Shared on 2025-09-10 12:34:47 AEST by Jenny Hildebrandt
I have been reflecting today on the 'hugeness' of going on pilgrimage - look too far ahead and it's daunting but focus in on the first step and then the next, it's easy, and eventually you turn around to see how far you've come. I'm trying to take this approach in life's journey and am deliberately stopping to take a photo everyday of some small thing that captures my attention. It could be the book I'm reading, the meal I've prepared, a member of my family or something in nature. I hope then I will look back at this year's daily photos and appreciate the journey it's been!
Shared on 2025-09-05 10:22:46 AEST by Margaret Scroope
This photo is of part of a full rainbow which appeared before us as we were driving through the NSW tablelands district a couple of weeks ago. It was a moment of breathtaking beauty taking me by surprise. How many pilgrims encounter nature’s wonders- the rainbow, the full moon, the small brook, the strike of lightening! The ‘heart leaps high’ and one is filled with gratitude for such simple yet profound gifts. And gratitude ‘becomes the ground in which hope blossoms into love’.
Shared on 2025-08-12 16:27:08 AEST by MARY NUTTALL
My reflection relates to a 'Pilgrimage' that I undertook some years ago on Gambier Island off the coast of Vancouver.
MY-PILGRIMAGE-ON-GAMBIER-ISLAND-OFF-THE-COAST-OF-VANCOUVER.docx
Shared on 2025-08-08 11:56:06 AEST by Helen Owens
The video 'easing a child's pain, one step (stitch) at a time' affected me deeply. Simply by viewing the video and entering into it, I was able to feel the children's pain. I chose to sit with the pain and found that I was blanketed by love. Karl Rahner tells us that "God's gift to us is God's self - which is LOVE." That gift to me today cannot be held tightly by me for too long. It can be felt deeply and treasured. Feeling the pain and the love must mingle together to somehow make the world a better place. How exactly this will happen is, on one level, the act of Divine Mystery. more to come.
Shared on 2025-08-08 10:56:11 AEST by Margie Abbott
Thanks so much to the team who produced the August resources for our journey together. Rich with images reflections songs and actions. Feeling blessed. Thank you.
Shared on 2025-08-01 10:34:31 AEST by Breda O'Reilly
When I read the question ‘What memories of your past pilgrimages or journeys are arising?’ I thought of what I wrote when I was invited to talk to a Yr 12 group at Mercedes College.
Memories-of-a-Past-Pilgrimage-by-Sister-Breda-OReilly-Updated.pdf
Shared on 2025-08-01 10:24:10 AEST by Mary Corkeron
This poem is by a friend in Grenfell. Came across it when getting rid of Cumber!!!
Letting-Go-of-Cumber.pdf
Shared on 2025-07-26 11:45:56 AEST by Margie Abbott
Reading the stories shared this month warmed me up to value that every step forward requires a letting go to what was. I am so moved to hear the stories of leaving Ireland and what that costs. My experiences of packing and moving remind me of being asked to shift house every year for seven years in a row when I left the novitiate. The wrench of getting to know people and then to move on does have a grief to it. Nowadays, I am aware of how many internal shifts I have made in my life. John O'Donohue says: "Every time you leave home, another road takes you into a world you were never in."
Shared on 2025-07-17 16:36:08 AEST by Geraldine Mugavin
I had packed and left home ‘for the convent’ … 1964 …
Later, my first sibling sister was getting married and after the event she related to me of Mum crying and saying ‘if only Geraldine were here’ ! And of course within a few .. 4/5 years … I could have been … !
What a blessing of so many paths we have been able to travel in the intervening years! And there are still any more to come I feel sure!
Shared on 2025-07-15 16:59:08 AEST by Daphne McKeough
I too have found Maura's story of leavetaking from her family, country, culture,evocative of stories I've heard from Irish sisters in our Congregation... what it takes to follow a missionary vocation. And I'm thinking of what it takes with each ministry assignment.....what I ( we) am called to let go of, say goodbye to, leave behind... what this costs and how I handle the letting go... and where I look to for the grace to step out, in hope..
Shared on 2025-07-14 12:42:41 AEST by Ruth Egar
Having a day free is the perfect way to drink in this very beautiful ‘Packing and Leaving’, ’ our July Pilgrimage. It is our story, - the memories are many as Maura Kelleher’s more dramatic story, (leaving her family and homeland), nevertheless reminds us something of our own.
And with sadness, I now often recall that it was our parents and siblings who also paid the precious price, in perhaps not understanding fully THE CALL! Hopefully, later, they saw the Joy of ‘Mercy’ lived day by day.
Shared on 2025-07-11 10:00:43 AEST by Nicole Rotaru
It has been inspiring and strengthening to read each sister's reflection. Thank you. Thanks also to the sisters who planned the two steps. I am a pilgrim in Lae, PNG. The lushness and beauty of country is balm for my soul. Working with diocesan priests, women religious and staff from Mercy Center Clinics has been challenging, revealing and blessing. As a traveller in a foreign land I cannot fully grasp and understand what I am seeing and hearing. Catherine's trust in the Providence of God is becoming more and more my guide into the unknown vulnerable places.
