Reflections taken from the writings of Sr Elizabeth West LCM

The Little Company of Mary — born from Venerable Mary Potter’s abiding sense of Mary at the foot of the Cross — offers a simple but profound gift to the church and the world: a way of being with those who suffer that is at once practical, prayerful and maternal. At the heart of Mary Potter’s message is a conviction that compassion is both contemplative and active. She urged those who share her spirit to bring God’s mercy into concrete situations: “You, who love God, draw good out of the evil with which the world is now teeming; spread God’s Mercy, make it shine more and more as you plead for dying sinners.” This call summons Associates and Affiliates to a ministry that attends to the whole person — and to do so with patience, steadfastness and prayerful attention. Practically, that presence shapes the distinctive value LCM Associates and Affiliates bring to contemporary care.

They extend the Little Company of Mary charism into their ministries, families, works of charity. In the charism’s original vision Mary Potter linked contemplative watchfulness with loving service; she modelled a “mother’s heart” — an attitude of gentle tending and courageous solidarity that Associates and Affiliates are called to share. Mary Potter’s writings repeatedly insist that intercessory prayer and compassionate action belong together — that to stand with the dying is itself a prayerful offering. For Associates and Affiliates this means that their witnessing, hospitality and companioning become sacramental signs of God’s tenderness in ordinary places.

Loving God, who gave Mary Potter a tender heart for those who suffer, kindle in us the same compassion. Teach us to listen more than speak, to sit with the lonely, the suffering and dying, and to let prayer and service be one work. May your mercy shine through our small acts and faithful presence, and may we, like Mary at the foot of the Cross, remain faithful in love. Amen.