Life of Service
“Let us imagine, then, that Our Lord says to us: ‘Go, labor in My vineyard. Preserve for Me these little reliquaries of Baptismal innocence. This is the service I require of you in My house.’ Let this command enkindle all our zeal. ”
As our first Superior General, Mother Mary Quentin Sheridan wrote, “being a disciple includes a long process of learning to be a servant, completely surrendering oneself to the Lord, to the Will of God, and following that Will increasingly.” While the Institute is involved in many spiritual and apostolic works, the one common apostolate of our Sisters is precisely service of the Church. This service to the Church manifests itself first in devotion to the Lord, through the Sister’s commitment to making regular visits to the Blessed Sacrament and increasingly striving for greater attention and participation in the Liturgical prayer of the community. The Sister magnifies this first service to the Lord through her foundational commitment to serving the Church within the Institute itself; and from these twinned acts of service—to God and her neighbor— the Sister has the grace, strength and blessing to then generously attend to the larger needs of the Church.
As the needs of the Church and world are mounting and various, the Institute discerns all the areas of service potentially capable of mediating redemptive healing through the charism of Mercy, and it excludes those incompatible with it. Every work of service by an Alma Mercy Sister is predicated on the spiritual and corporal works of mercy; and every work has the potential to foster change in the heart of the Sister and those whom she serves, bringing about a greater receptivity to the Mercy of the Lord in time and for eternity.