Participating in this year’s Mercy Day Mass at Baggot Street, Dublin, was Astrid Lambert, Group Administrator of Tiaki Manatū, the Mercy Ministries Trust based in Auckland. Her role was to carry in procession a vessel of water, accompanied by representatives of the other Mercy Congregations around the world, and pour it into a water feature incorporating a small fountain, in front of the altar.

The vessels carried by Astrid and her six colleagues at this year’s Mercy Day Mass were first used in
1994, when the House of Mercy, built by Catherine McAuley and opened in 1827, was rededicated as
the Mercy International Centre. The water, carried from around the globe by sisters attending that
ceremony, was poured into a rill in the garden where Catherine is buried; the rill became a symbol of
the worldwide streams of Mercy returning to their source and renewing and enriching each other.

Water is also a powerful symbol of our responsibility to care for creation, and to ensure that this
source of life for all living creatures is kept fresh and clean, free of pollutants that can threaten
humans and other species…