On August 22, 2025, the Sisters of Mercy celebrate
the 164th Anniversary of our arrival in Philadelphia.

August 21, 2025

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How Mercy has flourished
in the intervening years!
— countless numbers of students taught,
patients cared for, people given shelter,
prisoners offered justice, hungers fed,
struggling hearts tendered hope and direction.

We rejoice in the thousands
who share the name of Mercy with us
— people like each one of you
who are the face and voice of Mercy
in an inhospitable world.

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We remember ten young women,
none even thirty years old –
women an ocean away
from their homes and families;
women who waited days
for donated food to sustain them;
women who believed that God
wants those who are poor and sick
to be cared for with love;
— and so they built a harbor of Mercy
from little but faith and hope.

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There is a lesson for each of us
in these first Mercy stories.
Pray with them
and hear how they speak to you.

They teach that,
though we cannot see faith, hope, and love,
we see their powerful effects.
It is a power rooted in relationship
with the One Who is Mercy,
with the One Who chooses
to live in and through us.

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In the Name of God’s Mercy,
we begin to feel, in our heart’s depths,
the profound suffering in the world.
We are moved to give
all that we can to its healing.

Listen for the next ten days
to those early voices, still living in us:
“Thank you for sustaining the dream
to which we gave our lives.
Eternal Mercy, Who called us,
now calls you.
Know that we are with you
as you answer.

(The first voice will be sent today,
and another in each of the next nine successive days – a “novena of Mercy”.