“My aunt, my mother’s sister, was [a] Sister of Mercy,” Pope Leo XIV revealed in a letter sent recently to the Mercy Sisters in Ireland. In the letter, he called himself “a devoted follower” of Bl. Catherine McAuley.
And the Sisters are quietly hoping that the Pope’s affection for their charism might help push on the cause of Bl. Catherine.
“Definitely, there’s an eye on the canonisation,” Ms Brenda Drumm, Communications Officer for the Order says. “It would be amazing” if Catherine was canonised in time for the Mercy Centre’s bicentenary in September 2027, “but we need two miracles”, Ms Drumm explained. However, she said, the fact that Pope Leo knows the Blessed “inside out” is a blessing. That could be a sign that the canonisation might happen in a near future.
“I think we’re always going to be in the stage where we’re looking forward to what’s coming next,” Ms Drumm said. In two years, the Mercy Centre based on Baggot street in Dublin will celebrate two centuries since opening, “and the possibility that we have a saint” or that she could move from ‘venerable stance’ to being ‘beatified’ is really exciting. “We have in mind the very living, breathing potential that Catherine will be made a saint one day.”
Ms Drumm thinks Catherine could be a ‘saint for the youth’, as she had great appreciation for young people. So much that on the opening day of the Mercy centre, nearly two centuries ago, “she trusted her two young companions to turn the key,” while she was nursing her sister. Ms Drumm believes more young people should know Catherine’s story,” as “she had an extraordinary trust in the giftedness of young people.”
However, Ms Drumm also said Bl. Catherine “didn’t want to be a sister and didn’t want to be a saint,” which makes her a great inspiration for laypeople to dedicate some time and help to the poor and those in need.
Renovations are starting at the Mercy Centre on Baggot Street, the design is mindful of keeping the chapel as is. When sisters visit the centre they have Mass there, and the chapel is also used for bigger events, like the Mercy Mass which took place this week marking a two year count down to the bicentenary. But most importantly, “when Catherine is canonised, that would become a permanent place of pilgrimage”, Ms Brenda Drumm said.
