Today was a wonderful day of filming with four Sisters of Mercy: Sr. Mary Ellen Howard, Sr. Linda Werthman, Sr. Helen Marie Burns and Sr. Rita Valade.

We conducted the interviews in the chapel at Mercy High School in Farmington Hills. Our four highly educated sisters (3 with PhDs) all with Master degrees) shared their personal history with us as they reflected on their life's service as Sisters of Mercy. The Sisters of Mercy origin dates back to 1831 in ,Dublin, Ireland when they were given the name of the Walking Sisters because they would walk in pairs to visit the homes of the poor. Here in Michigan, we can trace their charism to the years of educating young women at Mercy High School in Detroit and then eventually to the more recent location in Farmington Hills since 1966. The Sisters of Mercy were also pioneers in nursing, gaining their medical knowledge first hand on the battle fields during the Civil War.

The Sisters of Mercy have a long history in Detroit, Michigan. Mercy College of Detroit thrived as a small independent Catholic college prior to its merge with the University of Detroit in the 1990s, to keep Catholic higher education in Detroit, forming the University of Detroit Mercy. They also had multiple hospitals throughout Michigan which merged to form the first Catholic health system in Michigan: Mercy Health System in the 1970s. Mercy Health System joined with other systems and is now known as Trinity Health. Some their former hospitals have been repurposed into community service hubs (e.g. Samaritan on Connor in Detroit) or have been renamed under the Trinity Health banner.

With over 2,000 Sisters of Mercy in the Americas, they strive to make a difference in the lives of those in need in North, South and Central America, the Caribbean, Guam and the Philippines.

We are thrilled we are able to feature the Mercy Sisters in our film The Calling