From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   January 4th - St. Elizabeth Bayley Seton.   
      
   Born in New York, New York, United States of America, August 28, 1774; died   
   in Emmitsburg, Maryland, USA, January 4, 1821; beatified by Pope John XXIII;   
   canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1975.   
   When I consider the life of Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, I am reminded that   
   we must be ever conscious that we are children of the King and Queen. With   
   that in mind, we must act with the magnanimity of our Father because we   
   never know when God will use us to draw others to Himself.   
      
   Elizabeth Seton, the first native-born citizen of the United States ever to   
   be canonized, was born into the devout Episcopalian family headed by her   
   father Dr. Richard Bayley, a well-known physician and professor of anatomy   
   at King's College (now Columbia), and her mother Catherine Charlton, who was   
   the daughter of the Anglican rector of Saint Andrew's Church, Staten Island.   
   Her mother died when Elizabeth was three-years-old. Although her father   
   remarried, Elizabeth and her younger sister Mary were his favorites.   
   Her unusual, but far-reaching, education and character formation were his   
   supreme concerns. He taught her to curb her natural vivaciousness. Dr.   
   Bayley's second wife had seven children, so these two were under the special   
   care of their father. (It may be worth noting that one of Elizabeth's   
   stepbrothers became the Catholic Archbishop James Roosevelt Bayley of   
   Baltimore.) Elizabeth was 11-years-old when the Revolutionary War ended.   
   Bayley was a Loyalist during the British occupation of New York.   
      
   Even in childhood, Elizabeth delighted in prayer and in spiritual reading,   
   especially the lives of the saints, the Bible, and Imitation of Christ. She   
   was also devoted to her Guardian Angel.   
      
   After the war, Bayley was made Inspector General in the New York Department   
   of Health. In 1792, he was appointed to the Anatomy Chair in the Department   
   of Medicine at Columbia College.   
      
   At 19 (in 1794), Elizabeth married William Magee Seton, a first- generation   
   American of English parentage and heir-apparent to a rich shipping firm.   
   After her marriage, Elizabeth became an active philanthropist, so active   
   that she became known in New York as the "Protestant Sister of Charity." In   
   1797, already the mother of two, she was one of the founders of a society   
   designed to help poor widows with small children.   
      
   William and Elizabeth were deeply in love and gave life to five children:   
   Anna Maria was born in 1795; William, Jr. in 1796; Richard; Catherine; and   
   Rebecca (b. 1802). Financial calamity visited the family business in the   
   form of the war between France and England-many of their ships were   
   seized-and the business failed. William's father died leaving him to look   
   after his siblings. Then his health, too, failed-he contracted tuberculosis.   
   In 1802, her father, Dr. Bayley, who had pioneered research in surgery,   
   diphtheria, and yellow fever, contracted yellow fever and died.   
      
   Because of his tuberculosis, William's doctors felt he should spend winter   
   in sunny Italy in 1803-1804. He had been a guest there of the Filicchi   
   brothers in Leghorn several years before his marriage. So Elizabeth,   
   William, and the eldest daughter Anna Maria arranged to spend several months   
   with the Filicchi's.   
      
   Due to a yellow fever epidemic in New York, they were quarantined on the   
   ship for four weeks after the seven-week voyage. Elizabeth never complained   
   about the sad state of affairs, even in her diary. She took everything   
   cheerfully as permitted by a loving God for their good. William Seton died   
   in Pisa, Italy, in December 1803-nine days after their release from   
   quarantine-but had progressed much spiritually during their confinement.   
      
   Elizabeth converted to Catholicism primarily due to God, but instrumentally   
   due to the Filicchi family, especially Antonio. They visited Florence. She   
   went to church with Signora Filicchi and experienced a crisis when she saw   
   the elevated Host one Sunday. Living with the Filicchi's dispelled her myths   
   regarding Catholicism, because of their piety, virtue, love for one another,   
   and charity. "If the practice of the Catholic faith could produce such   
   interior holiness," she felt she must learn more about their Church. Sra.   
   Filicchi kept a strict Lenten fast-allowing nothing until after 3:00 p.m.   
   Elizabeth liked going to Mass every day.   
      
   Antonio Filicchi advised her that only the Catholic Church had the true   
   faith and asked her to seek and pray for enlightenment. Elizabeth returned   
   to New York on June 3, 1804, and put herself under instruction.   
   Unfortunately, she advised her Rector Hobart and her family of her decision.   
   All tried to sway her. She fell into despair until Epiphany 1805, when her   
   reading roused her to action.   
      
   She was received into the Catholic Church on the March 14, 1805, with   
   Antonio Filicchi as her sponsor. Elizabeth had returned to a bankrupt firm,   
   so she was entirely dependent upon her relatives for her support. It would   
   have been easy, if she had remained an Episcopalian. Instead, she was   
   ostracized by her family and friends when she became a Catholic, except by   
   her two sisters-in- law, Harriet and Cecilia Seton.   
      
   Antonio, Father O'Brien (the Dominican Rector of Saint Peter's Church), and   
   Father Cheverus of Boston helped her financially. She decided to teach at a   
   new girls' school, but it was rumored that she would instill Catholicism   
   among her students and after three months, the school lost all its pupils   
   and had to close. So, she arranged another teaching position.   
   Fifteen-year-old Cecilia Seton announced then that she was becoming Catholic   
   and was thrown out of her home. Cecilia sought refuge with Elizabeth setting   
   off a storm that had Elizabeth lose this second job.   
      
   Elizabeth sought a new calling. A new, very holy priest came into her   
   life-Father William Valentine du Bourg (Dubourg), a Sulpician Father, who   
   was President of the Sulpician College of Saint Mary in Baltimore. He said   
   Mass at Saint Peter's in New York in August 1807, when the woman in widow's   
   dress came to receive Communion with tears streaming down her face in rapt   
   devotion.   
      
   A few hours later, she called the rectory and requested the privilege of   
   meeting Father du Bourg, who recognized her at once and listened attentively   
   to the story of her conversion and present difficulties. Father du Bourg had   
   been contemplating establishing a Catholic girls' school in Baltimore and   
   proposed that she found a religious community to take up this work, since   
   there was none in Baltimore for teaching.   
      
   Bishop John Carroll, Father Cheverus, and Father Matignon were consulted and   
   encouraged her, but they thought she should wait. She waited one year. In   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)