Leah Perrault wants Catholics to draw closer to Jesus this Lenten season by embracing the virtue of mercy.

The author and writer is hosting a hybrid in-person and online (via Zoom) Bearers of Mercy retreat from March 7-9 — two days after Ash Wednesday on March 5 — at the Star of the North Retreat Centre in St. Albert, Alta.

Perrault, executive director of the non-profit organization Southwest Homes in Swift Current, Sask., first contemplated extensively on this attribute when Pope Francis called for an Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in the Church from Dec. 8, 2015, to Nov. 20, 2016. Even more significantly, it was the sorrowful experiences of her sister Abbie Diana Speir’s murder in 2017 and losing a baby to miscarriage that stirred Perrault to contemplate this transformative virtue.  

“(I was) inspired to think deeply and personally about how it feels to receive mercy, to be carried in mercy, and then how as a result, we're invited to offer mercy to other people,” said Perrault. “There is something so powerful about a God who suffers with us.”

The Catholic storyteller, mother of four and Catholic Register columnist begins the weekend with a Friday evening opening session about how Jesus is the bearer of mercy. The day-long Saturday schedule launches with a talk called “The Physics of Mercy.”

“I love the idea of Jesus coming to meet us in our weakness and our brokenness by engaging His own brokenness through the crucifixion, and it's because of that suffering that Jesus enters so compassionately into our suffering,” said Perrault. “We find a God who knows what it is to suffer, even to the point of death, and then to lift us out of it.

“I talk about mercy as a wave,” explained Perrault. “Having a trough and then a crest, and this is the movement of mercy that Jesus comes with us into the lowest points so that he can lift us into the highest places.”

Session three, “Mercy as Story,” will see the Campion College and St. Michael’s College graduate impart how the events of our lives allow us to encounter many Holy Thursdays, Good Fridays and Holy Saturdays.

Perrault said the sensation of Holy Thursday — coming together to enjoy and serve each other — is present when, for example, we share a meal with someone before they move away or when a group assembles to salute a colleague and friend before they enter retirement.

The Good Fridays in our lives, said Perrault, are the “days of suffering and loss that we experience in the course of our lives, the small deaths and the big ones.”

And Holy Saturday, the period of anticipated waiting between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, is experienced by us when we close the book on one chapter to begin a new adventure.

Perrault’s fourth and fifth talks are centred on bearing and practising mercy. She will also lead retreatants through musical meditation, facilitated sharing and reflective activities. One interactive undertaking is “Mapping Mercy” where attendees will be empowered to visually and colourfully depict how they have felt God’s mercy.

“Some people go away with beautiful drawings and some people go away with scratches that they tuck in Bibles or journals,” said Perrault. “The experience is meant to help us clearly see God's action in our lives.”

While the unity-building graces that could be engendered by practising mercy are always valuable, Perrault said imparting these messages potentially a few short weeks before a Canadian federal election could prove fruitful.

“With so much division, fear and anxiety in our culture, both in a Canadian context and North American context, and the suffering that we've seen between Palestine and Israel, Ukraine and Russia and now emerging violence in Sudan, in addition to many other places. And the polarization we see in North America politically — mercy helps us to remember that we're all just human beings created in God's image.

"Regardless of where we stand on political spectrums, God has invited us to choose mercy, to see human beings, to see their suffering and to be agents of bringing forward compassionate love,” said Perrault.

To learn more about the Bearers of Mercy retreat, visit Star of the North online.