Sister Mary Conlon introduced Sister Philomena - who had travelled down from London to lead this Retreat Day for us. Sister Philomena was a former Mother General of the Sisters of Mercy. Sister Philomena had produced a summary of the timings for the day and also a devotional prayer leaflet. She said she would like to concentrate on Our Lady today since the Venerable Catherine had developed such a devotion to our Blessed Mother. We then proceeded with the devotions contained in the leaflet of Morning Prayer - Sister gave her own take on wording for the first few lines of the 'Magnificat' - saying. "My soul is bursting with God speak" (or words of similar meaning) and "I am dancing for joy as He has made me a very happy woman..." Sister's 'Reflection' made reference to several places in the Bible where Our Lady had 'pondered' things in her heart. She raised the question of the true meaning of the word 'ponder'. She said that to ponder on something was to 'hold it' (in mind), to 'transform it' and only then to 'send it out into the world'. We could all do well to be mindful of 'pondering' on things, thoughts and statements. It would avoid a hasty impulsive verbal reaction - which could be inaccurate, hurtful or uncharitable - whereas if it is 'pondered' upon - time and thought could well transform it and a more thoughtful, accurate and charitable response would be sent out. Our Lady's example of 'pondering' things in her heart would undoubtedly serve us well in our own responses. After Sister's 'Reflection' - we were invited to enjoy a quiet time, inside or outside in the garden, in order to assimilate the morning's words and to reflect ourselves on what had been said.

We all joined together for the celebration of Holy Mass at 11.45am and Canon Mullins welcomed all of us on this very special day and he wished us all well. After Mass we enjoyed a beautiful lunch of cawl and a wonderful apple pie and custard - this was our supposedly 'light lunch'. But in fact we needed to walk it off a bit afterwards! Thank you Sisters for such hospitality.

We then re-gathered for a second period of reflection when Sister Philomena made the point that it was unknown when and how the Venerable Catherine had developed her devotion to Our Lady. Her Catholic up-bringing ended rather abruptly when her Father died when she was only five years old. She had been baptised by then but no record exists of her on-going Catholic education. Her mother, although probably a perfectly good mother, did not have the same approach to spirituality and the Catholic way of life as did her late husband. When she died Catherine and her two siblings went to live with relations who were protestant and although Catherine clung on to the Faith as taught by her Father, the other two siblings left the practice of their Catholic faith and adopted the protestant faith. As Catherine grew up and took employment - her time spent as a companion to Mrs Callaghan (and later caring for Mr Callaghan) was without any Catholic influence as they were Quakers. But they did allow her to practise her Faith privately and to go to Mass on Sundays. She impressed the Callaghans so thoroughly with her spirituality and faith that they both converted to Catholicism before they died.

Catherine clung on to it fervently but at that time there seemed to be no influence in her life of a devotion to Our Lady. So one can only presume that as she developed her ideas for serving the poor and uneducated of Dublin, those who joined her as her associates taught her by their example and prayer that a devotion to the Mother of God was an important and essential path to God. She soon realised that a devotion to the Mother of God would be her own obvious and important pathway to God. So her devotion to Our Lady started in her adult life and developed into an intense devotion and reliance on the Mother of God who would show her the way to fulfil her ambition of her life to address the needs of the young poor and uneducated girls of Dublin at the time in terms of Works of Mercy. In fact she then devoted her life to emulating the Mother of God's example in her works of mercy. Catherine soon realised that Our Lady should be regarded as HER Mother and from that a warm and affectionate devotion to Mary the Mother of God developed. If we are to follow Catherine's example, a simple word and our own example should inspire others to a devotion to the Mother of God. If we had a garment of Our Lord's we would treasure it for its proximity to Our Lord - likewise we should treasure the Mother of God because of her closeness to her Son. We were then given time for our own personal prayer and reflection. We were shown an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary and also handed a small copy of a modern icon of Our Lady. This seemed to be saying 'Hush, listen to me' as the finger of Our Lady is pointing upwards to her lips.

We re-gathered at 2.30pm to find a new leaflet of devotions for our little service of Evening Prayer. Sister Philomena then went on to talk about some of the Venerable Catherine's 'maxims'. We all took a card from a basket which had printed on each one a 'maxim' of Catherine's. She likened these to 'nuggets of wisdom'. Catherine's maxims could be likened to those contained in the Bible in the Book of Proverbs - simple, two line words of wisdom. Amongst some of Catherine's maxims she said that the most important title by which to refer to Our Lady is - 'Mother of God'. We were invited to make comment on some of the quotes contained on the cards.

We concluded the afternoon with the singing of the 'Suscipe' and words of Blessing. We thanked Sister Philomena sincerely for her input in leading this Retreat Day. By 3pm the Sisters had kindly laid on the usual wonderful cup of tea and cake - which we all thoroughly enjoyed and chatted over. We were all so happy to have had this lovely peaceful opportunity of just being together, in reflective and prayerful mood, away from the mundane things of our usual days. We Associates all appreciated well this opportunity and owe a big debt of gratitude to the Sisters of Mercy for their hospitality - thank you Sisters. Deo Gratias.