Programme Presentations

Watering the Roots at the Wellspring of Mercy, June 23 -28 June, 2013. Overview of the Week Four programme. Presenter: Janet Ruffing rsm (Americas).

Participants will explore the deep roots of mercy spirituality in the interpenetration of contemplation and action in our lives as women in the church today. We will explore the mystical roots of compassion with guidance from Julian of Norwich and Meister Eckhart, the healing of the soul wounds inflicted on the feminine through exploring Teresa of Avila, and the relationship between non-violence and compassion in Catherine McAuley and Julian of Norwich. Finally, we will ponder the mystery of "joys and sorrows mingled" as we embrace the prophetic dimensions of our service to church and world.

There are 14 videos in this resource.

Length: 21:54

Length: 23:54

Watering the Roots at the Wellspring of Mercy, June 16-21, 2013. Overview of the Week Three programme. Presenter: Madeline Duckett rsm (ISMAPNG).

How do we ‘sense’ another’s soul and what moves her to do what she does? Perhaps it can be known in some small way when something of another’s life, vision, motivation and legacy stir us deeply. In this week we will explore and contemplate together aspects of Catherine’s life, vision and the legacy she left. We will seek to ‘sense the soul’ of Catherine within the facts of her story. In this we may know again the deeper roots of our own Mercy hearts. We will draw upon imagination, creativity, lived prayer and experience to plunge deeply into the Wellspring of Mercy and be nourished at the source.

Length: 8:30

Length: 24.41

Length: 4:07

Length: 9:39

Length: 14:21

Length: 21:04

Length: 24:12

Length: 34:39

Watering the Roots at the Wellspring of Mercy, June 9-14, 2013. Overview of the Week Two programme. Presenter: Veronica Lawson rsm (ISMAPNG).

The Lukan narrative, with its emphasis on mercy and compassion, has a particular resonance for us as Sisters of Mercy who have committed ourselves to a mercy way of life in an Earth community “being shattered by displacement”. During this week, we will reflect on the contemporary experience of displacement and bring that experience into dialogue with Lukan stories of mercy, compassion, justice and liberation against the backdrop of the Hebrew Bible.

Length: 8:25

Length: 11:39

Length: 14:56

Length: 29:59

Length: 23:34

Length: 10:53

Length: 35:08

Length: 26:56

Length: 27:15

Length: 27:09

Watering the Roots at the Wellspring of Mercy, June 2-7, 2013. Overview of the Week One programme. Presenter: Marie Chin rsm (Americas)

Human beings make sense of their lives by telling stories. We will explore religious life in light of the current global reality of our unfolding contemporary story.

All over the world there are women and men who, touched by their encounter with God, yearn to respond to a deep-down impulse, a call, to find the intersection between an old and new story. This call impels them to live fully in this place of intersection in order to recover the meeting place of their own deep impulse to care and the world’s deep hunger. Religious life searches for and finds God in these dangerous meeting places and has the possibility of telling a profoundly new story. Religious vows can be experienced as the elegant choices we make daily for the sacred task of doing the transformative work necessary to bring healing and wholeness to our world.

Length: 24:09

Length: 23.37

Length: 31:24

Length: 21.01

Length: 26.08

Length: 20.49

Length: 37.04

Length: 6.23

“For the Love of God: Mercy Spirituality in the Context of Ecological Urgency”. Participants in this fourth week (July 22-27, 2012) with Ray Maria McNamara rsm (Americas) had opportunities to explore links between a love of nature and a response to ecological concerns that is rooted in Mercy spirituality.

A shared understanding of ‘Mercy spirituality’ was established; ecological issues and concerns were discussed. Time was be structured to allow for input from facilitator, group sharing.

Length: 37:06

Length: 28:13

Catherine McAuley still has very much to say to Sisters of Mercy, especially today, as they commit themselves to the renewal of their personal and communal lives and ministry. She took Jesus' invitation, "Follow me," very seriously. What she tried to be and do as she strove to "resemble Jesus Christ in some one thing at least" speaks to the heart of our Mercy renewal.

Catherine's example, values, instructions, actions, and sufferings offer us encouragement and motivation for conversion, and will be the content that we will explore together during this week-long program ( July 15-20,2012).

Length: 30:44

Length: 55:08

We bring to this week (July 8-13, 2012) years of reflection on what it means to be/to live mercy in today’s world. This reflection has been and is embodied in us. It finds expression in the materiality of our bodies as these engage the materiality of others in both the human and the other-than-human worlds that we in-habit.

During this week we will bring these reflections into dialogue with the beatitude of mercy in the context of the other beatitudes and of the Gospel of Matthew. The particular focus will be the ways different Gospel characters together with Jesus embody mercy and also the ways Earth and all its constituents are likewise embodied in this story of mercy.

The two video clips made available here were filmed on two separate days: Day 1(Introduction) and Day 5 (Session 1) of the week's programme and should be viewed sequentially.

Length: 24:53

Length: 46:52

Almost two thousand years ago, Jesus exclaimed, " I came to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were already kindled!" ( Lk 12:49). Almost two hundred years ago, Catherine answered, "The fire Christ cast upon the earth is kindling very fast."

Today, women religious who echo Catherine's charism in a new age marked by intense social change and growing fragility of earth are challenged to be that mercy fire kindling.

During the week of July 1-6, 2012, the first week of the "Watering the Roots at the Wellspring of Mercy" 2012 programme at Mercy International Centre, sessions focussed on the mosaic of the realities of our earth, our society, our church and our communities - the context in which we are kindling mercy fire. Participants reflected on God's word in today's scriptures, including the Earth Charter, the Millenium Development Goals, the Decalogue of Assisi for Peace, Our Global Neighbourhood, and Caritas in Veritate. They explored the new understanding of the power of diversity and rejoiced in the emerging signs of transformation among us.

The two video clips made available here were filmed on Day 5 of the week's programme and should be viewed sequentially.

Length: 38:01

Length: 16:35