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Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton glorified in motion and in religion a novel standing amongst her countrymen.
Meet Mother Elizabeth Ann — the first American-born saint.
She was a local of New York City, born on the eve of the American Revolution.
“She was an extraordinarily erudite, strong, independent woman, a socialite from a very respected family, and a patriot very interested in the events of the day and the fight for independence of the new nation,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, advised Fox News Digital in an interview final yr about Seton.
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“She was also a loving wife and mother. She was very strong in her Anglican faith, but felt this mysterial tug to the Roman Catholic faith, at a cost of great sacrifice. She embraced that faith here in New York.”
Dolan was in the Vatican, he mentioned, for Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton’s canonization below Pope Paul VI in 1975.
Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (1774-1821), founder and first superior of the Sisters of Charity, was born to a rich New York Protestant household. She married William Seton in 1794 — and after his loss of life in 1803, she transformed to Catholicism in 1805, opened a women’ faculty in Baltimore in 1808, took vows in 1813 and have become mom superior of the Sisters of Charity. Beatified in 1963, she was canonized as the first American-born saint in 1975. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
“She was a charming little girl, small-boned and dainty, with great brown eyes and a face like a cameo, who from the very first loved God and wanted to be good,” writer Mary Reed Newland wrote in “The Saint Book” in 1979.
Yet Seton suffered tragedy early in life, shedding her mom at age three, then enduring excessive hardship as a widowed mom of 5 kids by age 30.
“Rejoice for your glorious daughter.” — Pope Paul VI
She misplaced two of these kids to tragic deaths in the decade that adopted.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton additionally knew poverty after which prejudice and rejection from the New York City institution upon her conversion to Catholicism.
“God is with us — and if sufferings abound in us, his consolations also greatly abound, and far exceed all utterance,” Seton wrote in her journals.
“[I was] not only willing to take my cross but kissed it, too.”
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York. “I’ve always been fascinated by [Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton] and just proud to claim her as a New Yorker,” Dolan advised Fox News Digital in an interview final yr. “I seek her intersession on behalf of the faith each morning.” (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
She overcame adversity to pioneer Catholic training in America, kind the Sisters of Charity, a nationwide community of non secular communities, and, after her loss of life, intercede in the miraculous restoration of three terminally sick folks round the United States.
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The unbelievable acts of therapeutic, each unexplained by science, propelled her to sainthood greater than a century after a quick life stuffed with unbelievable drama and achievement.
“She loved God and she loved to do his will,” Anne Merwin, writer of “Saints By Our Side: Elizabeth Ann Seton,” advised Fox News Digital.
“She put her faith ahead of everything.”
Child of the Revolution
Elizabeth Ann Bayley was born in colonial New York City to Richard and Catherine (Charlton) Bayley on Aug. 28, 1774.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was born and raised in New York City. Her former house at 7 State Street, at the far southern tip of Manhattan, is now the Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Shrine. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
It was a metropolis in turmoil, bursting at the seams with new settlers, battling infectious illness and on the brink of revolt.
Her dad and mom have been distinguished members of the Episcopal Church. Richard Bayley was a famend epidemiologist, New York City’s first chief well being officer and an knowledgeable in yellow fever, which regularly swept over the American colonies with lethal outcomes.
“As a child of the American Revolution, Elizabeth possessed the same qualities its leaders had: faith, foresight and fortitude,” writer Merwin writes.
American colonists toppled a statue of King George III on Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan on July 9, 1776. Elizabeth Ann Bayley, the first American saint, was born steps away from Bowling Green simply two years earlier. (William Walcutt (1819-1895); painted 1857)
She married William Magee Seton in 1794. His father, additionally William, was a rich transport service provider and treasurer of the Bank of New York, which was based by their neighbor, Alexander Hamilton.
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At the time of their marriage, struggle hero Hamilton was the first secretary of the U.S. Treasury.
“Elizabeth socialized with elite New Yorkers of her time,” writes the web site of St. Peter’s Church in Manhattan.
“Saints by Our Side: Elizabeth Ann Seton” (2014) was written by Anne Merwin, who — like Seton — was an Episcopalian who transformed to Catholicism as an grownup. The writer solely realized of Seton’s unbelievable story after shifting to Maryland and changing into stuffed with the spirit of the first American-born saint. (Courtesy Pauline Books and Media)
“With the aid of several other women including Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, Elizabeth Seton organized New York’s first private charity, the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children, at Trinity Church.”
“Elizabeth socialized with elite New Yorkers of her time.” — St. Peter’s Church of NYC
The good instances quickly ended.
The Setons’ transport enterprise went bankrupt amid piracy and ongoing battle in Europe. Her younger husband grew sick.
The couple, with their oldest daughter Anna Maria, made the lengthy journey to Italy in 1803 “to aid in his recovery,” the church writes.
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, born in New York City in 1774, “was impressed with [the] devout Catholicism” of these she met in Italy, who took her in when her husband handed away. “When she and her daughter returned to New York a year later, and to the horror of Elizabeth’s family and friends, she decided to convert.” (Fox News Digital; Getty Images)
Author Merwin notes he was additionally doubtless in search of reprieve from collectors. William Seton died of tuberculosis in Italy on Dec. 27, leaving Seton a widow removed from house.
“His business partners, the Filicchi family (of Italy), extended hospitality to Elizabeth and her daughter,” the church and different biographers observe.
“Elizabeth was impressed with their devout Catholicism. When she and her daughter returned to New York a year later, and to the horror of Elizabeth’s family and friends, she decided to convert.”
She was obtained into St. Peter’s Church on March 14, 1805. Eleven days later, “she made her First Communion with extraordinary fervor,” in keeping with church paperwork.
St. Peter’s was the solely Catholic Church in New York City at the time — a testomony to the shock it should have been to family and friends that she’d be part of such a minority congregation.
St. Peter’s Church continues to be there right this moment, although in a more moderen constructing, at 22 Barclay Street, steps from the World Trade Center. It’s the oldest Catholic parish in New York State.
The Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton is positioned in the Church of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, proven right here on Oct. 27, 2020 in New York City. The construction opened in 1965. (John Lamparski/Getty Images)
She opened a faculty for boys, although it quickly collapsed after New York City households eliminated their kids from it after studying she had transformed to Catholicism.
With little earnings, with 5 kids, and now branded a non secular pariah in the eyes of the metropolis wherein she was raised, Elizabeth Ann Seton moved to Maryland — and devoted her life to Christ.
Education, religion and three miracles
Seton was provided a instructing job at St. Mary’s College by Catholic leaders in Baltimore, the place the church was extra firmly established.
“She accepted and left New York for good on June 8, 1808,” notes the Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Baltimore.
View of a constructing that homes the Mother Seton Guild corridor (4 East Main Street) and the Knights of Columbus Brute Council No. 1860 (9 East Main St.) in Emmitsburg, Maryland. The picture was taken on the day that Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821), who based the Sisters of Charity of St Joseph’s, was canonized by Pope Paul VI in Rome. She turned the first native-born American Roman Catholic Saint. (Ann E. Zelle/Getty Images)
Before lengthy, she opened a Catholic faculty devoted to educating women.
“Catholic women from around the country came to join her work and, over time, they created a convent,” writes the National Women’s History Museum.
“The women soon moved to Emmitsburg, Maryland, where they formally began their religious life as Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph’s on July 31, 1809. This was the first sisterhood in the United States.”
Her work as an educator and religion chief was thriving. But tragedy struck Seton once more.
Two of her daughters, simply teenagers at the time, died of tuberculosis: Anna Maria in 1812 and Rebecca in 1816.
“Never can a child know what a mother suffers,” Seton as soon as wrote. “Our God alone knows a mother’s heart and he will pity us.”
View of a statue of Elizabeth Ann Seton in the Shrine Chapel at the Basilica at the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Emmitsburg, Maryland, on Sept. 14, 1975. The picture was taken on the day that Seton (1774-1821) was canonized by Pope Paul VI in Rome. (Ann E. Zelle/Getty Images)
The Sisters of Charity started sending missions round the nation.
Her instance of religion was so sturdy that her title was referred to as upon by therapeutic prayers of the trustworthy nicely into the twentieth century. She is credited with three miracles.
“Never can a child know what a mother suffers.” — St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
Sister Gertrude Korzendorfer of New Orleans made a full restoration from pancreatic most cancers deemed inoperable by medical doctors in 1934 after beseeching the help of Mother Elizabeth Ann.
Then, Ann Theresa O’Neill, simply 4 years outdated, was cured of acute lymphatic leukemia in Baltimore on Easter week in 1952, after Sister Mary Alice prayed to Seton on the toddler’s behalf.
“The priest had already been by to give her the final blessing,” the Baltimore Sun wrote of the occasion in 1994.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton statue at St. Peter’s Church in downtown Manhattan, the place Elizabeth Ann Seton was confirmed Catholic in 1805. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
“Even decades later, renowned hematologists and oncologists would be unable to explain her recovery.”
The most dramatic miracle attributed to Seton got here in Yonkers, New York, in October 1963, in room 308 of St. Joseph’s Hospital.
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“Carl Kalin, then 61 years old, lay in a coma with a rare brain disease, while the Sisters of Charity in the entire New York community prayed to their foundress, Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton, for his recovery,” The New York Times reported on the day of her canonization in 1975.
“Then a relic, a sliver of her bone, was brought to the hospital to reinforce the prayers, placed on his body, and a few hours later he awoke.”
Longtime St. Joseph’s doctor Dr. Paul Tucci was quoted in the story.
Tapistry of Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton hanging in St. Peter’s Cathedral throughout beatification ceremonies. (David Lees/Getty Images)
“Medicine is not just science and art,” the physician mentioned.
“There’s a certain amount of spirit, too, and that makes for a totality of people. I think it was a miracle.”
‘Human, historical, holy story’
Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton died on Jan. 4, 1821 in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
She was simply 46 years outdated.
Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (1774-1821) was canonized as the first American-born saint in 1975. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
She is buried at the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in the city the place she died.
Another Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton is discovered right this moment at 8 State Street at the excessive southern tip of Manhattan, the oldest a part of New York City. It’s the web site of the house the place she as soon as lived.
Her contributions to Catholic training dwell on in colleges she helped present in Maryland, and in these developed along with her curriculum or bearing her title throughout the United States, in the Philippines and in Australia.
Seton Hall, a Catholic college in New Jersey identified nationally for its basketball program, was based by her nephew, the Rev. James Roosevelt Bayley — and named in her honor.
Students, followers and cheerleaders for the Seton Hall Pirates assist their faculty in opposition to the Xavier Musketeers throughout their Big East convention common season recreation at Prudential Center on Jan. 31, 2015 in Newark, New Jersey. Seton Hall University is called for Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born saint. (Chris Chambers/Getty Images)
Her non secular communities unfold, too.
“The work of her sisters has steadily grown over the last 160 years,” states the Catholic Community of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton of Plano, Texas.
“Five of these communities are now independently organized and are called Sisters of Charity. The sixth is the American Daughters of Charity.”
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The American Daughters of Charity united with the French Daughters of Charity in 1850 to kind what the Catholic Community of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton calls the “largest order of religious in the church” — it has 32,000 members throughout the world.
“In the United States, the Daughters of Charity staff hospitals, child care institutions, home for the aged and handicapped, and schools at every level,” the group notes.
Pope Paul VI and President John F. Kennedy shake fingers throughout their assembly at the Apostolic Palace. The pontiff obtained Kennedy in a 36-minute personal viewers. Pope Paul VI canonized Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American saint, in 1975. (Getty Images)
She was beatified on Dec. 18, 1959 and canonized on Sept. 4, 1975 — 201 years after she was born on the eve of her homeland’s combat for independence.
“Elizabeth Ann Seton was wholly American! Rejoice for your glorious daughter,” Pope Paul VI proclaimed at her canonization.
“Be proud of her. And know how to preserve her fruitful heritage,” he additionally mentioned.
“She is a human, historical and holy story,” mentioned writer Merwin of her beloved St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.
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“There is so much to learn, and she is a wonderful teacher. She’s your friend. She’s always by your side.”
To learn extra tales on this distinctive “Meet the American Who…” sequence from Fox News Digital, click on right here.
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