Feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
Blessing of Special Exhibit
National Shrine of Elizabeth Ann Seton
Emmitsburg, Maryland
January 5, 2025
Jubilee Year of Hope
At Christmas, Pope Francis inaugurated a Jubilee Year dedicated to hope, choosing as his theme St. Paul’s teaching that “hope does not disappoint.” By that he did not mean that everything we wish for will come true or that our lives will be problem-free or pain-free. Hope means confidence in God’s love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, a confidence that prompts us to respond daily to the call to holiness that each and all of us received in the Sacrament of Baptism, including on those days marked by pain, suffering, and misunderstanding. Hope is a deep-seated trust that, come what may, in the grace of the Holy Spirit, we can indeed follow Christ, build up his Church, serve the needs of others, and in the process, become those unique reflections of God’s glory that we were created to be.
Few people fit this description better than St. Elizabeth Ann Seton – a wife and mother, a widow seeking meaning and direction in her life, a convert to Catholicism, an educator, and last but not least, the founder of the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph. She was a pilgrim of hope; she exemplified the hope that impels us to seek God’s will and follow the path of holiness, wherever it might lead.
Wife and Mother
Our reading from the Book of Proverbs recalls Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton’s vocation as a wife and mother. As we know, she came from a prominent New York City family, was baptized as an Episcopalian, and married William Seton, with whom she was blessed with five children. They lived in a beautiful house; they had wonderful friends; William seemed to be prospering in his import business. She could have settled in comfortably to an elegant if inconsequential life.
But she was not content with that. Deeply aware of God’s love for her, she, like her mother, devoted herself to the service of the poor. At the same time, she was developing her life of prayer. As her relationship with the Lord grew stronger and deeper, she began to grow restless, searching for something more. She would find what she was looking for as her life was upended by William’s bankruptcy followed by a worsening of his tuberculosis, which, in turn, led to a trip to Leghorn, Italy in hope that his health would improve. As we know, William’s health did not improve; he died in Italy. While in Italy, their hosts, the Filicchi family, introduced Elizabeth to the Catholic faith. Perhaps we could say that even as she lost her dear husband, she found the fullness of the faith that would guide her in the journey ahead.
Widowhood and Founding
Returning to New York, Elizabeth was received into the Catholic faith by Father Matthew O’Brien and confirmed by Bishop John Carroll. Her conversion did not sit well with some of her family and friends, and certainly not with the parents of the school that she had founded in New York upon her return. In God’s providence, she met Father Louis Dubourg who headed the nation’s first seminary, St. Mary’s, in Baltimore. At his invitation, she came to Baltimore where she opened a school. Yet, that was not to be the last leg of her journey. She was still searching even as God was tugging at her sleeve.
Her pilgrimage of hope brought her at last to Emmitsburg. She came at the invitation of the Sulpicians, especially Father John DuBois who had just begun Mt. St. Mary’s College . . . She immediately opened St. Joseph Academy and Free School but she also responded to a call that had long been resonating in her heart, the call to found the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph. In turn, that led to tremendous ministries of education, healthcare, and charity that continue to bring hope and joy to countless individuals and families.
What We Learn from St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
What, then, do we learn from St. Elizabeth Ann Seton? What does she teach us about responding to our call to holiness? How do we learn from her how to make our lives a pilgrimage of hope? Let me suggest three points for your consideration:
First, we learn from her that holiness is not merely an abstract ideal. We find holiness in the rough and tumble of life, amid its twists and turns, the expected and the unexpected, the delightful and the distressing. Holiness is pursued with the horizon of a state of life – in her case – both as wife and mother and also as a religious sister and founder. Her example should bring us hope and joy, for while none of us will likely replicate her amazing life, all of us can find God’s will and the path to holiness in our state of life and in our present circumstances, not just in some ideal situation.
Second, we learn from her that hope, patience, and holiness travel together. How many times Elizabeth Ann Seton’s patience was tried along the way from a fashionable Wall Street address to the remoteness of 19th century Emmitsburg. How easily she could have lost hope amid the setbacks of her life; but that didn’t happen because her hope in God was sturdy and resilient. She teaches us never to take holiness for granted, never to be presumptuous, but rather to seek holiness patiently, day by day, pursuing God’s will even when God seems to be asking the impossible of us.
Third, we learn that hope and patience do not yield holiness unless they are animated by love, by charity, by service of others. At every stage of her journey of hope, Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton was a woman of charity. The tremendous ministries of education, healthcare, & charity she inaugurated began with her own spirit of charity, a spirit of charity she insisted must characterize the internal life of the religious community she founded. Not all of us can found large ministries of charity but all of us can see Christ in the poor and the marginalized, all of us can strive to do everything with love and go out of our way for others. If holiness is participation in God’s life and if God is love, then it follows that anyone striving for holiness must lead a life of charity.
This year will mark the 50th anniversary of Mother Seton’s canonization. Let us prepare for that great event by reflecting on her life and in God’s grace let us absorb the lessons of her life, such that we too will be accounted pilgrims of hope on the road to holiness. St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, pray for us!