Alma Mercy Building Project

An artistic rendering of the chapel, infirmary and formation house, showcasing an integration of our building needs and spirituality, will be available soon.

The Needs:

1. A Larger Chapel: We have outgrown our chapel and can no longer accommodate all of our Sisters. Please see below for our reflections on this need.

2. A Larger Formation House: We have outgrown our formation house for first year discerners, a stage of formation called “Postulancy.”

3. An Infirmary: We have a population of Sisters who are aging. In addition to being professionally able to provide excellent medical and nursing care for our Sisters, it is also important that our Sisters in early formation experience this school of mercy in caring for our infirmed and aged Sisters at the Motherhouse. We need space that would allow us to provide this care and would allow our Sisters to participate in our prayer schedule and daily routine as much as they are able.

4. More Rooms for our Sisters: We have outgrown our capacity to welcome all of our Sisters home to the Motherhouse at one time. Union and charity among our Sisters is inseparable from our service in Mercy, and it is important to our identity as a Religious Institute to be able come together as a corporate body for retreats and important celebrations.

Phase One: We Build A New Chapel.

“Prayer is the primary activity of the Institute, and every activity, if it is is to be realized as a work of mercy, must be an expression of prayer.”
Constitutions of the Religious Sisters of Mercy, ¶ 28

Help us to build a house of worship where “the Gospel of peace resound and the sacred mysteries be celebrated, so that [we], formed by the word of life and by divine grace on their pilgrim way through the earthly city,” may magnify the saving power of God. (Roman Missal 1218 ff).  We “ask you, dear members of the faithful to see [our Motherhouse] for what it is . . . . It is above all this: a place of spiritual power. Take advantage of these springs of God’s closeness in your country; treasure the religious communities, the monasteries and abbeys; and make use of the spiritual service that consecrated persons are willing to offer you!” (Pope Benedict XVI).

Church architecture and its allied arts allow worshipers to participate in time and space in that which is outside of time and space: the realized perfection of God’s eternal plan for salvation. “Architecture, sculpture, painting and music, moved by the Christian mystery, have found in the Eucharist, both directly and indirectly, a source of great inspiration . . . . The designs of altars and tabernacles within Church interiors were often not simply motivated by artistic inspiration but also by a clear understanding of the mystery.” (Pope Saint John Paul II). “Reason that intended to strip itself of beauty would be halved, it would be a blinded reason. It is only when they are united that both these things form the whole, and precisely for faith this union is important.” (Pope Benedict XVI). A church is thus meant to be a “luminous sign of God and therefore truly a manifestation, an epiphany of God” where “heart and reason encounter one another . . . beauty and truth converge, and the more that we ourselves succeed in living in the beauty of truth, the more that faith will be able to return to being creative in our time too, and to express itself in a convincing form of art.” (Pope Benedict XVI). “On account of this, in appointing artists and choosing works of art to be admitted into a church, what should be looked for is that true excellence in art which nourishes faith and devotion and accords authentically with both the meaning and the purpose for which it is intended.” (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 289).

The church building is itself a theological contribution for the eye in the way that sung prayer addresses the ear. In each case, the mind is engaged, the soul is uplifted, and God’s self-revelation is encountered. And in each encounter, Christ’s saving power is applied and serves as a stroke of the Savior-mason’s hammer, preparing each Christian little by little to be placed in the great “cathedral” of heaven which is Christ’s glorified Mystical Body. “The beauty and harmony of the churches, destined to give praise to God,” draws us to convert to form “a well-ordered structure, in intimate communion with Jesus, who is the true Saint of saints.” (Pope Benedict XVI). “The work we see complete in this building is physical; it should find its spiritual counterpart in [our] hearts.” (Saint Augustine).

“God has established a law that His graces should flow to us through the channels of prayer and the sacraments, and these are so united that the performance of one is a preparation for the other.”
Venerable Mother Catherine McAuley

Subsequent Phases: We Build An Infirmary, Formation House, & More Rooms!