August 26, 2025

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.

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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: Micah 6:6-8