From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On Personal Humility [l]   
      
   Everyone naturally desires knowledge, (Aristotle, Metaphysics I,1.)   
   but of what use is knowledge itself without the fear of God? A humble   
   countryman who serves God is more pleasing to Him than a conceited   
   intellectual who knows the course of the stars, but neglects his own   
   soul (Ecclus.19:22). A man who truly knows himself realizes his own   
   worthlessness, and takes no pleasure in the praises of men. Did I   
   possess all knowledge in the world, but had no love, how would this   
   help me before God, who will judge me by my deeds?   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 1, Chapter 2   
      
      
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   January 4th - Elizabeth Ann Seton   
   (1774-1821)   
      
   Recent popes have canonized a number of American saints. But when Pope   
   Paul VI raised Elizabeth Ann Seton to the altars on September 14,   
   1975, he gave the Church a saint who was typically American by both   
   birth and disposition. Elizabeth Ann Bayley, born in lower Manhattan   
   just before the outbreak of the American Revolution, was of English   
   stock. Her father, Dr. Richard Bayley, was a noted physician; her   
   mother Catherine Charlton Bayley was the daughter of a very worthy   
   Episcopalian clergyman. Elizabeth was baptized Episcopalian. Although   
   she lost her mother at an early age, her father saw to it she received   
   a good education and training in character. As she grew up, she showed   
   an unusual concern for the poor and for her charities. She came to be   
   called "the Protestant Sister of Charity." Even in these early days,   
   Elizabeth manifested a religious bent that was unusually devout.   
      
   In 1794, at the age of 19, Elizabeth Ann married William Magee Seton,   
   a wealthy young international merchant of Scottish ancestry, in   
   Trinity Episcopal Church. She bore him four daughters and two sons.   
      
   Unfortunately, the current war between Napoleonic France and England,   
   by cutting off foreign trade, ruined her husband's business, and he   
   also fell victim to tuberculosis. His Catholic tradesmen friends, the   
   generous and pious Filicchi family of Leghorn, Italy, invited   
   Elizabeth to bring William to Italy, in the hope that a sea voyage and   
   change of climate might cure him.   
      
   The couple and their eldest child, Anna Maria, reached Leghorn on   
   November 18, 1803. The sea voyage had not improved William's health.   
   On their arrival, local health authorities insisted that they not   
   land, but be put for a month in quarantine in the prison-like   
   lazaretto in the harbor.   
      
   This was a great hardship for the dying man, although both he and his   
   wife took it as God's will. Only on December 19 were they released.   
   The Filicchis welcomed them, but William Seton died, aged 35, on the   
   following December 27, 1803, and was buried in Tuscan soil.   
      
   Mrs. Seton and Anna Maria remained with the Filicchis until Spring.   
   There, in a Catholic country, living with a devoted Catholic family,   
   and able to attend a Catholic church and learn of the treasure of the   
   Blessed Sacrament, Elizabeth became a Catholic at heart. On advice,   
   however, she waited until her return to New York to enter the Church   
   formally. She was received there on March 14, 1805, and made her first   
   Holy Communion with extraordinary fervor on the feast of the   
   Annunciation, March 25. Impoverished now, she decided to support   
   herself and family by opening a private school. But her Protestant   
   former friends treated her very brusquely after her conversion, so   
   that she had practically no pupils to teach.   
      
   Not knowing which way to turn, but placing her reliance on God's   
   guidance, Mrs. Seton in 1808 accepted an invitation to open a Catholic   
   school in Baltimore. There, among friends but still struggling, she   
   finally met with success. In 1809 she moved her growing school to   
   Emmitsburg, in northern Maryland. By that time Elizabeth and a number   
   of her assistant schoolteachers had won permission to establish a   
   religious order, the Sisters of Charity. She took her first vows in   
   the presence of Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore on July 2, 1809. He   
   gave to her then, as superior, the title by which she later was so   
   well known: "Mother" Seton.   
      
   It was at Emmitsburg that Mother Seton and her sisters organized in   
   1810 what became the American Catholic free parochial school system.   
   In 1814 she set up her first American orphanage in Philadelphia, and   
   in 1823 she arranged for the opening in Baltimore of the first   
   Catholic American hospital.   
      
   The whole venture was, of course, accompanied by many organizational   
   problems. Meanwhile she was still raising her own children. Three of   
   her daughters died of tuberculosis, two of them after taking their   
   vows as Sisters of Charity. Her fourth daughter, Catherine, later   
   joined the Sisters of Mercy. Keeping her two boys on the right track   
   was one of Mother Seton's major problems. She herself died of   
   consumption in 1821, aged only 46. Since 1809 she had played her   
   double role as a superior and mother with earnestness, but also with a   
   spiritual joy and wit that charmed all.   
      
   Asked just before her painful death what she considered the greatest   
   gift of her life, she had answered without hesitation: "The greatest   
   grace of my life was having been led into the Catholic Church."   
      
   Elizabeth Seton is a model for all American women: nun, teacher,   
   nurse; yes, also wife and mother.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
    As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous   
   sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills   
   the soul with holy thoughts and good desires.   
   --St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori   
      
   Bible Quote:   
    Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors!  that   
   the King of glory may come in. 8 Who is the King of glory? The LORD,   
   strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle! 9 Lift up your heads, O   
   gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors!  that the King of glory may   
   come in. 10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the   
   King of glory!  [Psalm 24:7-10]   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   ACT OF CONSECRATION TO JESUS   
      
       Lord Jesus Christ,   
       I consecrate myself today anew   
       and without reserve to Your Divine Heart.   
       I consecrate to You my body with all its senses,   
       my soul with all its faculties,   
       my entire being.   
       I consecrate to You all my thoughts,   
       words and deeds,   
       all my sufferings and labours,   
       all my hopes, consolations and joys.   
       In particular I consecrate to You   
       this poor heart of mine   
       so that it may love only You   
       and may be consumed as a victim   
       in the fire of your love.   
      
       I place my trust in You without reserve   
       and I hope for the remission of my sins   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)