Feast day: 4 January
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton
Wife, mother of five, widow and convert from the Episcopal Church, who founded the first American community of religious sisters and the first free Catholic school for girls in the United States.
- Born
- 28 August 1774, New York City (United States)
- Died
- 4 January 1821, Emmitsburg, Maryland (United States)
- Canonization
- Beatified 17 March 1963 by John XXIII; canonized 14 September 1975 by Pope Paul VI.
- Religious order
- Sisters of Charity of Saint Joseph
- Country
- United States
Biography
Wife and widow
Born into a prominent Episcopalian family of New York, Elizabeth Bayley married the merchant William Magee Seton in 1794 and had five children. When his business failed and his health collapsed, the family travelled to Italy, where William died in Pisa in 1803. Sheltered by the Catholic Filicchi family of Livorno, Elizabeth was drawn to belief in the Real Presence.
Conversion and rejection
She was received into the Catholic Church in New York on 14 March 1805, losing the support of family and friends. Struggling to feed her children, she accepted an invitation from the Sulpicians to open a school in Baltimore in 1808.
Emmitsburg and Catholic education
In 1809 at Emmitsburg she founded the Sisters of Charity of Saint Joseph, adapting the rule of Saint Vincent de Paul, and opened Saint Joseph's Free School. She governed the community, buried two daughters, and died of tuberculosis at forty-six. Her foundation is the root of the Catholic parochial school system in the United States.
Timeline
- 1774 — Born in New York City
- 1794 — Marries William Magee Seton
- 1803 — Widowed in Pisa, Italy
- 1805 — Received into the Catholic Church
- 1809 — Founds the Sisters of Charity at Emmitsburg
- 1821 — Dies at Emmitsburg on 4 January
- 1975 — Canonized by Paul VI
Dates marked ~ are traditional or debated among historians.
Symbols
Black widow's dress and cap — The Italian widow's dress she kept as the habit of her sisters.
Schoolbook — Her work in Catholic education.
Virtues & spiritual lessons
Trust in providence amid bereavement and poverty, courage in conversion, and a maternal spirit that turned personal loss into service of children.
Importance in the Church
The first citizen born in what became the United States to be canonized, and the foundress of American Catholic education and of the Sisters of Charity in the New World.
Quotes
“The first end I propose in our daily work is to do the will of God; secondly, to do it in the manner he wills; and thirdly, to do it because it is his will.”
Letter to Antonio Filicchi
“Live simply, so that all may simply live.”
Attributed in the tradition of the Sisters of Charity
Writings
Letters and Journals (Collected Writings) — Her spiritual correspondence and Italian journal, the main source for her conversion.
Prayers
Prayer to Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, you accepted the loss of husband, home and friends for the pearl of great price. Teach us to seek God's will in every duty of the day, to trust his providence in sorrow, and to care for the children entrusted to us. Amen.
Prayer used at the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Emmitsburg.
Places
Basilica of the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Emmitsburg — Where her relics rest.
Saint Peter's Church, Barclay Street, New York — Where she was received into the Church in 1805.
Related saints
Entries are drawn from the Roman Martyrology, the General Roman Calendar, canonization records of the Holy See, and the saints' own writings. Where a date, quotation or attribution is uncertain, it is marked as such. (63 saints)