Mother Seton

During this final week of the Christmas Season, several saints are honored for the light they have shed on the mission of Jesus. They have followed the star, as did the Wise Men, found Jesus and then found ways to broadcast the Good News to the people of their times and beyond. Elizabeth Bayley Seton, a convert from the Episcopal Church, responded to Bishop John Carroll's request not only to use her educational skills to open a Catholic school, but also to begin a Congregation of Sisters who would spread Catholic education beyond the first school in Emmitsburg, Maryland. The Sisters of Charity became well known as far west as St. Louis, Missouri, and their schools became the model for the Catholic system we know today. Like St. Marcellin, Mother Seton saw the need and the immense impact a Catholic Education would give students, and followed the Spirit as a chosen instrument. Little did she guess earlier in her life as a mother of five children and wife of a husband who died young of tuberculosis and left her in poverty, that this great work would be her legacy. The same Spirit calls us in various ways to be instruments that will bring light in some way to people in our path. What is the Spirit saying to each one of us today? St. Marcellin, St. Elizabeth, help us to listen and respond with courage and generosity as you did, even to the slightest prompts the Holy Spirit gives us.
Bro. Rene