Nga mihi atawhai - greetings to all in Mercy! Always a special month in Mercy’s calendar for its inclusion of Mercy Day, September was doubly significant this year. For the Chapter of our own Congregation, held September 24-30, coincided with days of celebration in Dublin to mark the 20th anniversary of the Mercy International Association.

Nga mihi atawhai - greetings to all in Mercy! Providence, says Catherine McAuley’s biographer Mary C. Sullivan, is the most frequent reference to God in all her writings. Her notable confidence in God – expressed repeatedly in her letters and implicit in all the prayers that were especially significant to her – was grounded in her faith in God’s mysterious but benevolent providence.

Nga mihi atawhai - our theme this month is forgiveness, God’s gift to a humanity that is in some ways radically flawed but which, when transformed by that gift, is capable of shining with a light that brightens our world wherever it is allowed to reach. In his book Mercy, Cardinal Walter Kasper describes forgiveness as ‘a creative new beginning that cannot be derived from the world.'

Nga mihi atawhai – greetings to all in Mercy! April 9 has become etched on our local Mercy calendar, recalling the arrival in New Zealand of the first Sisters of Mercy, after their eight-month voyage from the other side of the world. They stepped ashore on a piece of Auckland’s shoreline which has long since disappeared as a result of quarrying for the settlement’s roads and buildings.

Nga mihi atawhai - greetings to all in Mercy! It’s May again, and the large bell at St Mary’s College next door reminds me as I sit down to lunch that this is Mary’s month, as the Angelus is rung. It’s fitting that a school that bears Mary’s name keeps the tradition of the Angelus alive...

Nga mihi atawhai - greetings to all in Mercy! Thanks to German Cardinal Walter Kasper, sometimes dubbed ‘the pope’s theologian’ these days, mercy is set to be on the top of the church’s agenda. Humans are called to be mediators of God’s mercy, says Cardinal Kasper. Mercy is not opposed to justice. Mercy is the maximum we can do. Justice is the minimum.