Close by Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre stands a building described as “a landmark ending the vista of South King Street, Stephen’s Green North and Merrion Row”. What was once known as Mercer’s Hospital is today part of the Royal College of Surgeons.
For over 700 years that site has been devoted to caring for all sorts of people facing difficulties. In 1724 Mary Mercer set up a "fine stone house" to shelter poor girls. Later it became a hospital (hence Mercer's Hospital) with a reference to the Good Samaritan on its original crest and the command of Jesus "Fac Similiter" (Do Likewise).
An earlier building was St Stephen’s Chapel, built around 1230. A century and a half later it became a Lazar house or Leper hospital, which together with another Lazar house in Townsend Street provided sanctuary for those suffering from contagious disease. Both were situated on the then outskirts of Dublin, a safe distance from the city population.
In his Sonnet 29 Shakespeare captures the despair of the outcast: When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes/ I all alone beweep my outcast state, /And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, / And look upon myself, and curse my fate, / Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, / Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd ...
Tomorrow’s gospel reading takes up the theme of the outcast in the story of the ten lepers, Jews and Samaritans, united in a shared misery. We are told that “as he [Jesus] entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’”
Place in society
Jesus not only heals them but tells them to show themselves to the priests – in other words reclaim their place in society.
Sometimes it is necessary to keep people at a distance as the recent Ebola epidemic in west Africa shows. But others are “kept at a distance” by powerful political, economic and religious interests many of whom are primarily concerned with their own interests.
Dr Mary Grey is emeritus professor of theology at the University of Wales. She has a special interest in the relationship between social justice and theology.
In her book The Wisdom of Fools she discusses the frustrations of the marginalised trying "to shift the grip of unjust systems on a global scale or prevent the suffering they bring about. Any drive to connect takes place amid the broken-heartedness of oppressed communities and crucified peoples. It is a broken-heartedness caused partially by a structural separateness. If this sounds an exaggerated claim, think of the way we organise our world, our institutions and our relationships, following in part from the way we understand the human person. To what degree are all of these structured by the notion of separation and, on the level of subjectivity, by separative individualism and its far-reaching consequences? 'The individual deserves what he gets and gets what he deserves' is still a very popular slogan."
Shelter
Back in 1724 when Mary Mercer opened her shelter she did not believe that poor girls “deserved what they got and got what they deserved”, nor indeed did the medical people who followed her and founded a great hospital think that of the sick.
Society needs to value more the virtue of mercy that inspired Mary Mercer if we are to respond to the desperate needs of the homeless, the addicted, the refugees and all those so readily kept at a distance.
The Christian faith holds that mercy is part of God’s character and informs his relationship with us which as the Sermon on the Mount points out is not without conditions: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” Mercy is not just about feelings and emotions; it is about compassion and love expressed in tangible ways. It is much more demanding than sympathy; it takes us beyond words to action and that is a step too far for too many.