St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
“He is more within us than we are ourselves.”
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, or as we knew her when we were children, Mother Seton, is the first American-born Saint we have written about. She was born in New York City, just as we were. When I was a child, I attended a Catholic parochial school, St. Athanasius in the Bronx, taught by those beautiful Sisters of Charity. They wore funny little bonnets which covered their heads, like the pictures you see of Mother Seton, not the type we typically identified with Nuns, especially after having seen Ingrid Bergman in “The Bells of St. Mary.” These good Sisters of Charity would read to us from the Lives of the Saints two or three times a week as I recall. These were exciting stories of holy people who had lived good lives, set an example for the world, and went to Heaven. Usually, there were Miracles attached to their lives, or apparitions of Our Lord Jesus and His Mother Mary.