In Filey
Endsleigh Convent, South Crescent Road, Filey, North Yorkshire YO14 9JL
Phone number: 01723 344505
In Hornsea
57 Eastgate, Hornsea, East Yorkshire HU18 1NB
Phone number: 01964 537391
In Hull
Convent of Mercy, 144 Southcoates Lane, Hull HU9 3AJ
Phone number: 01482 703443
Dawson House, 481 Beverley Road, Hull HU6 7LJ
Phone number: 01482 346305 (flat 11) or 01482 346305 (flat 13)
In Whitby
St. Joseph’s Convent, West Cliff, Whitby, North Yorkshire YO21 3HT
Phone number: 01947 604532
In York
6 Kingsthorpe, York, YO24 4PR.
Phone number: 01904 782430
175 Years with the ‘Walking Nuns’
of Catherine McAuley
written by Sister Camilla
On a cold winter’s morning in the early 1820s a young woman carrying provisions for a destitute family stopped to comfort a young child who was sitting on the pavement, with an infant in her arms, crying bitterly. She learnt that both the child’s parents and elder siblings had died of typhoid and this morning, following the removal of their bodies for a pauper’s funeral she and the baby had been evicted from their basement room by another desperately poor family. The woman was Catherine McAuley and it was experiences such as this that shaped her future and led to the establishment of a new Religious Congregation, the Sisters of Mercy.
This year, the Sisters of Mercy across the world will be celebrating the one hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary of the Congregation’s birth. Here in Britain, to mark the occasion, we will have many local celebrations and a national gathering at Westminster Cathedral on 11th November for Mass with the Cardinal, bishops, priests, associates and many friends and colleagues. In this jubilee year we would also like to share our story with you the people of Britain.
It began in Dublin in 1778 with the birth of that remarkable woman, Catherine McAuley. She was born to make a difference at one of those critical turning points in human history. The Industrial Revolution was gathering momentum. This was a period of tremendous energy, creativity, and discovery, with exciting innovations in thought, in science and medicine, machinery and new farming methods; a period of great expansion in building – the era of the great Georgian houses, tarmac roads, canals, bridges, steam engines and railways.
But there was a darker side. History records: massive development of slum towns and the movement of people from country to town. There was widespread exploitation of workers, women and children particularly, for they were cheaper to employ.
Yet amidst the darkness there was hope. The period produced some great humanitarian and altruistic movements; movements for reform and the betterment of people, fired by compassionate, courageous, men and women. Such a woman was Catherine McAuley. She was appalled at the exploitation of workers and the terrible conditions which they and their families endured. She had experienced poverty and deprivation herself when both parents died and she and her younger brother and sister were left without means of support.
At about the age of twenty Catherine went to live as a companion to an elderly, wealthy couple, Mr and Mrs Callaghan. They were Quakers and though very suspicious of all things ‘Catholic’ were very supportive of Catherine’s ministry to the poor of the neighborhood of Coolock where they lived. It was from the servants in Coolock House that Catherine learned of the plight of young serving girls at risk from the amorous advances of the menfolk in the houses in which they worked. Catherine yearned to help such vulnerable women.
When Mr Callaghan died, shortly after his wife, in 1822 he left his entire fortune to Catherine knowing it would be well used. This providential act made Catherine’s dream possible. Catherine was 44 years of age when she inherited this large fortune and to the consternation of her rather worldly family she used it to build a House of Mercy in Baggot Street – a very fashionable part of Dublin. This was a daring action. The year was 1827. The ‘Catholic Emancipation Act’ was still being mooted in Parliament. Her plan was to bring the poor to the doorsteps of the rich. The building was ready for occupancy on 24th September, the feast of Our Lady of Ransom (Mercy). This was a providential coincidence giving the House and later the Congregation its name.
The large building comprised a school for the poor, an orphanage and a hostel and training centre for vulnerable young women who worked, or sought work in the houses of the rich. The house was designed to provide living accommodation for Catherine and the ladies, who would, hopefully, volunteer their services. Many likeminded women did in fact join her. They soon became involved in teaching in the poor schools and nursing the sick and the dying in their homes and hospitals during cholera and other epidemics. At first all the ladies worked as volunteers. Later it became clear that God was calling them to devote their whole lives to these works of mercy and to form a new type of religious congregation. This would be un-cloistered but would give their work stability and permanence.
Consequently, Catherine and two companions Anna Maria Doyle and Elizabeth Harley entered the Novitiate in the Presentation Convent, Dublin and on 12th December 1831 professed the Vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience which the Catholic Church required for members of a Religious Order. All future Professions would include a fourth vow ‘to serve the poor, sick, and ignorant’, thus expressing the nature and purpose of the Congregation or as we Sisters say ‘our charism’.
The Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy was thus born and this year we celebrate its 175th Jubilee.
Catherine was 53 years of age when she professed her vows. Her Religious life was to be very short – ten prodigiously fruitful years. Under her Spirit-filled guidance the Congregation spread very rapidly. In those ten years she opened ten new Convents in Ireland and two in England, Bermondsey, London in 1839 and Birmingham in 1841. Others including Liverpool, Newfoundland and Pittsburgh, America, were in the pipeline when she died in 1841.
There was new thinking in the political arena also. The penal laws were abolished with the Catholic Relief Act of 1791, the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829 and the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy of England, Scotland and Wales in 1850. The Catholic Church in these lands set itself to a strong, visible programme of renewal.
News of the new congregation, the walking nuns of Catherine McAuley, was spreading rapidly in England and across the world. The phrase ‘walking nuns’ was a derisive term at first. Real nuns did not leave their convents and walk the streets as Catherine’s sisters did. However, it was soon realized that this new form of religious life was God’s gift to His Church for a new and complex period in western society.
Catherine’s dictum ‘need is our cloister’ was exemplified in action. The Sisters visited the sick and poor in their own homes and in the hospitals. They ran day and night schools for the poor, and, where possible, found shelter for the homeless and orphans. They sought in every way possible to improve the lot of women. It was exactly the support that the clergy of the newly re-established parishes needed. Invitations to Catherine and her successors to set up Convents in Britain soon came thick and fast. Her spirit endured and the congregation grew and spread rapidly. New Convents once established responded to needs in other areas and new foundations were made.
Today in the 175th Jubilee year Sisters of Mercy minister from 160 Convents or Mercy establishments throughout England, Scotland and Wales. Some of our houses have outreaches abroad in Kenya, Lebanon, Peru, Romania, South Africa and Ethiopia.
As we look to the future we recall with faith, trust and a sense of being challenged, Catherine’s response when dying, to the anxiety expressed by some sisters as to her successor and the future without her.
‘If the order is my work the sooner it falls to the ground the better. If it is God’s work it needs no one’ – ‘Catherine McAuley Venerable for Mercy’, Angela Bolster pp 88