On the cold rainy May afternoon I came to interview Sr. Grace, her office was full. One gentleman wanted to understand why the people in his housing community were struggling so much and being charged for a new light bulb when they didn’t have enough money to eat. Another woman was trading phone calls with the county to try to get money for a burial. Sr. Grace’s cell phone rang incessantly with questions and concerns and requests for help. “We don’t say no to anyone,” the woman patiently explained to the man in the room. If a single mom is on the verge of losing it and all she wants is a massage, we try to make that happen. If a woman is desperate to bury her son and not have him cremated, we help her. We don’t judge the needs.
When people left, Sr. Grace turned to me with her full attention, her desk piled with asks, her keys lost somewhere in the paperwork. “It is always a battle and it is not any easy battle, it takes like years. I saw how the system working against our people and I realized we had to fight the system.”
As a young girl growing up in an Italian American neighborhood in Corning, Sister Grace thought she might want to be a nun like the teachers in her Sisters of Mercy elementary school. In high school, “she forgot” she said with a shy mile. She went to Nazareth College and once again pondered her vocation. She met with one of the Sisters and went to pray the novena in front of a statute of Saint Joseph. She realized in the contemplation, “No Joe.” But she knew she had a vocation and she joined the Sisters of Mercy. As a teacher working in downtown Rochester she fell in love with the neighborhood community where she lived and taught. She loved the children and being invited into people’s homes, even when they had nothing, often just mattresses with no sheets even or blankets. When she wrote to her Superior to thank her and tell her how much she loved this placement, the Superior wrote back and said she would need to move. When Sr. Grace protested, she replied, “you have forgotten the vow of obedience.” That is one of the tougher ones.
In her next assignment Sr. Grace worked at the Office of Catholic Ministries and it was here that she was introduced to FIGHT, “Freedom, Independence, God, Honor, Today,” a Black power organization started in the 1960s in the wake of the 1964 riots to advocate for change in Rochester, focused especially on changing hiring practices at Kodak and other local corporations. “This is when I grew up,” Sr. Grace says, “I went to all of their meetings.”
After attending Catholic University for one year, “which I loved” Sr. Grace came back and worked at St. Bridget’s. Their first Christmas, six people came to Mass. She and the priest spent the next year visiting every family in the neighborhood, especially the Hanover houses, 7 high rise towers of public housing just across the street. They would bake bread and bring it to the neighbors and just listen. The next Christmas, over 200 people were at Midnight Mass. They started a Gospel Choir and held religious education classes and built a dynamic community. When the priest she had organized with retired, a new priest came and within just a few weeks, Sr. Grace was fired. Her brother, also a priest, came up to meet with the Bishop on her behalf but there was no recourse, and no explanation. Sr. Grace found a position at a local Settlement House, once again taking up community organizing and service. Every day a young man with some mental illness issues would come sit in her outer office and talk to her and just sit. When she came back from an outing one day she found him in the lobby, distraught. The Director had thrown a glass of water at him and he was aghast. When Sr. Grace confronted the Director she asked him why he had thrown the water, “If I wanted to, I could.” Two days later she was fired again.
Now Sr. Grace found herself in a kind of wilderness. She could not find a job, she was cast out from the work she loved and she found herself in San Antonio Texas at a program for Sisters. She was taking a class at the university on the Prophets, “and I realized, these are people who had been in the same place I was, I began to come alive again.”
One day she was walking with another nun and they came to a crosswalk. “We can’t cross here” the woman said to Sr. Grace. There is a place for black people to cross and a place for white people.”
“So I crossed the street there,” said Sr. Grace.” And I met a wonderful young African American man, and when I crossed back she was so mad at me. She never spoke to me again and I was asked by the Director to leave the program.”
Sr. Grace came back to Rochester. She would drive around at night and one evening she met these three men in the cold who needed a place to stay. No one would take them in.
“There should be some place where people can go anytime.” And suddenly Sr. Grace knew she needed to open this place. “But I didn’t have any money. Then I remembered that I am a Sister of Mercy.” Sr. Grace submitted a grant and received her first start -up funds. With a desk and no phone and no training in fundraising, she did. Today the House of Mercy is a house not that far from the first vision. It is bigger, it is a community center where people can come for coffee and pastries and to talk, it is a kitchen where meals are served every day for the people who are housed there and the people who come for food or connection. It is a space of hope and humanity. “This is where the church needs to be” she said. “We are not going to give up the fight.”
“My name is Sister Grace Miller at the House of Mercy and radical compassion is our life here at the House of Mercy. It is to give our upmost in terms of loving and receiving and showing compassionate care for the poorest people, the people most in need herein the city and elsewhere, whoever comes to us we love them, we care for them and we do all in our power to help them to love themselves and to get on their feet and to know that they have a life that is worthy of living.”