Congregation of Our Lady of Mercy in New Zealand - UC Research ...

C HAPT:Bm. 1 •
THE LIBRARY 7
fAWTERBURY UNIVERSITY COLLEGd
CHRISTCHURCH, 11.1.
Ox•iqin and Spirit o:t_:_ the Order of l,lercy..!. ..
The Order of' Llercy sprang into being as an outc:owe
of the zeal and chm·i ty of a beautiful, noble-hearted
Irish heiress, Catherine McAuley, who was born in Co.
Dublin, in 1787.
( 1) Although the second hal1' of the 18th
century was a 11 CPitical period for adhel'ents of the old
faith"
:r:n Ireland, yet Catherine's father, a devout
Catholic, enjoyed all the privileges of polite society
without any apparent injury to his Catholic principles.
In those penal days when Catholicity vras a crime and all
things Catholic were 11 hidc1en away as in the days of the
Catacombs, 11 Catherine's father used to asf~emble at his own
home on Sundays and holidays the poor of the district to
instruct them in the truths of their religion.
His
lessons were to bear fruit in the life of his young daughtel"'
who never forgot them.
1:/hen Catherine, who was the eldest of three children
vras but seven yem•s old, she lost her father;
and her gay
young mother seeing that to adhere to the Catholic faith
meant to belong to (2) a upoor, despised, impotent, ragged
and pitiful c onmnJ.ni ty, If
willingly accepted the Protestantisnt
of her friends, with its monopoly
of wealth, power,
1. Mother CathePine McAuley - An Appreciation (Eev. (.T. Ryan
f3.J.ii:.A. D. Litt.) (Limerick, 1938.)
2. Ibid.