By Peter Bugden
QUEENSLANDER Sr Berneice Loch has signed a letter of deep gratitude to Pope Francis on behalf of the Sisters of Mercy around the world.
Sr Loch, formerly of Rockhampton diocese, signed the letter as president of the Mercy International Association.
She is also leader of the Institute of Sisters of Mercy of Australia and Papua New Guinea.
The letter, dated September 24 – the feast of Our Lady of Mercy – thanks Pope Francis for his focus on mercy, offers support for his declaration of the Holy Year of Mercy from December 8, 2015, to November 20, 2016, and accepts an invitation for representatives of the Sisters of Mercy to visit Rome in April next year for a special celebration during the Year of Mercy.
“As seventy-five hundred women religious living in forty-four countries across Earth, we are encouraged and challenged by your consistent emphasis on mercy,” the sisters said in their letter to the Pope.
“For almost 190 years, as Sisters of Mercy, we have committed ourselves to raise up this critical virtue of Jesus: mercy.
“Your presence and leadership, Pope Francis, have stirred our hearts and renewed our commitment to walk in mercy on Earth, among people and in our Church.”
Sr Loch, in commenting on the letter, said the Year of Mercy presented the Sisters of Mercy with a good launching pad for inspiring and revitalising the way the sisters were living mercy.
“People love this pope,” she said.
“You walk into a shop and people see our badge and say, ‘You’re a Sister of Mercy; what do you think of this pope?’
“They’re seeing him as a man of God and a man of the Gospel.
“Is he setting the world on fire? Well, yes, he is.
“He’s setting the world on fire by the things he does and they’re things that are not out of the reach of the rest of us.
“And perhaps that’s why he inspires us – because we think maybe we can do a bit of that too.”
Sr Loch said the Pope, from the beginning of his papacy, had been “talking about a Church of Mercy”.
The sisters’ letter said the Pope’s gifts to the world focused on mercy, including his encyclical Laudato Si’ and the Year of Mercy, had challenged and energised them “in our lives and ministries as Sisters of Mercy”.
“Together these gifts are helping us shape a new vision for our lives as Sisters of Mercy in the midst of the ecological, social and ecclesial realities of this twenty-first century,” the letter said.
“They have strengthened our planning to engage in an international reflection process intended to provide ways for our sisters and our partners in mercy to explore the challenges and issues that the new cosmology and its link to eco-justice are bringing to light in our world.”
