Thursday,
1/4/13
Today is the feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the founder
of the American Daughters of Charity who gave us St. Vincent’s Hospital.
Born of
prominent New Yorkers in1774, Elizabeth Ann’s father was a descendent from
French Huguenots, while her mother was the daughter of an Episcopalian bishop.
At nineteen, Elizabeth married the owner of a shipping line, and she gave birth
to five children. Her husband,
impoverished by shipping losses, fell ill; and Elizabeth, in hopes of saving
him in a warmer climate, brought him
and one daughter to Italy. Arrived there, her husband William died while still
in quarantine.
In two years
of struggling to keep her daughter and herself alive, Elizabeth was drawn to
the Catholic Faith of the Italians who treated her and her daughter with
warmth. On her return to
the States she
was received into the Catholic Church.
A woman of
great kindness and strength, she made an attempt at operating a hospital for
the poor, but it failed for lack of funds. Elizabeth then met up with a number
of Sulpician Fathers who had been banished from France by the Revolution. They opened
a seminary for priests in Emmitsburg Maryland, and at their invitation she moved
her little family to Maryland, where she opened America’s first Catholic
school. It was there that Elizabeth also succeeded in founding an order of
religious sisters dedicated to teaching the young to live by Christian
principles.
On this day
we express our fullest gratitude for the Daughters of Charity who have worked
among us here at St. Vincent’s and at Catherine Laboure. We have all benefitted
from those truly great ladies who have silently led great lives of service in
our midst.
1 comment:
Amen!
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