The 4th vow: a call to service “A friend and I gave a granola bar and a $5 bill to a homeless woman sleeping on the sidewalk. It’s hard to explain, but in that moment, looking into her unexpectedly joyful face was like peering into the eyes of Jesus. It gave ‘community’ a new meaning.” – Catherine
vow if you stay in a place of privilege all the time,” says Campus Ministry director Greg Baker, who developed the 4 th Vow Retreat with Colin Hurley, director of community engagement. “Catherine inherited a great fortune. She could have simply donated money to help the poor but instead she went out among the people,” Baker adds. On Sunday the group joined the congregation at Erie’s Community Missionary Baptist Church, enjoying its welcoming atmosphere, energetic singing and charismatic preaching. A refugee family shared their own story with the students. Throughout the weekend, Mercyhurst employees worked behind the scenes, preparing meals and facilitating activities. Many of the volunteers were members of the Mercy Emissary group. Sister Lisa Mary McCartney, RSM, the only Sister of Mercy now working full time on campus, launched the Emissary program in 2015 to ensure that the Mercy heritage and tradition remain alive and vibrant at Mercyhurst. The 4 th Vow Retreat was funded through a successful campaign on a crowdfunding site developed last spring by the Mercyhurst advancement department.
About 20 Mercyhurst students spent an October weekend following in the footsteps of Catherine McAuley during the frst 4 th Vow Retreat. Since Catherine founded the Sisters of Mercy in 1831, women who join the order have taken not only the traditional vows of women religious— poverty, chastity and obedience—but also a fourth vow of service to the poor, the sick and the uneducated. The weekend challenged students to step out of their comfort zones and experience the power of Mercy service. The retreat began at the Miller Estate on the Mercyhurst North East campus, temporarily dubbed the “Callahan Estate” for the wealthy family that adopted Catherine after her parents’ deaths. Like Catherine, who used her inheritance from the Callahans to open the frst House of Mercy in Dublin, retreat participants then moved out into the community. They ventured from their home base (the former St. Mary’s School in downtown Erie) to explore the city and encounter “the other.”
“You’re never going to understand the fourth
8
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online