Homily - 01-04-08 - Friday

Today we celebrate the feast of the first native born American saint: Elizabeth Ann Seton. Elizabeth was born into a wealthy Episcopalian family and married into wealth. But when one of her five children was seriously ill with tuberculosis, and having died shortly after a trip to Italy (which hopefully was to be for her benefit), because of the kindness of an Italian family who took care of them on their visit, Elizabeth converted to Catholicism. Her cousin, James Bayley also converted and later became archbishop of Baltimore.

Elizabeth always had a desire to work for the poor and the uneducated, and she put that desire into practice. She was known as the “Protestant Sister of Charity.” But soon after her conversion, when her husband William Seton died, she devoted her entire life to works of charity and education. She founded the Daughters of Charity of St. Joseph - of Emmitsburg, Maryland - who followed the rule of St. Vincent DePaul.

Mother Seton laid the foundation work for what would become the parochial school system in the United States; and her sisters worked with the poor in many and various institutions, including hospitals, clinics and orphanages.

It was evident that Elizabeth Seton was a living saint, and it did not take long after her death in 1821 at the age of 46 for her cause to be presented to Rome for canonization; in 1963 she was beatified by Pope John XXIII, and in 1975 on September 14 she was canonized by Pope Paul VI.

Today we pray for all of her daughters as they continue to carry out her works of charity and education. Elizabeth lived a life of simple, childlike faith, as is described in today’s gospel passage - and she communicated it through her order to generations of Catholics. Thank you, Mother Seton, and thanks to the kind Catholic family in Italy who demonstrated their love for God by caring for the needs of Elizabeth Seton and her child - if they did not do this, perhaps the course of American Church history would be different.

Simple, loving acts of kindness can have amazing and far reaching consequences! May we always engage in them, as did Mother Seton, and her band of sisters from St. Joseph’s Valley in Emmitsburg, MD.