When Mercy Found Me in Texas

A reflection shared by Emma McCullagh '26 during Community Reset on September 22, 2025

This summer in Texas, I experienced mercy. But what is mercy? That’s the question I was stuck with. It’s a word we all know well, being a Mercy school, but what does it mean? I could try to put it into words, like empathy, compassion, or service, and those words are true, however they do not capture mercy in its entirety. Because mercy isn’t something you can easily describe. Mercy is something you feel. 

So instead of defining it, I want to share that moment with you all. The moment I felt mercy. 

As I mentioned, this past summer, eight of my classmates and I went to Texas on our immersion trip to ARISE Adelante, a community resource in Las Milpas, just a few miles from the Mexican-American border. ARISE, or A Resource In Serving Equality, empowers residents to attain a better life for themselves, their families and their community through education, resources, and support. We went to participate in their summer camp program, helping them plan and facilitate arts and crafts for the community's children. Additionally, we spent each day meeting new people, who taught us about immigration and the area around McAllen, Texas.

Arriving on the first day, I was nervous, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. However, I knew there were going to be local volunteers around our age to help us if we had any questions. In the first couple of days the volunteers were nice but we didn’t really talk to each other, kind of minding our own business. Now, I look back and realize I feared they didn’t want to know us, since we were one of my many groups in a long line of summers.

That mentality changed halfway through the week when one of the families in the ARISE program invited us to lunch. They had three children; the oldest was our age. From the moment we walked in I felt completely welcomed: We ate delicious food, met an adorable puppy, and we talked to Luis, the oldest, about high school, classes and the college search. In that simple moment, around the table sharing stories, I felt mercy. That feeling of mercy made me realize that mercy is more than service or kindness like I originally thought. Mercy is the gift of connection, of seeing ourselves in one another, of recognizing our shared humanity. 

And that’s when I understood, Mercy is a charism—a gift from God freely given to us that flows through us like a river especially when we choose to show up with open hearts. We were strangers and were welcomed in, both at that lunch and at ARISE. Mercy isn't something we keep for ourselves, it's something we receive and are called to share. Now I call you to realize that others are not the side characters in your own personal movie, but real people that you can connect with because we are one body. And through this we are called not only to receive mercy but to let it flow through us.