Veronica Lawson is an Australian Sister of Mercy who wrote her master’s thesis at the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem and her doctoral thesis at Trinity College Dublin. She was the first woman to be elected president of the Australian Catholic Biblical Association. For many years, she lectured in Biblical Studies at Australian Catholic University and its predecessor institutions before spending seven years as leader of her congregation. Her 2015 publication, The Blessing of Mercy: Bible Perspectives and Ecological Challenges, has been a valuable resource for the study of the Mercy charism.
This story of lamentation to liberation has countless fictional elements. It simply could not have happened as recounted. The power of the story is that it happens all the time.