To begin the story of our church's patron, picture, if you will,the world in which Elizabeth Ann Bayley (later to be Seton) was born. The year is 1774.The scene is bustling New York City, a principal trade center of the colonies. Elizabeth's mother is the daughter of an Episcopal minister. Her father is a hard working doctor who becomes New York's first health officer. It is a comfortable home where many of the leading figures of the day are entertained, and there is much lively conversation. Elizabeth is born two years before the American Revolution. The time is one of plots and secret meetings and concern for the future of the New World. Her childhood and that of her older sister, Mary, are overshadowed first by the war and then by the death of their mother in 1777. Elizabeth is told her mother is in heaven, and from that moment wants to become holy so she can be with her. This, then, was the birth of our saint. Picture a child losing a sick mother. She tries hard to adjust to a new step-mother, but she's pushed aside as more children join the family. She's a bookworm. Her father adores her and though she's a girl, provides an excellent education. However, between his patients and his growing family, he has very little time for her. Once in a while he takes his daughter with him to care for the sick poor. From her youngest years she wants to make life better for others. Then picture her a troubled, depressed teenager. At 16, she even contemplates suicide. This was a fact of St. Elizabeth Seton's life which came as a shock to us, but it's made her seem very human. She goes to live with her older sister after that and is happier there. In time she becomes a popular, pretty socialite. She loves dancing and parties. Still, she is also drawn to prayer. At nineteen she meets the love of her life, William Magee Seton, a merchant in business with his father. The couple marries the following year and are the toast of New York. They host a birthday party for George Washington. The Alexander Hamiltons are their neighbors. Elizabeth becomes a parent for the first time in 1795 and in the next few years brings into the world three daughters and two sons. She is active in her Episcopal church. She and her sister-in-law, Rebecca, organize women like themselves to work among the city's poor and they become known as Protestant Sisters of Charity. But this happy time is not to last. Elizabeth's life changes dramatically before the last child is born. Her father-in-law dies, leaving Will with a failing business and Elizabeth with Will's seven brothers and sisters to add to her already full household. She takes over the bookkeeping for her husband's business, working long hours at night after the children are settled. They cut expenses every way they can think of, but eventually have to declare bankruptcy and move to a smaller, less comfortable house. She loses her beloved father. She worries over her husband's poor health. Will's tuberculosis advances rapidly, and in a last ditch attempt to save his life, Elizabeth and their eldest daughter, Anna, sail with him to sunny Italy where business friends, the Filliccis, have urged them to come. For her husband's sake, she suffers the painful separation from her other children, leaving them in the care of relatives. But no healing sun awaits the little family. On their arrival in Italy they're placed in quarantine in a cold, damp dungeon-like room because of a yellow fever outbreak. It takes days for the Fillichis to obtain their release. For Elizabeth those are exhausting days of prayer and nursing and trying to keep up their morale. She watches her husband's life fade away, but sees him turn to God before he dies in her arms. Now she is a grieving widow in a strange country, dependent on the kindness of new friends. Seeing how the Fillichis' Catholic faith sustains them, she longs for their certainty, and the sight of the Blessed Sacrament passing in procession by her window creates in her a great desire to believe as they do. She returns to the United States, a homeless single parent with little worldly goods and no income. Her family and friends are solicitous, but when she expresses her religious doubts and speaks of her attraction to the Catholic Church, they're horrified. She prays fervently for direction. To support herself and her children, she opens a boarding house for students. The boarding house has a brief life, though, because Elizabeth at last takes the step of becoming Catholic, and because of this, the students leave. Her conversion also isolates her from family and friends, even her beloved sister, who is married to an Episcopal clergyman. It is a bleak time, but Elizabeth's faith is strong. With the encouragement of a priest advisor and Archbishop Carroll, she takes her children and moves to Baltimore. The boys are put in a nearby boarding school and Elizabeth opens a school for girls. It is the first Catholic free school in America. With her spiritual life steadily deepening, Elizabeth feels called to religious life. Because of this, she faces new obstacles and misunderstandings. Problems arise with one priest in particular, and Elizabeth has to appeal to the bishop. For a woman of the 18th century, none of this is easy. An arrangement is agreed upon that she may always care for her children, and so she receives the habit, a modified version of her widow's garb. Months later she moves once more - this time to Emmitsburg - and establishes community life with the first of her Daughters of Charity. As their school grows, the days take on a routine of prayer and study, but leave room for fun and laughter. There is singing, too, and Elizabeth loves playing the piano for the children. Her letters from the time are full of joy and her wonderful sense of humor. Even so, it's a very harsh life. They're hungry. They're cold. They haven't much furniture, only a few books. The winter is cruel. The nuns and students are often sick. Tuberculosis strikes one after another of Elizabeth's family. She nurses her daughter Anna around the clock, and is holding her when she dies. Under a tree outside her window, Elizabeth buries first Anna , then her much loved sister-in-law and soulmate, Rebecca Seton, and just a few years later, her fourteen year old daughter, also named Rebecca. Numb with grief, she hardly knows what she's doing, but she works on. Her sons are growing up and they give her trouble. They become rebellious and disrespectful, they quit the jobs she gets for them, they cause her money problems. Elizabeth fears for their souls. They come around, but she doesn't live to see it. All the while more and more women are being drawn to her work. In 1812 the community's rule is approved and in 1813, seventeen of Elizabeth's Daughters of Charity are allowed to pronounce vows. Three of them found the first orphanage in the United States, in Philadelphia. Elizabeth and her Sisters continue to care for children and the poor. She is 46 when the disease that has taken so many of her loved ones attacks her, too. As she wastes away with tuberculosis, her sick bed is placed so she can see at all times the tabernacle with the Blessed Sacrament. Only her daughter, Catherine, and her Sisters are with her when she dies. Her last words to them are, Be children of the Church. Be children of the Church. One of the miracles used in her canonization was the healing of a nun in New Orleans. So this is our patroness. She experienced many of the things we do. She was lonely, scared, rejected. She loved deeply and had children who were the light of her life. She knew what it was to be sick, and broke and homeless. She cooked and cleaned and worried over the bills. She studied her Bible and knelt in prayer. Her faith was her abiding strength. We pray the church we build will help others to know and love and serve the God she served so well.