Homily for Memorial of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Religious (Year C - 1/4/2025)

Good morning. A few days ago, we ushered in the new year. We reflected on everything that we experienced in 2024 (the good and the bad) and look forward with hope to 2025. Many of us might even have new year’s resolutions that we are working to accomplish as we continue to navigate our way in the new year. Whatever it may be, in our own way, we are searching for something in 2025. In a way, we are like John the Baptist and his two disciples who were waiting for the Messiah. So, when Jesus walked by as they were standing there and watching him, they knew that they had found the Messiah, because John the Baptist made this proclamation about Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God.”

Jesus comes to us, not only in today’s Gospel but in our hearts right here and right now, at the start of the new year, and asks us, “What are you looking for?” No matter what our answers may be - for me, it continues to be exercise more until I actually exercise more - Jesus’ answer to us will always be the same: “Come, and you will see.” In the mystery of the Incarnation, Christ humbled himself and took on our humanity that we can share in his divinity. In other words, “Come, and you will see” is an invitation to us to take part in Jesus’ divine life. When we participate in the divine life of our Lord and our God, we will see what we have been searching for, what we have been longing for the most in our lives: our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ himself. Only Jesus can fulfill our hearts’ deepest longings with the love that we desire most because He is what we hope for in our lives. However, we will only know this by knowing Him. We know Jesus through faith that is rooted in a robust spiritual life built on prayer, the “source and summit” of which is the Eucharist in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

This is what today’s saint realized about her newfound Catholic faith. Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, whose memorial we celebrate today, is the patron saint of Catholic schools, educators/teachers, loss of parents, and widows. Reared a staunch Episcopalian, Elizabeth learned the value of prayer, Scripture and a nightly examination of conscience. At 19, she married a wealthy businessman and they had five children before his business failed and he died of tuberculosis. While in Italy with her dying husband, Elizabeth witnessed Catholicity in action through family friends. Three basic points led her to become a Catholic: belief in the Real Presence, devotion to the Blessed Mother and conviction that the Catholic Church led back to the apostles and to Christ. Elizabeth became a Catholic in March 1805. At 30, she was widowed and penniless, so to support her five small children, she opened the first American parish school, in Baltimore, and established the first American Catholic orphanage. Mother Seton, as she was known, also founded the first American religious community for women, the Sisters of Charity.

All this she did in the span of 46 years while raising her five children (from Franciscan Media) because the divine life of Jesus flowed in her veins and permeated every part of her being, mind, spirit, body, and soul. Whatever your new year’s resolutions might be this year, be sure to invite Jesus into your life. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will make all the difference in your life if you accept his invitation to “Come, and you will see.”