Caroline Boden, director of shareholder advocacy for Mercy Investment Services, recently visited Baggot Street in Dublin, Ireland.
During our recent vacation to Ireland, my husband and I had the opportunity to visit the Mercy house on Baggot Street in Dublin where Catherine McAuley lived and the Sisters of Mercy began. This wasn’t my first visit to Baggot Street; I participated in an excellent virtual tour of the house and gardens during the height of the pandemic. However, nothing can compare to that feeling of walking up to those red doors and seeing the statue of Catherine offering her hand in welcome and friendship.
I’ve been with Mercy Investment Services for seven years now and love being a part of the shareholder advocacy team. But I will acknowledge that this work and the pursuit of systemic change is often difficult and frustrating. It was reaffirming and invigorating to visit the place where the Mercy commitment to justice, advocacy, and hospitality all began. And throughout the tour as we learned about Catherine’s life and the ministry work of the Sisters, it was a reminder of how each of us in the Mercy family carries on that legacy and contributes to a more just world.
As we left Catherine’s House and made our way back to the city center, my husband remarked, “what a remarkable group of women!” I think that sums up Catherine and the Sisters of Mercy so well; they were and continue to be remarkable for their creativity and innovation, dedication to justice, and quiet but powerful acts of kindness and mercy.