Mercy sister and artist specializes in statues of foundress

Published: 2005-01-06

DETROIT (CNS) -- Sisters of Mercy-sponsored institutions across the United States and Canada have turned to a Detroit member of their congregation for sculptures of their foundress, Catherine McAuley. It all started 21 years ago -- and two years before Marie Henderson entered the local Mercy community. As an art teacher at Mercy High School in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, she was asked to do a sculpture of McAuley for a lobby area at the all-girls school. In learning about McAuley in order to do the sculpture, Henderson developed a great admiration -- and liking - for the Irishwoman who was moved by compassion to gather other women together to serve the poor in early 19th-century Dublin. "I really felt like I knew her pretty well. We have a lot of the (letters and other writings) of Catherine McAuley, and when you read about her you know she was both a fun-loving person and very spiritual," Sister Henderson, 55, told The Michigan Catholic, newspaper of the Detroit Archdiocese.

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