids,

Against the shunning of anyone
whom hatred names “a stranger”.

Hope was the ground of my being.
In the rich soil of my care,
those who were abandoned
planted the seed of their new life,

I bless you with that song of hope.
Do God’s work, my friends.

For Your Reflection

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: Micah 6:6-8

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The Courageous Dream

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spiritualityLeave a comment

August 26, 2025

Anne Geraghty – Sister Mary Francis de Sales
Played by our dear late Mary Klock, RSM

Ah! My Philadelphia Mercy friends!
How good to see you!
My name is Anne Geraghty,
known to you as Sister Mary Francis de Sales.
I too came to America in 1860
with Patricia Waldron on the good ship Parana.

Do you remember the day we sailed out of Galway, Patricia,
never to live on our beautiful island again!
Were there not at least some soft tears that day!
Little could I have realized then
that our journey was but a first step for me
on a life of missionary adventures.

After twelve dynamic years in Philadelphia,
I became our first sister sent on mission.
I went to Omaha
and then for a few years to the wild Dakota territory.
I lived a long and glorious life in the service of our God,
Who has many faces and speaks many languages
and lives in every corner of the earth.

And I have watched you through the years,
my Philadelphia community.
You have ventured into many states and many lands.
You have immersed yourselves in many cultures.
You have shaped the word of Mercy
so that it can be heard by the rainbow of God’s People.
And it has returned to you,
twice blessed by their humble, loving welcome.

It thrills my heart to see your lively, open spirits
in our country’s West and South, and distant North,
in the heart of India, Peru, Guyana, Bolivia, Africa.

I have seen you accompany God’s people
in the campo and the reservation,
In the ghetto and the bayou,
In the cities, villages and pueblos.

My spirit was a golden clarion
that called hearts to courage.
From my own pioneer’s heart and will,
I have sent you the blessing of courage and adventure
as you have spoken the word of mercy
in the steadfast witness of your lives.

I have sent you the blessing of humility and love,
So that your hearts could be transformed
By the sacred touch of the poor whom you serve.

For Your Reflection:

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: Matthew 28:18-20

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The Peacemaking Dream

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality4 Comments

August 25, 2025

Elizabeth Davies – Sister Mary Rose
Played by our dear late Marie Carolyn Levand, RSM

Hello, dear sisters and friends.
My name is Lizzie Davis.
I had great love and natural talent for music,
Especially the organ and piano,
Although I loved to sing as well.

Mother Mc Auley’s dream of mercy was but three years old
When I was born in Carlow, Ireland.
The works of mercy she had begun
were the talk of my family and friends as I grew up:
visitation of the sick, comforting of those in prison,
care of those in the wretched poorhouses
that were the curse of Ireland’s Penal Laws.
She and her sisters were such amazing women!

Mercy’s great-hearted stories filled my spirit.
So it was quite natural that when I was 22,
I chose to join Catherine’s brave yet gentle sisters.

I was a bit surprised to be asked instead
to journey to America and there to join
Frances Warde and the pioneer sisters
who had carried mercy to a new frontier.

Later, when we came to Philadelphia,
we of course began our works of teaching
and care of the sick.
But we were so aware,
because of all that we had seen in Ireland,
that the poorest and most wretched souls
are often hidden in the fringes of society:
in the poorhouses,
and in the broken hovels of their homes.
But most of all,
they are imprisoned by their own isolation.

When we finished our daily work,
it was our joy to go out to these places
to find the waiting face of Christ among the poor.

Perhaps it would seem strange to some that I,
a master of piano and organ,
employed my gifted hands
to tend hurts of those so poor.

But their thanks became my hymn of joy
And I would hum a melody of blessing over them
as I cared for them in mercy.

My spirit spoke peace to them,
like a sweet rose blossoming in the chaos.
I have cast its petals over you in blessing.
I have watched you, dear sisters,
tend God’s loneliest children.
I have prayed for you,
that the song of mercy deep within your hearts,
would sustain you in the work of God.

For Your Reflection:

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: Colossians 3:15-17

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The Compassionate Dream

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality4 Comments

August 24, 2025

Elizabeth Hughes – Sister Mary Philomena
Played by Mary Hentz, RSM

Teaching the dear children was just one part of our daily rounds.

My name is Elizabeth Hughes.
You know me as Sister Mary Philomena.
My dream of mercy was born in Wales, Great Britain
and nurtured later, like Patricia’s,
In Ballinrobe, Ireland.

When I was but a child,
The Great Famine fell upon beloved Ireland.
I suppose it was then
that my innate compassion for suffering people
began to shape my dream of mercy.

Although I lived for only a decade
after our journey to Philadelphia,
Mother Patricia knew me well.
We had sailed together to Boston in 1860
on the good ship “Parana”,
You, and I, and Francis de Sales.

You believed that my natural talent
and innate sympathy
prepared me well to be appointed
our first real practical nurse.

The care of the sick was a ministry I loved
in the brief time I spent on earth.
I dispensed it with every tenderness I could,
Knowing that I tended the wounds of Christ.

Before I died, I heard the priest whisper in the stillness,
“There is no cloud on that sister’s soul.”

Indeed, by God’s good grace,
Compassion flowed from me
Like dew upon the fresh green grass.

From my cloudless soul, I have sent you
the blessing of compassion and gentleness
down these long years.

I have watched our healthcare ministries
pour out like a sweet ointment
over the wounds of this city and its people.

In 1915, most of us had gone to God
but you, Mother Patricia,
When you journeyed in your final days
to the groundbreaking for Mercy Hospital in Philadelphia.
Oh, from that clear October afternoon,
What a wellspring of healing has come.

For Your Reflection:

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: Colossians 3:12-14

Click for Scripture

The Beautiful Dream

On By Renee Yann, RSMIn spirituality1 Comment

August 23, 2025

Marie Mathey-Doret – Sister Marie Madeleine
Played by Suzanne Neisser, RSM

It was on the waves of deep emotion,
that we came to Philadelphia under the name of Mercy.

My name is Marie Matthey-Doret.
Yes – are you surprised?
Not all of the original ten were Irish!
I was born in Limoges, France,
of a Swiss father and French mother.

Many languages could be heard in my family home.
Fine arts and the love of music filled my early days with beauty.
Perhaps it was there that the love of teaching
began to grow in me
and my dream of mercy was born.

Even though I was also the first Mistress of Novices,
all of us who began in 1861 were teachers
in one way or another.
This was the first gift of mercy
that we sought to offer this dear city.

We didn’t know the way for certain.
We heard God’s voice and held God’s hand
and we stepped out in faith to do the work of love.
This is the way the dream unfolds.

I know the sisters have retold a thousand times
the story of our very first schools…
But some here may not know that story.
After all, it was a tiny house where we first lived.
Ten of us had to create sleeping quarters in all available spaces!

But in the morning, rooms that had been bedrooms and chapel
were quickly remodeled into classrooms for the children
and women who would come to learn that day.

We joked that these rearrangements were our “morning exercises”!
Each day, we would laugh as the children arrived
And think “Oh, if they only knew!!!”
Would your students at the Academy not be surprised
to think of that today?

I have watched your “morning exercises”
through the intervening years.
They’ve changed somewhat –
Quite a bit of electricity involved today! –
but still …
such devotion to the lives of children.
Just to think of all those schools and
all those students
touched by the unfolding of the mercy dream.

The beauty of music and language
Wrapped my spirit like a deep blue sea.
From that beauty,
I have sent you waves of blessing from heaven
And smiled to hear the laughter and
The songs of Mercy children
Across these hundred fifty years.

For Your Reflection:

  • What feelings or reactions do I have after reading this reflection?
  • Do my feelings or reactions remind me of any passage or event in scripture, especially in the life of Christ? 
  • What actions might I take today because of my response to these readings?

Suggested Scripture: Psalm 127
improvised by Rev. Christine Robinson

Unless the house is built solid, and
for the right reasons, the work is in vain.
When the right thing is done at the right time,
it endures like a house built on a good foundation.
When a nation is governed justly and wisely,
it is safe from all manner of danger.
When you do what you can each day with due diligence,
you sleep deeply at night, trusting God for the rest.
Attend well to the next generation.
The children are God’s gift to us,
and their good upbringing our gift to God.