By Amelia Kibbe
Advisory Editor
Sr. Mary Lou Lafferty, O.S.F. said she knows she and her fellow sisters will be in competition with Sunday afternoon’s Buffalo Bills game but hopes many Bonaventure students will take the time to visit them for a prayer service for mercy.
Pope Francis announced 2016 as a Year of Mercy, inviting people to love, kindness and generosity, said Sr. Mary Lou. At 2 p.m. Sunday, the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany invited Bonaventure and the neighboring communities to do just that at St. Elizabeth’s Motherhouse at 115 E. Main St., she said.
“We would love to have the students come visit and pray with us,” she said, adding she hopes to increase the interaction between the sisters and the college students.
According to Dr. Paula Scraba, associate professor of physical education at St. Bonaventure University, many Franciscans in the Diocese of Buffalo met earlier this month to reflect and pray about many current issues facing humanity, including the death penalty, domestic violence, drug culture poverty and homelessness.
“Mercy is being in solidarity with your community,” said Scraba, who is helping organize the one-hour prayer service from the Bonaventure end. “It’s looking at the needs of our community and realizing we can all help somehow.
Scraba cited many times that Bonaventure students showed mercy not only in the immediate community, but in places such as Louisiana and the Bahamas.
She added many of the sisters can no longer physically go out into the community, but they can pray for those who can, explaining they focus on a ministry of prayer.
Sunday’s event provides them a chance to do this with the local communities, she said.
“In the religious community, we say ‘Prayer sends us to community, our communities sends us to our ministries, ministries sends us back to our communities and community sends us back to prayer.’ It’s about presence, dialogue and witness,” Scraba said.
Sr. Mary Lou, the new local minister for the motherhouse, said the prayer service is not limited to the Catholic faith and added the local faith communities have also been invited. Refreshments will follow the service, she added.
“I know the Bills are playing at the same time,” she said. “But we need justice and mercy in our world right now.”
kibbeaa13@bonaventure.edu
