Learning about Mercy from Our Parents
Sr. Mary Paynter
My most sharp memory of understanding the meaning of the word “mercy” is a moment when I was about 7 or 8 years old.
My mother had gone to Sunday Mass (she never took me with her until I was about 9 or 10), and I was home playing with a little friend from next door. We got a bit rambunctious and one of us suddenly fell (or was pushed) against a table, knocking a marble statuary group to the floor where it smashed into several pieces. My friend and I were horrified—I knew it was an antique marble prized by my mother. But what could we do? I’m sure we were still crying when my mother arrived back home from Mass shortly after the “disaster.”
She quickly took in the scene as we tearfully confessed our guilt. And I will never forget her words to us: “Don’t cry, I know it was an accident, and, besides, it was only a material thing. It’s only spiritual things that are important in life.”
Those may not have been her exact words, but her immediate gentle attitude, and especially her telling us that “material things”—even if precious—are nothing in comparison with spiritual ones. These truths have always stayed with me as the epitome of “mercy.” Later in my life, I learned about the “spiritual works of mercy,” but I knew that my mother had taught me by example to “comfort the sorrowful, to forgive injuries, and to bear wrongs patiently.” I only wish I could follow her example more fully in my own life!
Sister Mary Paynter, OP (Maria de Ricci) Madison, WI
Sr. Liz Sully
“Oh, mercy me!” This expression was one my mother used. Generally it was when something happened that was other than she would like the world to be—news of an accident, a death, a troubling situation. As a child, “Oh, mercy me!” could be counted on when one needed comfort, like a painful stubbed toe; or when my sister Mary fell carrying canning jars and severely cut her knee; or when Tippy, the family canine, whose instinct was that he was big but wasn’t, met his demise in a dog fight one late night; or when Andrew, the neighbor’s huge, roan bull broke from his pen and came charging down the road toward our farm.
“Oh, mercy me!” has had an opportunity to long simmer in my “underground consciousness.” With the invitation to write about mercy, “Oh, mercy me!” emerged with unexpected force and sheer delight into my consciousness. It has long served as a tender reminder of a mode of care and concern for self, others, and the common good—both a plea and a prayer. Life’s continual unfolding and the profound awareness that “I am a child of the universe and have a right to be here” (“Desiderata”), as do all others, offers daily opportunity to have “Oh, mercy me!” hover over the beauty and pain of my soul work and that of the whole world. “Oh, mercy me!” is as wonder full as daily bread.
I have been swathed in the compassion of others and in their forgiveness. “Oh, mercy me!” Forgiving self seems to demand a super abundance of “Oh, mercy me!” And I’m aware that mercy luxuriously bathes the trillions of cells that make up the me who responds to events and moments of each day. It’s a prayer of the heart, desiring connection to all else and to the throb of Spirit who “over the bent / World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings” (Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur”). “Oh, mercy me!”
Sister Liz Sully, OP (Crescentia) Atlanta, GA
Sr. Peggy Ryan
My earliest memories of mercy include my father. If there was any kind of altercation during the day between us, he would kneel down by my bed at night, wrap his arms around me, and ask for forgiveness. I can still remember the first night I initiated this ritual, crawling into his lap as he sat in his favorite chair reading the paper and watching TV.
I believe the mercy of God compels us as Dominican women to preach about a God of freedom and liberation. I have a mantra that I pray often. It is one I borrowed and adapted from our sister, Catherine of Siena: “Draw me into your heart of love, draw me into your heart of mercy.”
Sister Peggy Ryan, OP Entre Rios, Bolivia