Dear members of the Mount Lilydale Mercy community
Welcome one and all to Mercy Day. As I sit to write to you this morning it is 5.00am and I am preparing to venture to school to celebrate with our students and teachers. I continue to watch the detailed weather forecasts where rain is predicted and I am hoping we have done enough to prepare.
Please find below an extract from the address I gave to the College community this morning:
Over the last week we have been watching the weather with great anticipation, because unlike the past if we were to cancel today because of weather, there is no way of postponing it. The celebration is either today or not at all. At one stage I was fearful of thunder and lightning which would really mean being outside was not possible. Hopefully we have planned enough cover to cater all eventualities.
It has been three years since we celebrated Mercy Day together and, like you, we are keen to get back to celebrating the things that are important to us.
- what is Mercy Day and why have it at all?
- why such great hesitation about postponing it?
- why is it such a great tradition here at MLMC?
- what is this Mercy Day all about?
Some might think that Mercy Day is about raising as much money as possible for Mercy Works so that the Sisters of Mercy and those who work with them can do great work around the world. Now, while that is a great bi-product of the day, and a hugely important bi-product; it is not the essential reason for our celebration today.
Our reason to celebrate is far more central to who we are and why we walk this hill.
Imagine that you are the daughter of a fairly wealthy Irish landowner, you join the Sisters of Mercy and are the Mother Superior of the order in a convent at Carrick on Suir. You then volunteer to travel to New Zealand where you establish a new House and then on to Victoria in Australia to an establish a large convent in Mansfield, a thriving metropolis, where you are again elected Mother Superior.
When your term finishes you volunteer to go to the tiny country outpost in Lilydale where the Bishop and Parish Priest have invited you to start a school. It is November 1896. You are standing on top of the Hill, on the land that has just been purchased. You are dressed in your black habit, very little money in your pocket and the hot wind is blowing. Rourke’s Hill is a windy place and the property is undulating. You stand on the peak. You can see all the farms that run along Olinda Creek. You can see the Yarra River winding around the tiny hamlet of Yarra Glen. Behind you is the tiny St Patrick’s Church. A foundation stone is being placed on the ground and on the stone a convent will be built. You are Mother Mary Patrick Maguire and you are the first Mother Superior of the Lilydale convent and you plan to build Mount Lilydale Mercy College.
Today you all sit on Rourke’s Hill and the convent is the Mount St Joseph’s building.
Today we honour and give thanks to those that came before us.
Today we honour and thank all the sisters that gave their lives in working for us.
Today we celebrate the birth of our school.
Today we celebrate our birthday.
Today is our party, celebrate and have fun, and the money we raise is like the birthday present that we give to the Sisters.
On Wednesday a number of staff along with a few current Sisters of Mercy, I visited the Lilydale Cemetery, which sits on a smaller hill. We visited and prayed at the grave site of 24 Sisters of Mercy that have worked at this College at various times in our 126 years. I remember thinking that it gave me great pleasure that from those grave sites the Mercy cross on the Mercy Learning Centre could easily be seen and at night it would shine like a lighthouse as a beacon of hope. I am sure it would be a great delight and condolence to the Sisters as they lay in peace and rest after a lifetime of service.
We give thanks to all those who came before us, we celebrate them and the history of our College in Mercy education. We give thanks for each and every one of them.
In thinking about those sisters at the Lilydale Cemetery, I wanted to list them for you as naming them is honouring and remembering them:
Bernadette Matthews, Cyril McKendry, Gregory Brazel, Julian Calwell, Monica Taylor, Geradus Nordon, Angela Zanelli, Hilda Warburton, Leo Willis, De Sales Hayes, Vianney Finn, Anthony Starkie, Pauline Kirby, Aidan Connell, Julia Fahey, Sabrina Conway, Bernadette Naughton, Teresa Maher, Ursula Slater, Berchmans Murphy, Aloysius Gatliff, Clare Coakley, Columba Neville, Martha Hanrahan, Brigid Bradshaw, Patrick Maquire, Veronica Green, Gertrude Power, Magdalen Donnellan, Alacoque O’Shae, Margaret Mary Campbell and Ignatius Duffy.
We also visited and included the small group of Reparation Sisters (1949 – 1983) who are resting there. Founded by Mary Gertrude Langridge they were a contemplative order who prayed for the conversion and reparation of souls. We acknowledged:
Elizabeth Sprott, Rita Cortis, Margaret O’Dowd, Monica Brady, Gertrude Costa, Angela Steggall, Mary Gertrude Langridge and Patricia Green.
As it is our celebration of Mercy at the grave sites we prayed the “Suscipe”
My God, I am yours for time and eternity.
I am yours forever
Teach me to cast myself entirely
into the arms of your loving Providence
with a lively, unbounded confidence
in your compassionate, tender pity.
Grant, O most merciful Redeemer,
that whatever you ordain or permit
may be acceptable to me.
Take from my heart all painful anxiety:
Let nothing sadden me but sin,
nothing delight me
but the hope of coming to the possession
of You my God and my all,
in your everlasting kingdom. Amen
This is a beautiful prayer and gives us strength whenever we start to focus on the difficulty of life. Hopefully it will continue to provide strength.
Happy Mercy Day to each and every one of you. An article about the day will be included in our next newsletter in Term 4.
Personal Pars
Yesterday, Thursday, we were shocked to hear of the passing of a colleague in Mr Neil Magree. Neil was a casual relief teacher who has worked at MLMC since 2016 and he worked so much for us that he rarely worked anywhere else. He worked at our campus on Wednesday, the day of his passing. Neil passed in his sleep Wednesday night. Neil was a lovely and caring man who was always ready and welcoming of a chat. We will all miss him deeply.
Let us pray for the repose of Neil’s soul and may he rest in peace.
In the spirit of Catherine, I wish you all every blessing as we move into the holidays and thank you for all your support over this term.
God bless
Philip A Morison
