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 Catherine was born at the time the French Revolution had just begun. Only two decades earlier, the American Revolution had been fought in the new world. This war became a successful military rebellion against Great Britain for unfair taxation by an unjust monarchy and their intention to impose penal laws on the colonies. Ireland, the home of Venerable Catherine, was just beginning to break free of the penal legislation that had been imposed on them two hundred years before by Henry VIII. Its effects were devastating: “Penal legislation was aimed at reducing the Catholic Irish to a state of social, economic and political inferiority… it was geared to reducing the Catholic Irish to a miserable populace – without property or education.” (Bolster, 1990, p.4)
It was this “miserable populace” that attracted the heart, mind, and hands of Venerable Catherine. Although prevented from practicing her Catholic faith in her youth, later in her life, Venerable Catherine was able to return to the open adherence and confession of her faith. She spent twenty years with a childless Protestant couple who permitted her to go to Mass, but not to have any symbols of Catholicism in their house. Before their deaths, however, both husband and wife became Catholic and left her a large inheritance with which she was able to begin the first foundation of Sisters of Mercy. Her initial work was to provide shelter and an education for girls on the streets. She and the Sisters also cared for the sick and dying. All the while, young women were joining her to assist in the works of Mercy. On September 24, 1827, when Venerable Catherine was 49 years old, her House of Mercy opened its doors to the “poor, sick and ignorant”.
Updated February 26, 2021
