Mother Catherine McAuley founded the Sisters of Mercy in 1831. Her vision was to help relieve the distress of the poor, the sick, and the ignorant of her time. In founding her “House of Mercy,” Mother Catherine was able to provide educational opportunities to those who would have otherwise ended up on the streets. As an Irish woman, she lived during a time of ongoing persecution of Catholics in Ireland. Having experienced persecution for her Catholic faith as a young woman, Mother Catherine was zealous for the catechesis and moral formation of those entrusted to her care.
This section of the blog focuses on the life and zealous faith of Mother Catherine McAuley and the founding of the congregation. It is our hope that you will get to know Mother Catherine and grow to love her as well.
Mother Catherine McAuley understood the need for kindness particularly in the care of the sick and the poor. She reminded her Sisters that “there are things which the poor prize more highly than gold, though they cost the donor nothing; among these are the kind word,...
In this Easter Season, we encounter the power of faith. Faith is the power that conquers the world. He who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He died and is risen from the dead, shall be saved and have eternal life.[i] This is the life of Christ in...
One of Mother Catherine’s Little Virtue is forbearance, with an accent to “enduring all things.” The virtue of forbearance helps us to exercise self-control and to put our actions into the right order. How can we also put this into the context of medicine? Let me...
Mother Catherine McAuley taught her Sisters that their growth each day depended on the little moments and choices they made, from rising to dressing to eating, what she called the “perfection of the ordinary act”. She pointed out to her Sisters particular “little...
See this new interview about Venerable Mother Catherine McAuley, Foundress of the Religious Sisters of Mercy with Sr. Yvonne Mary Loucks, RSM, and Sr. Mary Cora Uryase, RSM. Catherine McAuley's life never turned out how she thought it would. As a child, her life was...
How can you grow in your spiritual life? How can you integrate that growth with your everyday experiences, choices, and relationships? Venerable Catherine McAuley not only taught this, but she exemplified how to do so by taking one step at a time towards growing in...
At the beginning of 2021, we find ourselves amid a great pandemic from COVID-19. Thousands of persons from every country in the world have lost their lives or have become severely impaired and unable to carry on with the life they had known before their illness. ...
In what kind of world did Venerable Catherine McAuley live? It is an important question to reflect on because we are living two hundred years later in a world born from that one. The turmoil and societal struggles of both centuries are remarkably similar. Mother...
On November 11, 1841, one hundred and seventy-nine years ago, our beloved Foundress, Catherine McAuley, left this earth and returned to the House of her Father. In a eulogy preached by the Reverend Myles Gaffney, Pastor and dear friend, he said, “Few left in this...
The spirituality of Catherine McAuley was formed in part by the difficult times in which she lived. As in our own time, political decisions on matters of religious expression had earlier created a society of intolerance and persecution. At the time, English monarchs...