In May 1994, the Irish Times published a special supplement on the Sisters of Mercy in the lead up to the Founding Day in July. In this article which was one of the articles published in the supplement, Sr. Philomena Horner talks about the return by the Sisters of Mercy to their roots in the community.
Both Catherine McAuley, the Founder of the Sisters of Mercy congregation and her associates in the early days were known as ‘The Walking Nuns’ according to Sr. Philomena Horner. “They went out to visit the homes, they were seen on the streets”. She says. They went to the poor and the needy. Today, she explains, the Sisters of Mercy are returning once again to work among the communities that most need them.
“We don’t want to be apart. In an earlier era, they wore different clothes and they were set apart.” This lifestyle is now changing. As an example of this move into the community, she says that nowadays “we don’t wear a distinctive habit”. Sr. Philomena and members of her community want to live and be among the people they work with. “We want to be seen to be more accessible. We live in a much less structured life. It’s very faithful to what Catherine McAuley wanted”, she says. Her own job as a full time teacher for 14 years in Lurgan has changed dramatically in the past couple of years.
“We’ve had to look at where we are using our ministry”, she says. To maximise their influence, Sisters have been anxious and more than willing to move out of their traditional roles, she adds.
Family rooms are part of the community facilities in Lurgan
As a result of her work with teenagers and parents within the community, she established the Springwell Centre in Lurgan last year to provide a service for families. She says that the family today is under a great deal of threat. It is often the case that the family is no longer the traditionally recognised, idealised unit of a father, a mother, a baby. Today family is about children and the adults who care for them, she says.
“I meet a lot of young single mothers. They don’t have that many supports”. By way of helping to provide opportunities for them, the centre has personal development classes. “They can be very isolated, particularly women who are staying at home, bringing up a family. There’s a need for support”.
The centre she runs offers a drop-in facility each morning from 10 am to 1 pm. Mothers with young children are especially welcome and the centre has a supervised playroom. The centre provides classes on a range of topics including parenting skills, assertiveness training, cookery, budgeting and health issues. The centre, she explains, “provides a forum for mutual support.”
One of the classes used the Veritas Parenting Programme. This involves a lot of role playing and it helps to develop communication skills and discussion among the various groups.
The centre is open to everyone and staff welcome callers who just want to look around. It is an ordinary two-storey house, located at Canna House in the grounds of the Mercy Convent in Edward Street.
The centre, Sr. Philomena, believes is helping people to develop their own potential and helping them to realise that they have potential. Yoga, aromatherapy and massage are also proving popular and an evening demonstration of massage is planned. She hopes that the women of Lurgan regard the centre as their place, where they can call in at any time and where they are in control of what happens. Very few men use the resources of the centre.
“Children today”, she explains, “are more outspoken, more assertive and very advanced, thanks to television. Their values today may not be their parent’s values and I think parents today are unsure as to exactly what is right for their children and how to insist on their own values. At our centre, we would like to encourage parents to have confidence in their own values and in their own ability to pass these on to their children”.
About her own motivation, she says that “with all the problems and the pressures that are on families today, I want to be involved in helping them.”
Another example of how members of the congregation are moving out into the community is, according to Sr. Philomena, the special service that Sr. Anna Maria Crawford, another Sister of Mercy, who has always had a special interest in the mentally handicapped, is currently providing for the parents of these children. She has moved into this area in a full time capacity and she offers a respite for the parents by providing a place called Arbour House in Warrenpoint, Co Down for their children.
Another initiative which Sr. Philomena set up in response to a growing need in the community is the ‘Pub with no Beer’. This weekly disco for young people was to set up to help remedy the problems of underage drinking in Lurgan. In 1988 a small steering committee was set up with a view to finding a site for this ‘Pub with no Beer’ and getting financial backing.
Sr. Philomena says that the idea of a pub with no beer was prompted by her experience with young people. “I went out into the streets to talk to these young people, who were meeting in parks and on waste ground to share bottles of cheap wine, cider and cans of beer.
“They told me they were bored and had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go”. Today, the weekly get-together on a Friday night in a locally converted hall is strictly monitored and drink is kept off the premises. And the project is proving highly successful.
Sr. Philomena is currently training as a family therapist in Dublin’s Mater Hospital. She says that she is being trained to look at the wider family system and to help families to look at how their family system operates.
This article was written by Catherine Foley and was printed in the Irish Times Special on Wednesday, 18th May, 1994
