August 25, 2025

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.

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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?

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Suggested Scripture: Colossians 3:15-17