He taonga tuku iho – A treasure that is handed down.

From the time she opened her first House of Mercy in Dublin in 1827, Catherine McAuley, described the works of mercy as the business of the lives of all who shared her dream of relieving the sick, the poor and the forgotten.

Within a space of just over 20 years, that same vision of mercy had reached the shores of Aotearoa New Zealand.

The courage and vision of the women who bought Mercy to Aotearoa is recorded in the founding stories of the first four congregations.