St. Elizabeth Seton and the Inexorable Power of the Eucharist
“A saint! She is the first daughter of the United States of America to be glorified with this incomparable attribute!” These were the words of Pope Saint Paul VI on Sept. 14, 1975, as he canonized the first native-born American, Elizabeth Ann Seton.
In 1774, two years before the Declaration of Independence, Elizabeth Bayley was born.
Her background was typical of so many of those who were part of Revolutionary America. Her ethnicity was English, her religion was Anglicanism, and her material circumstances were comfortable (her father was a doctor). Things would change, however, when the child’s mother died in 1777. Subsequently, the woman who would become Elizabeth’s stepmother was by all accounts indifferent to the child and her sister.
Elizabeth had a great love of the Bible. It is said the young Elizabeth was also given to intense contemplations of the natural world. As a child, she was prone to great wonderment or great despair at the ways of the world. During her life, she would come to know both these sentiments well.
Aged 20 years old she married William Seton. He was wealthy, and his prospects were good. What is more, the young couple was deeply in love. All looked set for a blissful life.
Within four years her father-in-law had died, which suddenly plunged the newlyweds into running the family business. Those business affairs soon grew precarious. So too, and perhaps more worryingly still, did her husband’s health. In 1802, while Elizabeth was expecting the couple’s fifth child, she watched as the family business was declared bankrupt. With that William’s health broke.
The couple retreated to Italy. William had friends there through business. It was felt a change of climate and circumstances would help him. But Italy proved as disastrous, as it would also be mysterious in the lives of those who had set out to get there from America.
When the couple arrived at an Italian port, local authorities, having heard reports of yellow fever Stateside, refused them entry. As a result, the couple were forced to spend weeks in quarantine. The cold and the damp of that residence proved fatal to William who, suffering from tuberculosis, died a mere eight days later.
Elizabeth found herself not only alone in a foreign country, but a widow and separated from her children. Yet, it was to be in Italy that she was to find a deeper love than the human one she had lost.
