St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American born saint, was canonized in 1975. She was born in New York in 1774 into a socially prominent Episcopalian family. Her mother died in child birth and her father remarried. She was sent away to live with relatives in the country. Feeling abandoned, she sought comfort in reading the Bible, in nature and in God's presence.
At nineteen years of age she married William Seton, the son of a wealthy shipping family. Reverses came steadily upon them after 1800. The shipping business failed, reducing them to near poverty. Then Will contracted tuberculosis. Elizabeth tried to bolster their courage and reorient the family to a humbler life.
In 1803 they went to Pisa, Italy in order to help Will to recover in a milder climate but were detained in a cold stone tower in the harbor used to quarantine immigrants with contagious diseases. Will's health deteriorated and he died a month later. The Filicchi family, former business associates, welcomed Elizabeth warmly. They introduced her to Catholicism and she began attending Mass with them. This began a process of questioning and reodering her faith that would eventually lead her to become Catholic.
When she returned to New York, her family disapproved of her conversion, shunning her socially and financially. She started a boarding house and a school to serve poor Catholic immigrants and to support herself. It soon failed when her friends would not help her. Undaunted, she sought other ways on continue her work.
Elizabeth soon met a priest, Fr. William Dubourg, and solicited his help so that she could continue her ministry of teaching. He introduced her to Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore. Her belief in the need for schools was so convincing and she was so persistent that they invited her to come to Baltimore and open a small school.
She also founded a religious order, the Sisters of Charity, and moved to Emmitsburg, MD where she lived with her five children, ten sisters and two students in a spartan, four room house. They had little income, but the work prospered. They began a parish school considered the beginning of the Catholic school system in the U.S.
Their lives, balanced between work, prayer, and recreation were hard and the winters were grueling. Two of Elizabeth's daughters and some of the sisters died, but she continued her work until she died on January 4, 1821.
St. Elizabth Ann Bayley Seton, our parish patroness, was a remarkable woman by any standard. She was strong and tender, sensitive and determined, nurturing and firm, open and principled. All who knew her called her Mother Seton. The experiences of her life as a wife, mother, teacher, administrator, convert, foundress of a religious order, and community member taught her the dignity of parenting, the central place of love, hope in the resurrection, trust in the scriptures, and fastness of faith. She is a model for our spiritual life today.