Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton was foundress and first superior of the Sisters of Charity in the United States. She was born Elizabeth Ann Bayley on August 28, 1774 in New York City. She is the first American-born saint, canonized in Saint Peter's Square, by Pope Paul VI on Sunday September 14, 1975. One of two daughters, she was born of a distinguished colonial family in New York City. Her mother, Catherine Charlton, daughter of an Anglican minister of Staten Island, N.Y., died when Elizabeth was three yeas old. Her father, Dr. Richard Bayley, was the first professor of anatomy at Columbia College and eminent for his work as health officer of the Port of New York.

She loved and honored her father, who was the one mainly in charge of her education. He was well qualified for the job being a brilliant and virtuous man. Elizabeth was very devout in her religious beliefs. She loved the Lord deeply and took great comfort and delight in reading the Scriptures, especially the Psalms, and also loved to pray the Rosary.

She married William Magee Seton, a wealthy young businessman, on 25 Jan., 1794, in St. Paul's Church, New York. They had five children; Anna, William, Richard, Rebecca, and Catherine. William, her husband, fell on hard times in his business and lost his fortune. In 1801, Elizabeth's father Dr. Bayley died, which was a great trial for her. In her anxiety for his salvation she offered to God, the life of her infant daughter Catherine. Catherine's life

was spared, however, and she died at the age of ninety, as Mother Catherine of the Sisters of Mercy, New York. This was an interesting outcome, since it seems God accepted the life of Elizabeth's daughter, though not in the way Elizabeth apparently had in mind.

In 1803 her husband's health required a sea voyage, which the doctor recommended. William, along with his wife Elizabeth and their eldest daughter, Anna, left on their journey to Italy, leaving their other four children in the care of William's sister, Rebecca. In Italy William, Elizabeth and Anna were given hospitality by the Felicchi family of Leghorn. William Seton died tuberculosis two days after Christmas in Pisa less than three months later at the age of thirty-seven.

Elizabeth and her daughter remained for some time with the Filicchi families. While still in Italy she attended Mass with her Italian friends, and as she began to see the beauty of the Catholic Faith, her interest was stirred. Finally, she sailed for home accompanied by Antonio Filicchi, and they reached New York on 3 June, 1804.

Her experience in Italy led to her decision to become Catholic also. She was especially and deeply impressed by the Catholic belief in the real presence, the doctrine that was at the heart of her conversion. So deep in her heart was this belief, that even before becomming Catholic, the faint shadow of this sacrament in the Protestant Church had had such an attraction for her that she used to hurry from one church to another to receive it twice each Sunday.

Her family was very much opposed to her converting, which she agonized about. A time of great spiritual perplexity began for Elizabeth Seton, whose prayer was, "If I am right Thy grace impart still in the right to say. If I am wrong Oh, teach my heart to find the better way." Finally, after a period of discernment, on Ash Wednesday, March 14, 1805, she was received into the Church by Father Matthew O'Brien in St. Peter's Church, Barclay St., New York. Then on March 25, she made her first Communion with extraordinary fervour.

She joined an English Catholic gentleman named White, who, with his wife, was opening a school for boys in the suburbs of New York, but the widely circulated report that this was a proselytizing scheme forced the school to close. However, some faithful friends arranged for Elizabeth Seton to open a boarding-house for some of the boys of a Protestant school taught by the curate of St. Mark's.

In January, 1806, Elizabeth's young sister-in-law, Cecilia Seton, became very ill and pleaded to see Elizabeth, who then became a constant visitor. Cecilia told Elizabeth that she desired to become a Catholic, which caused great controversy when it became known. When Cecilia recovered, she went to Elizabeth seeking refuge and was received into the Church. Later though she returned to her brother's family on his wife's death.

Eventually Mrs. Seton's boarding-house for boys had to be given up. Father Dubourg, S. S., from St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, met her in New York, and suggested opening a school for girls in Baltimore. After a long delay, she and her daughters reached Baltimore on Corpus Christi, 1808. Her boys were brought there to St. Mary's College, and she opened a school next to the chapel of St. Mary's Seminary.

A Virginian convert and seminarian, Mr. Cooper, offered $10,000 to found an institution for teaching poor children. A farm was bought half a mile from the village of Emmitsburg and two miles from Mt. St. Mary's College. Meanwhile Cecilia Seton and her sister Harriet came to Mrs. Seton in Baltimore.

As a preliminary to the formation of the new community, Mrs. Seton took vows privately before Archbishop Carroll and her daughter Anna. In June, 1808, the community was transferred to Emmitsburg to take charge of the new institution. With the help of Archbishop Carroll, she organized a group of young women to assist her in her work.

Mrs. Seton, her three daughters, her sisters-in-law, Cecelia, who eventually returned to Elizabeth, and Harriet Seton, and four young women who had joined them, began what was to become the American foundation of the Sisters of Charity, the first new community for religious women to be established in the United States.

She adopted a modified version of the rule of St. Vincent de Paul for the French Sisters of Charity. She trained her sisters for teaching, and with her great gift for writing she wrote textbooks for classrooms, worked among the poor, the sick, and the black people of the region, and directed the work of her congregation. In 1814, she sent her nuns to open an orphanage in Philadelphia and another in New York City in 1817.

Among the great amount of material she wrote, were included translations of many ascetical French works (including the life of Saint Vincent de Paul, and of Mlle. Le Gras) which she did for her community. She also left copious diaries and correspondences that show a soul on fire with the love of God and zeal for souls.

In the twelve years from 1809 to 1821, she laid the foundation for the Catholic parochial school system in the United States, founded her Sisters of Charity, ran her school and lived with her community at her headquarters in Emmitsburg, Maryland. She left a legacy which now includes six religious communities with more than 5,000 members, hundreds of schools, social service centers, and hospitals throughout America and around the world.

She died at Emmitsburg on January 4, 1821. Her body is enshrined at the motherhouse of the American Sisters of Charity in Emmitsburg. But she is St. Elizabeth Seton, who found God through very difficult times, including spiritual desolation that purifed her soul during a great portion of her religious life. She took the way of the cross with great faith and fervor and zeal. She was loving wife, devoted mother, foundress, teacher, and saint.
Mother Seton was a heroic woman, managing not only to care for her own children in the midst of such adversity, but to allow her heart to be enlarged by the Grace of God in such a way as to leave a legacy that cares for so many others.

She is a model of sanctity for all. She began to grow in sanctity even as a single person. When she was married, she cared for her spouse and her children, with fidelity and courage as well as love, and as a religious, she answered God's call to service of the needy even when she herself was needy. During her 47 years on earth, she lived all three vocations with faith, hope and charity.

Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, pray for us.

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