Thursday before Epiphany

Readings of the day: RB Prol. 21-32

Mass: 1 John 3:7-10; Resp. Psalm 98; John 1:35-42

 

Elizabeth Ann Seton

SAINT ELIZABETH ANN SETON

(1774-1821)

Wife, Mother of Five, Widow

Foundress, American Sisters of Charity

Beatified by Pope John XXIII, Canonized by Pope Paul VI, 14 September 1975

First Native Saint of the USA

Patron of Catholic Education in America

Today, Saint Benedict reminds us of two very important teachings from Saint Paul’s Epistles:

By the grace of God I am what I am.

(1 Cor 15:10/RB Prol. 31)

Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

(2 Cor 10:17/Prol. 32)

I imagine Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton took these very words to heart.

May she intercede for us.

From the Homily of Pope Paul VI at our Saint’s Canonization

14 September 1975

Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton is an American. All of us say this with spiritual joy, and with the intention of honoring the land and the nation from which she marvellously sprang forth as the first flower in the calendar of the saints. This is the title which, in his original foreword to the excellent work of Father Dirvin, the late Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York, attributed to her as primary and characteristic: ‘Elizabeth Ann Seton was wholly American’! Rejoice, we say to the great nation of the United States of America. Rejoice for your glorious daughter. Be proud of her. And know how to preserve her fruitful heritage. This most beautiful figure of a holy woman presents to the world and to history the affirmation of new and authentic riches that are yours: that religious spirituality which your temporal prosperity seemed to obscure and almost make impossible. Your land too, America, is indeed worthy of receiving into its fertile ground the seed of evangelical holiness. And here is a splendid proof—among many others—of this fact.