Have you ever noticed how our dreams unfold?
They never happen in the way we first imagined.
Instead, they weave – your dreams and mine —
Among each other in a latticework of grace.
By the way, my name is Anne Waldron.
known in my life as Mother Patricia –
“Reverend Mother” really.
A rather weighty title, don’t you think?
But my own dream of mercy was not weighty.

I was born in Tuam (pronounced “Choom”), County Galway, Ireland.
‘Tis a precious place, a mere 20 miles from the glorious bay to the south,
Where the soft air carries a hint of the sea
And the sweet land holds both a deep promise and a deep scar of famine.

I must seem a long way from you now, after these 150 years –
almost like a shadow on your memories.
And you must think me a particularly courageous part of your history.
After all, you have named buildings after me, I see!
But tonight, I want you to know me in a new way.

I was only 27 when I came here to this strange city.
I walked these same streets as you,
fraught as they are with their dangers and beauties.
Do you know that a century and a half ago
we sisters lived just two miles north of this very spot!
Ah, but the Philadelphia of the 1860s was a far different sight
from what I saw outside tonight.
I see that a million and a half souls live here now!
Oh my! Just a third that number in the city then.
We thought it an amazing number having come mostly from our small villages.

I was young then – like all of you are or were once –
Young and full of dreams.
We all were – I and these my dear companions.

We were not different because of our courage, our spirit of adventure,
our dedication or our generosity—
Although these marked our lives
as we grew deeper into God.

No – what made us who we were was this:
We clearly knew and trusted that the dream in us
Was God’s dream for a wounded world.
In our deepest hearts,
We were Sisters of Mercy!

As you listen to our stories tonight,
Hold this question in your own hearts:
What dream lived in you when you were young?
What dream lives in you now?