A picture is worth a thousand words…sometimes. Most of the portrayals of today’s Saint, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, show her sitting primly in her black dress, bonnet, and shoulder cape with an almost somber expression on her face. To me, this image doesn’t seem to fit one of Elizabeth’s own descriptions of herself. Near the end of her life, she wrote to a friend, “I’ll be wild Betsy to the end.”
Upon reading her words, even I had to pause and consider what could have made her feel that way about herself. Of course, for a woman who was just two years old in 1776 when the United States became a country, the many things that she did were most remarkable for her time. In her short 46 years, she was everything from a New York socialite, a devoted wife and mother of five children, a convert to Catholicism, an educator, and a foundress of the United States’ first Women’s Religious Community and Catholic school. While an impressive list, I eventually seemed to hit upon the undercurrent that flowed beneath all of the different periods of her life. Each day, Elizabeth had the sole intention to do God’s will. It was her passion to please God and accomplish what He wanted that motivated her to take so many unexpected twists and turns. This, truly, must have made her feel wild. While all of her life stages are noteworthy, I want to focus on how her desire for God’s will had her make the wildly unpopular decision to become Catholic and how that decision has had ripple effects down to our own time.
As we know from history, the United States was not founded as a Catholic country. In Elizabeth’s time, Bishop Carroll of Maryland was the only Bishop in the United States. In New York City where she lived, there existed only one Catholic Church, St. Peter’s in lower Manhattan. Prejudice against Catholics was high everywhere, including with the Episcopalian relatives and friends that Elizabeth had grown up with. When her husband died and left her a penniless widow needing to support her five young children, Elizabeth needed help from her wealthy relatives. It was at this time when a unique opportunity allowed her to learn about the Catholic Church. When she finally believed that the Catholic Church was the one true Church, her relatives rejected her by removing all of their support. A weaker human might have paused in such a difficult situation. Elizabeth’s desire for God’s will instead had her confidently write, “I will go peaceably and firmly to the Catholic Church; for if faith is so important to our salvation, I will seek it where true faith first began, seeking among those who received it from God himself.” In 1805, she was received into the Church. To distinguish herself further as a Catholic, for her Confirmation name, Elizabeth added the name of Mary to her own and thereafter frequently signed herself “MEAS,” which was her abbreviation for Mary Elizabeth Ann Seton.
Now a Catholic, Elizabeth would use the next sixteen years of her life to follow God in more unexpected ways. Her attachment to God’s will, and not her own, can be seen in her thought that, “If [something] succeeds, I bless God, if it does not succeed…I bless God, because then it will be right that things should not succeed.” While raising her children, she also was led to found the first American religious community for women, the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph’s. Her religious order would eventually grow into six communities with more than 5000 members operating hospitals, nursing schools, homes for the elderly, child-care centers, colleges and hundreds of grade schools and high schools. She also began St. Joseph’s Academy and Free School, the first free Catholic School for girls staffed by Sisters in the United States. In so doing, she laid the groundwork for the Catholic parochial school system that we have today.
Shortly before her death on January 4, 1882, she told her Sisters, “Be children of the Church, be children of the Church.” These parting words show how she desired that everyone, not just herself, follow God’s will to be in His Church. She was canonized in 1975, the first citizen born in the United States to be raised to the altars, and her remains are entombed at the Basilica that bears her name at her National Shrine in Emmitsburg, Maryland. As 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton’s canonization, starting today, the National Shrine (https://setonshrine.org/) will have a year-long celebration of this event (including a Mass today at the Basilica offered by Archbishop William Lori that will be broadcast on EWTN).
In closing, I must admit, there is one depiction of “wild Betsy” that I think comes closer to my impression of her. While she still looks proper in her black habit, and her mouth has only the slightest hint of a smile, her bright eyes seem alive and full of energy to follow God wildly wherever He calls. I pray for myself, and for all of you reading, that in this new year we can be inspired to follow her example.
Oh Father, the first rule of our dear Savior’s life was to do Your Will. Let His Will of the present moment be the first rule of our daily life and work, with no other desire but for its most full and complete accomplishment. Help us to follow it faithfully, so that doing what You wish, we will be pleasing to You. Amen.
-Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton
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